By Kellie Melleady, TransPro Customer Experience Lead
I recently attended the APTA Marketing, Communications & Customer Experience Workshop in Long Beach, CA, and one topic kept coming up—customer service versus customer experience. In several conversations, I noticed these terms being used interchangeably, even though they represent distinct aspects of how riders interact with transit services. Understanding this difference is crucial, as both play a key role in shaping rider perceptions and engagement.
Throughout my career in transit, I have worked in both customer service and customer experience roles. This has given me firsthand insight into the nuances of each function and the importance of distinguishing between them. Although they are closely connected, customer service is fundamentally reactive, while customer experience is proactive and focuses on shaping the overall journey for riders.
Customer Service: The Reactive Component
Customer service is a critical part of the rider journey, but it is inherently reactive. It often comes into play when something goes wrong—a missed bus, a malfunctioning ticket machine, a confusing schedule. Customer
service teams wait for complaints to come in, investigate the issues, and work toward resolving them. This process is essential, but it focuses on fixing problems rather than proactively improving the overall experience.
In public transit, customer service teams are on the front lines responding to rider concerns. However, if agencies rely solely on customer service as their primary way of understanding passenger needs, they are only seeing a fraction of the bigger picture.
Customer Experience: The Emotional Connection
Customer experience, on the other hand, is a much broader and more proactive concept. It encompasses every touchpoint a rider has with a transit system—from purchasing a ticket to boarding a bus, navigating a transfer, and even interacting with digital tools like transit apps or websites. Customer experience isn’t about waiting for complaints to roll in; it’s about designing a system that fosters a seamless, reliable, and even enjoyable journey for all riders.
More importantly, customer experience is built on emotional connection. It’s about how a rider feels using the service. Are they confident that their bus will arrive on time? Do they trust the information they receive? Do they feel valued and heard when they share feedback? Do they feel safe on the buses? Addressing these questions requires agencies to go beyond fixing issues and instead focus on creating a transit environment that meets and exceeds customer expectations.
Why the Distinction Matters
When agencies view customer service and customer experience as interchangeable, they risk neglecting the deeper work needed to improve rider satisfaction. A system that only reacts to problems will always be playing catch-up. A system that prioritizes customer experience proactively designs for success—minimizing frustration, building trust, and ensuring that public transit is seen as a reliable, preferred choice.
By understanding this distinction, transit agencies can shift their focus from merely handling complaints to shaping a rider experience that prevents those complaints from happening in the first place. Customer service is an essential piece of the puzzle, but true customer satisfaction comes from an intentional, well-designed customer experience strategy.
If you are interested in exploring ways to enhance customer experience and develop a comprehensive strategy, feel free to reach out to me at Kellie@transproconsulting.com.
