Balancing High Stakes in a New LA Metro Experience
In 2017, the LA Metro planned a redesign for their agency transportation services. Principal Transportation Planner Matthew Kridler and his team knew they needed a software solution to capture feedback from their community. Past experiences with limited survey solutions either stopped short in functionality or only provided basic data with few actionable takeaways.
The creation of LA Metro’s agency-wide Strategic Plan, “Metro Vision 2028,” relied heavily on survey data in order to capture a representative sample of LA County’s input. Knowing that the stakes were high for both riders and non-riders alike meant the Strategic Plan update needed to account for as many points of feedback from constituents as possible. “We needed to get down to what the deal breakers were for our riders,” explains Matthew. “The risk of missing a transfer could cause them to lose their job and that’s not something they’re willing to put to chance. We wanted to figure out what’s the thing that will make or break whether they choose to ride our system.”
Ensuring Quality Responses with Inquisium
The team sourced a new solution and found Cvent’s Inquisium survey solution to be the clear frontrunner. Applying Inquisium as a key component in developing their overarching Strategic Plan would help create a streamlined process to assess the agency’s future goals for LA County. The team needed robust survey capabilities to gather feedback from both riders and non-riders. Previous efforts with tools like Survey Monkey were not customizable to the extent that was needed. “We were previously really limited to basic skip logic,” notes Matthew. “You have to plan every page in every section exactly, and even then some things still aren’t possible.” Inquisium offered more options to achieve the complex visibility logic needed in order to create a single, useable survey for all respondents.
Matthew adds, “We needed something pretty complex and user friendly. In 2014, I had first heard about Cvent through a demo. We had looked into a few different software options and we definitely liked what Cvent had to offer.” To execute the initial survey, he worked with Cvent to create eight different user segments for all personas and use cases. For example, a user could be a bus rider, a rail rider, or both. Working with Cvent, Matthew’s team created the needed crosstabs. His Cvent support team was even able to create a unique use case to expand the number of tabs to eight in order to account for all user personas.
Matthew also wanted a modern user experience in order to ensure a high response rate. “You can say you can do something, but if the user experience or the interface is not good, it doesn’t really matter,” he says. The survey design process was enhanced by the knowledge and experience of his Cvent team. Matthew explains, “Every time we asked a question, the answer was ‘yes, you can do that and I can show you exactly how to do it.’ It’s a reasonably easy process to do, and there was no other firm in the field that even came close to being able to do that.”
Finding a True Survey Partner
Matthew in no small part credits the survey’s successful execution to his Cvent support team. “Normally when you contact companies, half the time you get answers and the other half you don’t. It’s a red flag,” he says. “Every time we interacted with Cvent, there was a salesperson, a technical support person, or someone on the line who was fully qualified to answer pretty much any question you could have.”
To maximize their marketing efforts, Matthew’s team used a multifaceted approach to identify specific personas throughout the county. They used targeted Facebook ads and on-board paper responses to gather respondent emails. They were also to target ads towards lower-response zip codes. This saved the team costs in wasted digital or promotional efforts while ensuring higher-performing results. Ultimately, LA Metro received over 18,000 responses to their survey. They have since adopted Inquisium for their survey needs over the last two years.
Executing the LA Metro Vision
Being able to offer a targeted, user-friendly survey not only helps improve LA Metro’s strategic vision, but improves the perception of the agency within the community. “It’s very, very easy and efficient to ask people questions that only apply to them,” notes Matthew. “This way, we’re not just asking people things that blatantly do not apply to them. I think it saves them time and improves the image of our agency.”
The data gathered through the survey has directly influenced the original redesign goals. “Most of the Strategic Plan is based on that survey. It’s an overarching vision for the agency,” notes Matthew. Standard reports have also provided visibility into useful data for other departments. “It’s been used beyond what the original purpose of the survey was...because we can break it down by the line level and look at really specific data,” explains Matthew. “The same survey was used heavily in our bus redesign study as well, and a good amount of it will be used for the Long Range Transportation Plan update that will serve as a blueprint for how we spend transportation dollars over the next 40 years.”
Inquisium is a survey solution, part of the Cvent suite of technology offerings. Inquisium helps businesses of all sizes and across all industries create compelling feedback programs that glean actionable insights. With our easy-to-use feedback management platform and specialized survey expertise, our customers are able to better understand the world around them.
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