Examining the links between Customer Satisfaction and Performance East Coast

20 July 2012

Evidence from a wide range of research, including that of Passenger Focus, has highlighted that punctuality and reliability of train services is one of the key determinants of each Train Operating Company’s (TOC) National Passenger Survey (NPS) customer satisfaction score. However there is frequently a disparity between PPM (Public Performance Measure) and satisfaction levels.

This study examines the links between train performance and NPS customer satisfaction for East Coast (EC) Trains by taking over 9,000 NPS results for the four and a bit years from Spring 2006 to Spring 2010, matching each NPS respondent to the actual train they used and from this identifying the lateness they experienced on each occasion and how the precise level of punctuality affected their recorded levels of satisfaction.