Customer Service Week: Nadene Adorney, Information Specialist

RTD’s information specialists are the agency's unsung heroes. Day in and day out, RTD’s Telephone Information Center (TIC) team works tirelessly to ensure that customers needing assistance receive the help they need. Information Specialist Nadene Adorney thrives on being able to serve her communities through her work.

Adorney grew up in Utah before moving to Wyoming to go to high school. In 1982, she moved to Denver, where she was introduced to public transportation.

“I had never been on a bus or train before moving to Denver,” Adorney said. “It was fun to get around on RTD.”

Her professional career has always involved customer service. Before RTD, she worked in retail as a purchasing agent and in merchandising, primarily in the personal health and food industries. In those roles, she worked closely with customers, ensuring the products and services they received were the best options for them.

However, Adorney wanted to explore the public transit side more. In 2018, she joined the agency as a service worker in Light Rail Transportation and Maintenance.

“I wanted to be a train operator,” Adorney said. “However, it just didn’t work out, so I ended up cleaning trains at Elati for three years, bringing with it a lot of interesting opportunities.”

Adorney recalls enjoying the fresh, cool nighttime air in the train yard before cleaning trains as they came in.

While she enjoyed her time as a service worker, she wanted something less labor-intensive. In 2021, the stars aligned when she saw an opening in the agency’s Telephone Information Center for an information specialist.

The position was a perfect fit for Adorney’s skill set, enhanced by her experience as a service worker. In this role, she combined her customer service skills with the knowledge of the trains from working at Elati.

“I was so happy that I had the opportunity to learn about the trains,” Adorney said. “Little details can really help. Even if you are not registering those details, they do help when communicating to customers.”

As an information specialist, Adorney begins her day much as an airline pilot fires up an airplane: by using a systematic start process involving over 10 programs to help customers with questions and concerns.

Each program serves a specific purpose, allowing Adorney and her fellow information specialists to track down exact locations of vehicles with predicted arrival times; learn about service impacts to routes and lines; identify potential issues with trip planning; report concerns to appropriate parties; solve fare issues; and even help obtain items left behind on a vehicle.

While the number of programs information specialists need to use may seem overwhelming, Adorney enjoys using the tools at her disposal to answer the most niche questions. Adorney has had plenty of memorable interactions with customers in her six years with RTD. However, one recent conversation stands out above the rest.

“This was just a few weeks ago, but I was talking to an older gentleman who was in downtown, but was not from Denver,” Adorney said. “He was trying to get to 38th Street and Brighton Boulevard, but accidentally ended up at 38th and Blake streets. He was having trouble figuring out how to get to 38th and Brighton.”

“I stayed with him on the phone for 45 minutes, giving him step-by-step directions, showing him how to get to his destination,” Adorney said. “Knowing that he was a senior and I’m almost a senior as well, I had a lot of compassion for him.”

Like the customer Adorney worked with, many calls come in from visitors to the region who accidentally lose their way while trying to get to a bus stop or station.

“I know that when you’re not from Denver, it doesn’t look the same as when you’ve seen it a few times,” Adorney said.

While the TIC sees typical influxes of calls during rush hours, unexpected emergencies and service disruptions can flood the lines, create long queues, and be stressful for customers and information specialists alike.

Adorney knows what she needs to do.

“We just take one call at a time, focus on that call and give it as much time as it needs,” she said. “We are never under pressure to hurry up with a call.”

Adorney’s admiration for RTD’s customers makes her job enjoyable and motivates her throughout the day.

“We have an awesome customer base,” she said. “It’s easy to think that, because we’re in the complaint department, that we get a lot of negative people, but our customers are really why we are here.”

“I am really thankful that I live in this big city with all of these great customers,” Adorney said.