(25 Jul 2016, 7:20 pm)LeeCalder wrote When I first moved back up here from Staffordshire, Go North East were probably the best company in the UK. Everything was smart, if a bus had a missing vinyl, it would be replaced at the earliest opportunity, all of the branded buses had internal branding, there was a really smart corporate livery, and the management communicated properly with passengers, usual through the medium of Open Line, which I though was a fantastic idea. A lot of things aren't like that now though, which is my main gripe. Because, there is so much potential in the company, and I don't for one moment lay the blame on the directors and management of Go North East, I blame it on the Go Ahead Group. Look at Brighton & Hove, Headlingham and Chambers. They aren't getting the funding they used to, which is a shame.
Again, when I first moved back up here, Arriva were f*cking terrible. But, especially last year, they flourished with Sapphire and MAX. However, I do believe that they have started to stagnate.
Perceptions are everything.
Mind I disagree that missing vinyl was replaced quickly by Go North East in the past. It's been a problem since branding was ramped up, and I don't think it'll ever go away. It's not unique to Go North East mind, as Belmont have had plenty Sapphires running round with missing vinyl this year. The more branded buses the bigger the task, which is a major downside of branding.
I think that communication is poor right across the North East. I don't think that any of the operators engage with their customers as much as they should, and the Executives & Local Authorities are just as bad. It's conveniently forgotten that customer engagement is a two-way process, and it should form part of continuous service improvement.
I used to really like the idea of Open Line and also the Nexus forums, as that allowed for that level of engagement, to a degree. People being able to ask questions directly to senior managers and directors, bypassing the mundane rigid processes of customer services, makes them feel valued. Both GNE and Nexus were ahead of the game here, and with the twitter boom, many more are taking this stance nowadays. VTEC have David Horne regularly contributing with customers, Andrew Wickham from Go South Coast makes good use of twitter, and Alex Hornby of Transdev does the same. I'd hope that everyone up here will get into 2016 as far as customer engagement goes, rather than hiding behind their customer service teams.
I liked what Transdev did one day last week. They were dishing out ice lollies to customers on the hottest day of the year so far, and it was all over twitter. It'll have cost them next to nothing to do, yet it's engagement, as everybody is talking about it. It's the simple things sometimes. https://twitter.com/alextransdev/status/...3532223488