Case study
·
Auckland One Rail
Customer First
Helping Auckland One Rail deliver on its Customer First promise.

Industry
Aviation & Transport || Construction & Infrastructure
Focus area
Employee Induction & Onboarding || Customer Service & Experience
Approach
Video & Animation || Workshops & Facilitated Learning
Service
Targeted learning solutions
At a glance
What was the challenge, and what changed?
The challenge
What we built
The result
The full story
How did the project come together?
About our Client
Auckland One Rail (AOR) proudly staffs and operates Auckland’s Metro Rail Network, on behalf of Auckland Transport (AT).
KiwiRail owns and maintains the tracks and trains.
AOR has responsibility for train operations, including train drivers and other staff, development of timetables, station operations, maintenance, security, and all customer-facing activities.
Their Challenge
AOR is committed to taking a Customer First approach of “Always putting customers first”. Customer First means taking care of, supporting, and looking out for others, and ensuring AOR meet the unique needs of their rail customers.
To enable the AOR team to deliver on this promise, they needed a bespoke customer service programme that would not only be immediately impactful, but continue to evolve every year to keep things fresh, relevant and meaningful.
The ideal outcomes of their Customer First programme were:
- Higher Customer Satisfaction rating
- Increase in commendations/compliments
- Reduction in complaints
- Compliments spread across more employees.
Our Role
In order to satisfy immediate commitment and scheduling needs, we proposed an initial ~one-day experiential and interactive scenario-led workshop.
This workshop addressed high-impact topics using a mix of rich media including voice of the customer re-enactments with actors delivering real feedback collated from the current year, video scenarios, CCTV footage and immersive group scenarios.
We also designed quick tip sheets and links to digital tools to enable participants to gather and provide up-to-date information to customers during a simulated disruption.
Following delivery of a pilot and train the trainer session, we provided AOR with step-by-step guides for delivery of the session, and an online summative quiz with action plan for participants, to allow AOR to gather participant feedback and identify needs for future advanced sessions.
Their Results
This programme has become the foundation for the more advanced Customer First training (L2), Leaders’ training, and role-specific training - all developed by Optimism.
AOR now has a targeted Customer First training programme which has resulted in:
- Higher Customer Satisfaction rating
- An increase in commendations/compliments
- Compliments spread across more employees
- A reduction in complaints.
AOR also has a learning partner who understands their business and who will continue to help them deliver on their customer promise.



In their words
(Optimism) provided an end-to-end solution, and are real experts in what they do. We feel like we've found a partner who will help us and our people on our customer development journey.
Customer Experience Development Manager, Auckland One Rail
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