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TTC and Twitter

Tue - 09 Mar

by Rob Roberts

Toronto could get its first look at the TTC’s customer service panel this week — and it may include a social-media guru who has spent the last few days lobbying the Twitter crowd to make him their candidate.

The TTC has reserved one spot for a Twitter user, asking would-be candidates to make 140-character pitches. An early front-runner has emerged from the pack: Justin Kozuch — or @jkozuch on Twitter.

“I’ve attended a number of TTC commission meetings, live blogged a few of them. So I have an interest in how the TTC works from a structural point of view,” said Mr. Kozuch, CEO of Refresh Events, which organizes new-media educational events. “I’m going to do whatever it takes to get on this panel.”

Mr. Kozach did not even have to apply, accepting a nomination from Julie Tyios, CEO of Red Juice Media, but soon received a multitude of reTweets with the hashtag #justinforttcpanel.

Steve O’Brien, the One King West hotel manager who was named committee chair last week, said he’s been winnowing down potential panelists.

“We got it down to a shortlist, and now we’re down to the shortlist of the shortlist,” Mr. O’Brien said.

The entire panel will be announced as early as Friday, said Mr. O’Brien.

In an interview, Mr. Kozuch said the first thing he would try to do would be to institute mandatory customer service training for all staff.

As well, he said he thinks the TTC needs a system similar to the city of Toronto’s 311 call centre to better handle complaints and concerns.

“We have a citizens’ base that are dying to be engaged,” he said.

Mr. Kozuch said the TTC has responded well, from a PR angle, to the recent social media attacks on the system. “I have to give kudos to Brad Ross for being out there and understanding that this is a tool that they can use effectively to be able to talk to the customer on a one-on-one basis.”

“The customer has a lot of great ideas on how to fix problems, the TTC needs to be willing to have open conversations with them,” Mr. Kozuch said.

TTC missed the bus to 21st century

Wed - 24 Feb

The Toronto Transit Commission has been caught napping. It's not about the unfortunate ticket collector: he's just a scapegoat for a deeper malaise in Toronto. It's February, fares just went up, and in banning token sales during the period of the fare increase, the TTC signalled its customary contempt for its customers: it would be a great transit system, if it wasn't for the passengers.

No, that's not where the TTC has gone off the rails. Its problem has been its failure to appreciate the nature of customer-company discourse in the postmodern age.

The union's aggressive response to TTC customers played right into the hands of the bloggers, tweeters and YouTubers and whipped the situation up into a frenzy. The customer may not be always right, but the customer always wins. When Dave Carroll's guitar was smashed by United Airlines baggage handlers, he wrote a song and posted a video about it on YouTube last July. It was an instant hit, reaching 5 million visits within a few weeks. United, having stonewalled Carroll for over a year, was forced to scramble to contain a PR crisis. Add a comment Read more...

Top 20 cities for public transit - #1

Sun - 21 Feb

So, Canada and Korea will be hosting G-20 summit this year. As Canada being one of economic "leaders", I wanted to see if our public transit is competitive to others. So I made a compilation of G-20 underground transportation system. See if you agree with the government's assertion that we have "world class" public transportation system. Here are the first five: (These are not ranked)

1. Korea

Seoul metro (locally known as Ji-ha-chul) has almost 5.5 million riders per day, ranking one of the top in the world for public transportation usage. Most subway stations with heavy traffic have "doors" to prevent from people falling down. It is generally very clean and spacious both in the train and the station.

Add a comment Read more...