Deutsche Bahn Vertrieb gets Travellers All Board with Improved Customer Satisfaction
“We love the HappyOrNot system! The amount of feedback we get is impressive, and the results help us to understand the situation of our service performance.”
Christine Stockmann, Head of DB Travel Centers Standards
Deutsche Bahn, one of the leading transportation and logistics companies worldwide with a turnover of 39.7 billion Euros in 2014 and 2.3 billion passengers in Germany only, has recently announced its dedication to make significant investments in customer satisfaction, to combat increasing competition and improve its service image.
A subsidiary of Deutsche Bahn, DB Bahn Sales is responsible for the ticket sales within the passenger transport of Deutsche Bahn, understood that in order to achieve performance improvements, they needed to be able to identify and understand potential problem areas quickly with the ability for timely resolution.
DB Bahn Sales sought a solution to easily engage their customers to collect feedback on their ticket purchasing experiences. In knowing that it is their customers who hold this valuable information.
For DB Vertrieb, the answer to this needed solution was simple
Following a successful trial, in July DB deployed an additional 50 Smiley Terminals to Travel Centers all across Germany.
The HappyOrNot feedback collecting Smiley Terminals are helping DB Bahn Sales to measure and monitor the satisfaction of its customers during their ticket purchasing experiences. To date, they have collected nearly 400,000 feedbacks, and that number continues to grow larger every day.
“We love the HappyOrNot system. The amount of feedback we get is impressive, and the results help us to understand the situation of our service performance. Our local managers review the results every day to cross-check with operational activities and also share the information with their employees to ensure that everyone is aware of the current status.”
Christine Stockmann, Head of DB Travel Centers Standards
The Smileys are telling a story, and DB Bahn Sales is listening
The feedback data was translated into actionable improvement with the realization by DB Bahn Sales that customers were more concerned with the length of the waiting times at the counter than they were of in the overall travelling experience.
“It was something that we didn’t expect,” says Christine Stockmann, “When realizing that the most red feedbacks were as a result of long wait times within the travel centers, we immediately implemented a change in work shifts and number of employees to those hours identified as rush hours. It was very rewarding to see that following these changes, our customers’ satisfaction levels during those peaks improved.”
A further initiative to boost traveller satisfaction is being done within DB Bahn Sales. The feedback results have shown that there are significant differences in satisfaction between travel centers.
“To boost motivation within our travel centers, we run a competition for “Travel Center of the Year” and the HappyOrNot data will soon play a key role. It’s important that we, internally, push ourselves every day to be better so that our customers receive the best service possible.”
Christine Stockmann continues:
“DB Bahn Sales is a prime example of a client that is dedicated and focused on improving their customer service,” says Elli Yli-Hemmo, Sales Director at HappyOrNot. “They are encouraging their customers to give feedback, and sharing their weekly results by publishing the Customer Interaction Reports in the travel centers. This is exactly what we at HappyOrNot love to see – clients that are committed to making their customers happier!”
About DB Vertrieb GmbH (DB Bahn Sales)
The DB Bahn Sales Service Center is an important contact for the users of the public passenger transportation system.
It is responsible for providing travel information, for advice on fares and for the sale of services of the business units of Passenger Transport and external transport operators. Sales is also responsible for cross-passenger transportation product management of mobility services.
With nearly 860,000 tickets and reservations sold daily, DB Bahn Sales has become the leading sales provider for public passenger transportation. The Sales Service Center and its subsidiaries employ around 4,900 people throughout Germany.
Visit www.bahn.com
About HappyOrNot
retail, traveling and transportation, outsourcing services, healthcare and wellbeing, HoReCa, financial services, automotive, and public and governmental services. The HappyOrNot service has received several awards and recognition by major medias such as Daily Finance and USA Today, and featured on Fox Business, Bloomberg International and U.S., and CNBC. HappyOrNot is currently being used by over 2,000 retail and service chain organizations across 70 countries.
Ecowert Distribution UG is an official Partner of HappyOrNot in Germany and Austria since 2011, and is the account manager of client DB Vertrieb GmbH.