(20 Nov 2014, 5:07 pm)Dan wrote Not everyone will be able to attend the consultation at Park Lane, similar to how in the past, not everyone has had Internet access to be able to give their feedback with online questionnaires...

Truth of the matter is - no one method is the best way of gathering feedback from customers. Cost will always be prohibitive, limiting the company to certain methods. This is a learning curve for the company, and at least they are trying new ways to engage with customers...


Bit of a brash statement...

Sampling techniques do see a small percentage of people questioned, but the view of one of these people is likely to represent the view of a lot of other customers anyway (much like it does in the actual results). If Go North East were only going to receive the same feedback time and time again, day by day, it would have been a pointless exercise and the time of the employees could have been used more effectively doing other jobs.

Thousands of people go through Park Lane having travelled on buses each day. These people primarily use Go North East buses because they almost have the monopoly at that bus station.
If there's going to be a re-jig up of a number of services which go through Park Lane, the best way to catch a lot of customers is to be in Park Lane (where most customers will travel to/from).

There may be service changes every six months, but how do you know that the services in this consultation will be the same as the services affected in the previous consultation? You don't... Service changes only happen due to changes in customer travelling habits; if customers start making alternative arrangements (for whatever reason) and the company is losing custom on a certain service, changes need to be made to attract these customers back (or even new customers).

I feel like I'm fighting a losing battle as it seems nobody is actually listening to the other side of the argument here... Recent posts on this forum have all seemingly suggested that the company doesn't want to hear the views of customers, they've made up their minds already, etc...
Why, therefore, would they hold the consultation? I don't believe that Stagecoach on Teesside held a consultation for their upcoming service changes on Teesside - they simply went ahead and did it.
Can anyone explain why Go North East employees are therefore going to be based in a bus station to collate market research all day, why the company has invited customers to the consultation on their Social Media pages, why the company has gone to the effort of printing notices and pinning them up on Deptford-based buses to attract as many customers to the consultation as possible?

We all know the company have been doing these consultations, across the entire region for quite a few years. I would be slightly concerned if they still viewed it as a learning curve - particularly at the costs involved in each consultation.

There have been points made, with links to specific examples of ambiguous questions - such as the M1/Herrington Burn debacle.

We have already discussed the 1/24 consultation and changes being made on a sample of 4/5% of the population and an 8% return rate.

It has already been pointed out numerous times, that sampling is flawed. I have provided quotes and references to research/studies on sampling in the Passenger Focus thread.

Sampling has been used in the past, in previous consultations - the almost 'twice annual' North Sunderland estate changes are based on those previous consultations.
The company have made changes, based on the feedback they have obtained, yet not long after, have needed to make changes again. Travel patterns won't have altered drastically in that time, yet passenger numbers/financial figures haven't stacked up.
Why?
Did passengers lie? Did the end result differ to the initial proposal? Were the questions misleading? Was reliability an issue following the changes? Or... Was the sample not big enough? 
How many service revisions have we seen in North Sunderland? How many services have been, gone, come back - been jiggled about and then replaced over the last 8 years?

I have said it before and will say it again - there needs to be a range of mediums used in these consultations.
Whether it is a mixture, a combination or all of: Internet, leaflet, face to face, door calls, obtained over a longer period or anything else - only then will you gain the opinions from a wide sample of existing and potential customers.