Striving for Continuous Improvement

1. Striving for Continuous Improvement Ben JohnsonGM Ministerial Correspondence and Customer Relations RailCorp Email: ben.johnson@railcorp.nsw.gov.au

3. Overview • Introduction • Situation Analysis • Development • Implementation • Evaluation • Continuous Improvement (Cycle Two) • Summary (Cycle One) SOCAP Australia – 2006 Symposium

4. 1. Introduction RailCorp • Established 1 January 2004 • Key Responsibility: Safe operation, crewing and maintenance of passenger trains and stations • Two main products: CityRail and CountryLink SOCAP Australia – 2006 Symposium

5. Introduction Ministerial Correspondence and Customer Relations (MCCR) Three areas of responsibility: • Customer Relations (131500) • Manages feedback received for RailCorp from customers and the wider community through the Transport Infoline • Ministerial and Customer Correspondence • Conduit between RailCorp, the Minister’s office, the Ministry of Transport and members of parliament • Written correspondence • Reporting • Tracks and monitors RailCorp’s responses • Reports trends for planning purposes SOCAP Australia – 2006 Symposium

6. Service Delivery - + Customer Experience Feedback SOCAP Australia – 2006 Symposium

7. Definition Dictionary • Continuous = united, without a break, uninterrupted, constant • Improvement = The act of improving; state of being improved RailCorp • We will encourage and support each other to improve the quality and productivity of our work, our systems and our assets MCCR Do it better tomorrow SOCAP Australia – 2006 Symposium

8. Continuous Improvement Cycle SOCAP Australia – 2006 Symposium

9. Cycle One • February 2005 to March 2006 • Historical view of RailCorp: • Performance • Complaints data • Structural changes • MCCR Background SOCAP Australia – 2006 Symposium

10. 2. Situation Analysis • Why are we here? • What do we want to achieve? • How can we set measurable targets? • What are these targets? • What will be measured? • Can we do things better? • What are our roadblocks? • QUESTION EVERYTHING! SOCAP Australia – 2006 Symposium

11. AS 4269-1995 Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu (“Deloitte”) • Assurance Assessment of the management of complaints and disclosure of confidential information; • Compliance findings and recommendations against existing RailCorp procedures for managing complaints; and • Benchmarking these procedures against better practice. SOCAP Australia – 2006 Symposium

12. AS 4269: Summary Sheet • Overall Audit Result = 4 out of 5 • “The internal control framework is effective except for minor weaknesses.” • No significant recommendations • 7 out of 13 elements have no need to be improved: • Fairness, Assistance, Charges, Remedies, Data Collection, Systematic and Recurring Problems. SOCAP Australia – 2006 Symposium

13. AS 4269: Findings • Details of recommendations • Improve timeliness of ministerial process and allocation of cases • Improve the drafting process • Improve knowledge of KPIs • Encourage a standardised referral process SOCAP Australia – 2006 Symposium

14. AS 4269: Findings SOCAP Australia – 2006 Symposium

15. AS 4269: Findings SOCAP Australia – 2006 Symposium

16. 3. Development • What did we need to do to deliver the recommendations? • What needed to change? • Develop new goals and targets • Develop strategies and enabling processes SOCAP Australia – 2006 Symposium

17. Safety Security Service Staff Ticketing Timetable Claim Cleanliness Environment Facilities Information On-time Running (OTR) RailCorp KPI Categories SOCAP Australia – 2006 Symposium

18. RailCorp KPIs Telephone – Finalise cases within 5 working days Web Lodgement – Finalise cases within 5 working days Direct Correspondence – Finalise cases within 15 working days SOCAP Australia – 2006 Symposium

19. 4. Implementation • Performance monitoring • PDAs and SLAs • Motivation • Office mottos • Regular team briefings • Open communication between managers and staff SOCAP Australia – 2006 Symposium

20. MCCR – Process Maps Phone Direct Correspondence Ministerial Correspondence Web Lodgement SOCAP Australia – 2006 Symposium

21. MCCR Instruction Manual SOCAP Australia – 2006 Symposium

22. 5. Evaluation • What did we learn? • What did we achieve? SOCAP Australia – 2006 Symposium

23. Cycle One: Achievements • Continued to show a downward trend for processing ministerials. • Developed an Emergency Plan. • Aligned customer feedback procedures to AS4269. • Improved report quality. • No staff turnover. • Developed MCCR Instruction Manual. • External interest in our customer feedback systems. SOCAP Australia – 2006 Symposium

24. Statistics • Total complaint issues reduced by 24.11% • OTR complaint issues reduced by 64.45% • 56.37% of complaint issues were made by phone in 2006 compared to 79.57% in 2005. SOCAP Australia – 2006 Symposium

25. Statistics SOCAP Australia – 2006 Symposium

26. KPI Improvement SOCAP Australia – 2006 Symposium

27. Cycle Two • April 2006 to June 2007 SOCAP Australia – 2006 Symposium

28. 6. Continuous Improvement • New goals: • ISO 10002 compliance • Target 300 • External review SOCAP Australia – 2006 Symposium

29. ISO 10002 Compliance and Complaints Advisory Services Pty Ltd • Improve timeliness of ministerial process • Continuous improvement in providing timely and effective information to customers at the point of service delivery • Improve root cause analysis of actionable systematic complaints • Improve feedback and accountability mechanisms for rectification actions taken SOCAP Australia – 2006 Symposium

30. Continuous Improvement • Customer Feedback Policy • Customer feedback surveys • Online information • Database program enhancements • E.g. Self-reporting SOCAP Australia – 2006 Symposium

31. Continuous Improvement • Learning and Development: • MCCR team; • Frontline employees; and • Transport Infoline. • Building relationships • Other projects SOCAP Australia – 2006 Symposium

32. Challenges • Frontline staff knowledge of processes at point of service delivery • Internal information: • Timely? • Reliable? • Possible investigative role? SOCAP Australia – 2006 Symposium

33. Complaints Monthly complaints OTR complaints SOCAP Australia – 2006 Symposium

34. 7. Summary • Situation Analysis • Review current situation • Development • Establish shared goals and strategy • Develop enabling processes • Assign responsibilities and roles • Implementation • Monitor performance • Manage resources – budget, human, knowledge • Maintain motivation SOCAP Australia – 2006 Symposium

35. Summary • Evaluation • Reflection • Update knowledge • Continuous Improvement • Continually review goals and performance • Organisational targets SOCAP Australia – 2006 Symposium

36. Email address: ben.johnson@railcorp.nsw.gov.au SOCAP Australia – 2006 Symposium