Experts from the Passenger Business Department, KORAIL, visited Paris on 5 July 2023 to discuss joint cooperation on customer experience and service evaluation standards with the UIC Passenger Department. They are in charge of planning station facilities and passenger coach facilities for customer service.

Marc GUIGON, Director of the Passenger Department started the meeting with a brief introduction to the activities UIC has carried out with KORAIL in the passenger sector.

Vanessa PEREZ, Senior Advisor, introduced the UIC working groups activities including the Customer Experience Platform (CEMP), Commuter and Regional Trains (CRTS) and the Accessibility Group of Experts (PASSAGE). In return, Munkwan SONG, Deputy Director of the Passenger Transport Marketing Department, explained KORAILs cases such as customer service evaluation, and customer facilities in stations and on trains.

A delegate from KORAIL explained the idea of the joint study with UIC on global customer satisfaction to define a Key Performance Index (KPI) for customer service because each member has different methods and processes for evaluating service quality. The UIC experts then explained and shared the recent publication of “Customer Experience by Rail: State of the art and best practices with a Vision 2030 case study” and “Recommendations for the organization of assistance services for persons with disabilities and persons with reduced mobility”.

During the meeting, KORAIL and UIC actively discussed what both should do to upgrade customer service and to understand what is needed. They will come back to each other next for further cooperation in various ways, such as training programmes and joint projects. The year 2024 is the 20th anniversary of KORAIL servicing high-speed trains and the role of the railway in Korea is expected to be more important than before. KORAIL also plans to increase the quality of the service to meet global trends, with external cooperation.