The ttc and the chair

The Broken Chair and the TTC Why does our TTC consistently fall short of customer expectations of efficiency, service, quality?

Blame this chair.

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This chair is located at the Sherbourne TTC station. It is really no different from many other chairs in TTC stations. It looks innocuous enough -- albeit in shoddy, dirty condition.

How can an innocuous, sad little chair be the cause of so many of the TTC's service and delivery problems?

For the same reason the New York City police Commissioner, James Bratton, declared a broken window responsible for NYC high crime rate in 1990*. This chair is at the core of the malaise at the TTC that trickles upwards and ultimately results in an entire organisation that is committed to something (we assume it is committed to something), but whatever that is, it cannot be consistently triggering excellent customer experiences. They may say they are committed to excellent customer experiences, but the dismal levels of service in all aspects of the TTC experience say otherwise. After all, in this post millennial world of consumer expectations, we focus on what corporations do, not on what they say. And in accordance to this maxim, we can only conclude the TTC is committed to anything but great customer experiences.

We don't know what TTC considers an excellent customer experience, but we do know what it's vision is: “a transit system that makes Toronto proud.”** Now let's take another look at the chair.

A symbol of failure Is this a chair that makes Toronto proud? If they can't provide a chair that makes us proud, how can they be relied on to provide a system that makes us proud?

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More correctly, the broken window was the beginning of the solution to NYC high crime rate -- and this is arguable, but the principle stands.

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** This and other TTC quotes is lifted directly off the TTC web site

A quick look at the key elements of the TTC Customer Charter makes the point even more vividly:

A cause of failure This chair is not an abstract item. It is a part of the daily operating system of the TTC. Every weekday afternoon, during rush hour, a TTC employee (their word) sits in the chair and watches people insert cash, tokens or tickets into a box. In this instance, a particularly unhappy, disgruntled gentleman, slouches in the chair, wearing a uniform jacket (wind breaker) that is at least as worn and dirty as the chair. He is clearly unhappy about his job and looks disgusted with where he is.

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Let’s ask the question: why would this gentleman have any interest in the job, any pride in his appearance, and desire to wear a clean, fresh uniform, if his employer can’t be bothered to provide anything other than a filthy, torn chair for him to sit in? The TTC blames the poor attitude of its employees overtly or covertly on “the union mentality.” But it clearly is as much the organization’s fault as anybody else’s.

The strategic objective in relation to “People” of our TTC is: “An empowered,

customer-focused workforce that values teamwork, pride in a job well done, and an organization that actively develops its employees.” But the actions of the employer clearly communicates precisely the opposite: an organization that cares nothing for the employees and their work environment and an organization that has no issue with showing a filthy, worn chair to its customers and employees.

This chair informs employees of how they should behave, and defines the true attitude they should project – it is the embodiment of what the organisation does, as opposed to what it says.

But it’s only one chair. Yes, this is only one chair, but it is seen by many employees on a daily basis – everybody that works at the Sherbourne station and many that pass through on their way to other jobs. All these people are influenced by the state of the chair, and ultimately their performance is informed by the state of the chair.

And we’re willing to bet it’s not only one chair. There are chairs just like it throughout the system.

These chairs are actively negating the corporation’s attempts at improving customer service. How many other small items, too small to get the attention of the organization, are there that are the real hindrances to progress and efficiency? A customer focused organisation would have been on top of this years ago. Don’t think for a moment that the inability of the TTC to manage the Bombardier streetcar purchase, or the inability to run the trains on time, cannot be traced directly to the attitude that allows a chair like this to exist.

Replacing the chair A true, honest, customer experience strategy would start with the chair and trace the pattern of “chairs” up and down the organization, ensuring that the vision of the corporation – a transit system that makes Toronto proud – is experienced by the customers by being lived by the employees.

And now the shameless plug: I can make it better! Call me! 416 967-3337 x101 Laurence Bernstein is the founder and managing partner of Protean Strategies. He has been a leading proponent of the “new order of differentiation” and has written and lectured on the subject of experiential branding.

416.967.3337 www.proteanstrategies.com

Protean Strategies is a Toronto based boutique consultancy that helps clients design and execute customer experiences that encompass and amplify the attributes and benefits of clearly defined brands