ARC’s Rideline 'An Industry Success'
6 June 2003

Auckland Regional Council’s Rideline Call Centre has been recognised as one of those leading the way in the industry. An independent peer-review found Rideline to be performing at ‘significantly better’ levels than New Zealand best practice benchmarks on a range of measures.

The region’s information hub for bus, train and ferry travel has recorded its best ever financial and customer-service performances over the last six months.

With a mission to ‘deliver a quality customer contact centre that provides confidence to users of public transport in the Auckland region’, Rideline has exceeded its own performance targets with overall customer satisfaction high. In the last quarter 93% of customers surveyed ranking their satisfaction level between five and seven, on a scale of one to seven*.

ARC Passenger Transport Committee Chairwoman, Catherine Harland says that the great service levels and customer satisfaction results are indicative of the ARC’s commitment to improving all aspects of public transport across the region.

“Rideline is consistently performing above its targets making public transport information simple, easy to understand and accessible for all Aucklanders,” says Cr. Harland. "But the real benefit of the service is helping more and more Aucklanders on to buses, trains and ferries."

The customer satisfaction survey revealed that 71% of customers said that their confidence in using public transport had increased as a result of contacting Rideline.

The Telecommunication Users Association of New Zealand (TUANZ) has also recognised Rideline for it’s excellence, nominating manager Wayne Funnell as one of its three finalists for the TUANZ Contact Centre Manager of the Year, for call centres under 50 seats.

"Being nominated as a finalist is a really exciting and positive endorsement for the stunning contribution which Wayne has made to delivering success for Rideline,"says Cr Harland.

Howick and Eastern Bus Company Chief Executive, Bill Dalbeth, commended the ARC on Rideline’s performance, particularly its achievement in the independent review which was carried out to ensure that the call centre is being as cost effective and efficient as possible.

“The results demonstrate that Rideline is extremely efficient when compared across the industry. This is particularly important for public transport operators like ourselves, given that we assist the ARC in funding the service."

“Of particular note is the cost of each phone call, which is significantly better than what would be considered the industry’s best practice benchmark. Rideline is providing an extremely competitive and invaluable service.”

The review also identified that Rideline uses 'Best of Breed' technology to enhance the service to customers. Early adoption and innovative application of this technology exceeds 'Best in Class' measures in the New Zealand contact centre industry. Combining technology use with people development, in the form of comprehensive training and development, had reviewers consider Rideline as 'efficient and highly productive'.

Each year Rideline staff talk with around 1.3 million phone callers. In addition there are about 428,000 visits to the Rideline website (average visit length about 13 minutes) and in its very first year of operation 98,000 text messages have been processed. Total contacts are growing for all three channels of communication with rapid growth in website and text messaging use.
*1 = very dissatisfied, 4 = neutral, 7 = very satisfied.
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