The magic 8-Ball, that wondrous device by which MetroAccess dispatchers throughout the ages have been able to foretell the time of arrival of a rider’s transport when the aforementioned rider, quite irate, is on the phone with them. We thought it lost, gone forever when the contractors changed, but lo! It has returned!
It’s a bygone of the Logisticare days, the seemingly random numbers we would be given over the phone as to how long away our overdue pick-ups were, and one we thought we were well shot of, but unfortunately it’s beginning to look like Reservationists and Dispatchers under MV are reinstating the practice by themselves.
To be fair, we know that the staff in the call center are under a lot of pressure, both from riders who are stranded as well as the ever-watchful screen at the back of the room that flashes red if they’ve been on the same call longer than 5 minutes. However, producing random guesses in an attempt to placate the rider and end the call quicker is counter-productive, and needs to be addressed.
The riders need to be able to trust that what they are told when they call is accurate, When it isn’t even close, it becomes obvious that the people in the call center might not actually be that interested in getting things right, but instead are playing the “Cover yer ass” game.
There are recorded cases where riders have called and been told their overdue ride is “20 minutes away”, but (presumably in an effort to avoid a cascade row of late pick-ups), the late driver seems to have been told to skip that pick-up and come back to complete it once they’ve completed their other scheduled trips. This turns what could be a manifest full of late trips into one drastically excessively late trip and lots of not very late trips.
This looks good for the statistics - unless you’re the hapless soul left stranded for a couple of hours. And it says nothing of the fact that the staff at the call center who attempt to placate the irate rider are, in effect, lying to do so, by producing time estimates that cannot be met.
“Skip stops” might work with fixed transit routes to relieve congestion or to get things back on schedule, but it doesn’t work for ParaTransit services. If this practice, whether it is being condoned by management or is being done as an informal way Dispatch tries to reduce the late trips “on their watch”, is allowed to continue for much longer, it is going to become the norm, and that is unacceptable. If a vehicle is unable to make a pick-up without making the rest of the pick-ups on its manifest late, then by all means adjust the manifests accordingly.
But instead of giving lame excuses over the telephone to placate the cold, wet, hungry, tired, and very stranded rider (or even worse, give them excuses and hope they’ll give up and find their own way home), MetroAccess should be trying to figure out how to get a replacement vehicle out to pick that stranded rider up, not waiting for the original vehicle to finish its manifest then pick the rider up several hours later at their convienience.
The drive in the call center to clear calls is risking creating a culture where Reservationists will make the right noises to clear that call. That the rider might not have enough change to call back again in 30 minutes time is not considered. Those in charge of the call center need to seriously take a look at the pressure that screen flashing red is placing on Reservationists to clear the call, and re-evaluate if that pressure and its results are appropriate or effective.
When a rider calls “Where’s my ride”, gets told “It’s 20 minutes away”, then calls 30 minutes later to be told “It’s 20 minutes away”, eventually the ride will show up, and one of those Reservationists will actually have been right. I suppose if you throw enough stones at a window, one of them might actually hit it and break it too, but that doesn’t make you a marksman.
It’s time for call center staff to bite the bullet and be honest and upfront to the riders about the true estimated time of arrival of their rides, whether that looks good or not. Whether or not it’s Logisticare’s 7 minute times, or the “new” time of 20 minutes, it’s still not honest. As it is, call center culture is deteriorating, as far as we can tell, where hanging up on riders, leaving them on hold again, or just downright plain being rude is becoming more common.
It’s time that the “guesstimates” stop. The technology is supposed to be in place to ensure accuracy, it’s time the call center staff actually started using it, rather than hoping. It’s time call center staff started being up-front, when someone calls “Where’s my ride”, they want to know where their ride is, and if it isn’t where it’s supposed to be, where its replacement is.
It’s time to retire the Magic 8-Ball for good.
