Voice of the Customer Survey
Our Commitment to Customer Experience
At CN, our customer relationships are built to last. We set our customer satisfaction targets high and remain aligned with our customers’ needs. Maintaining strong relationships enables us to better understand customer expectations, identify emerging market trends, and make informed business decisions.
Our goal is to continue to improve and provide our customers with consistent, reliable and efficient service.
2025 Voice of the Customer Survey Enhancements
The Voice of the Customer survey is designed to engage a broad and representative portion of CN’s customers who pay for rail freight services across all business segments. Consistent with prior years, the survey was conducted in two phases, spring and fall, to evaluate customer satisfaction.
Beginning in 2025, the survey was enhanced to provide deeper insight into the customer experience. Customers are now asked to rate their experience with key CN departments, Sales, Customer Service, Operations, and Accounting, using a 0 to 10 scale, based on their experience over the past 12 months. This approach supports more focused feedback and helps CN better identify opportunities to improve service across critical customer touchpoints.
Understanding the 2025 Results
In 2025, CN’s overall service rating was 82%, representing the average across these departments.
While this result is lower than the previously reported 91% overall service rating, the two metrics are not directly comparable. Prior‑year results were based on a single, high‑level service question, whereas the 2025 score reflects a more detailed, department‑level assessment of recent customer experience. As such, the 2025 results establish a new baseline for measuring service performance going forward.
2026 Customer Satisfaction Target
CN’s customer satisfaction target is to maintain or improve upon the 2025 baseline average, with continued focus on delivering consistent, reliable, and efficient service across all customer touchpoints.
Enhancing Customer Service and Support
At CN, we are committed to making it easier for customers to do business with us. In addition to consistent service, we continue to strive to enhance the customer experience by expanding access to information and improving our self‑service tools. Our CN One eBusiness platform and its related mobile application are regularly optimized to provide consolidated, real‑time visibility into carload and intermodal shipments. Several Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) enable customers and supply chain partners to seamlessly integrate CN data into their own systems for automated “track‑and‑trace” insights. Together, these digital capabilities offer greater supply chain transparency and deliver actionable information to enable smarter business decisions.
Other technology investments have transformed our intermodal terminal operations and related logistics ecosystems to better serve key stakeholders and improve operational capacity. CN is nearing completion of our multiyear Smart Terminal program — a suite of new applications driven by an ecosystem of technologies, yard designs and Internet‑enabled hardware that is driving business improvements at CN intermodal terminals. The program, now implemented in all Canadian terminals with the remaining U.S. terminals set to be completed in 2026, increases inventory accuracy, enhances real‑time visibility of resources, and streamlines loading and unloading operations to ensure safer, more efficient operations.
Addressing Customer Issues
We would like to thank our customers who take the time to answer our surveys. We listen to customer feedback and continue to improve year-over-year, providing our customers with service that is safe, consistent, reliable, and efficient.
Here are some of the ways we continue to improve our service for you:
CN’s Capital Program
CN continues to make strategic infrastructure investments to remove pinch points across key parts of our network — particularly in Western Canada and Chicago — further supporting fluidity for customers.
Over the past three years, a significant portion of our capital program has focused on our corridors between Edmonton, AB, and West Coast ports. These corridors are critical gateways for global trade and provide key connections to the rest of our network.
Our 2026 capital program, which is expected to be approximately C$2.8B (net of amounts reimbursed by customers), underscores our commitment to improve the safety, efficiency, and integrity of our North American network and support growth.
This annual investment in capital projects and maintenance activities drives the safety and efficiency of CN’s operations, laying a solid foundation for long-term sustainable growth.
2025 Capital Highlights
In 2025, CN invested approximately $3.7B CAD, of which $1.8B was spent to maintain the safety and integrity of its network, particularly track infrastructure.
- We constructed two new sections of double track on the Edson Subdivision west of Edmonton, our highest density line and through which all rail traffic to and from the British Columbia ports of Prince Rupert and Vancouver must travel.
- This expansion increases capacity in the area by 25%, equivalent of seven additional trains per day.
- The Edson Subdivision line is now more than 60% double tracked, supporting velocity and resilience, and giving CN more room to grow with customers and further leverage our advantaged network to move raw materials to market.
Ongoing Communication:
At CN, we are committed to partnering with our customers to help them grow their businesses. To do this, it is imperative that we maintain ongoing conversation with our customers. We offer multiple customer touchpoints to encourage the free flow of information so that we can continue to better understand our customers’ markets as well as their key drivers.
We also work in partnership with our customers to systematically develop growth strategies. We continue to review train and railcar requirements so that we can align capacity with current and future customer demand. By monitoring market conditions and anticipating changes, our goal is also to be able to proactively adjust our services accordingly to your changing needs.
Grain Plan
Every year CN puts out a comprehensive Grain Plan that outlines the details of how we plan to meet the anticipated volume of grain expected to be moved in the crop year. The objective is clear. It is the safe, effective, efficient, and timely movement of grain throughout the coming crop year. Learn more about our Grain Plan.
Winter Plan
Our annual Winter Plan sets out the actions and innovations that we have implemented to enable us to maintain our operations through the winter at a level acceptable to the needs of all of our customers while ensuring we continue to operate in a safe and efficient manner. The Winter Plan serves as a framework to ensure that we meet the needs of our customers and stakeholders in the challenging winter months ahead. Learn more about our Winter Plan.
Building for a Sustainable Future
Delivering Responsibly is at the heart of how CN is building for a sustainable future. We are raising our game to deliver for a sustainable future, to make a meaningful difference for our people, our customers and the many communities where we operate. Learn more about how CN is building for a sustainable future: Delivering Responsibly.