Stagecoach North East is saying thank you to its passengers and marking this year’s National Customer Service Week campaign with events across the north east.
Employees at the local bus operator’s six depots in South Shields, Sunderland, Newcastle, Teesside and Hartlepool are celebrating the national campaign with a series of activities throughout the week from 2-6 October.
National Customer Service Week is run by the Institute of Customer Service and aims to raise awareness of customer service and the vital role it plays in successful business practice and the growth of the UK economy.
Under the theme Putting Passengers First, employees from Stagecoach North East will highlight the importance of continuing to deliver good customer service day in, day out for passengers.
Among the activities taking place throughout the week at Stagecoach North East are:
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- ‘Back to the floor’:
- Managing Director Steve Walker to take the wheel as he drives a bus around Newcastle
- Operations Director Colin Newbury to take a turn handling passenger queries in the Customer Communications team
- Teesside Operations Manager Nathan Stanislawski and Assistant Operations Manager Chloe Gray to work shifts driving buses around Teesside
- ‘Back to the floor’:
- Breakfast bar giveaways to early morning passengers will take place throughout Newcastle and Sunderland city centres and South Shields, Stockton and Hartlepool town centres
- Customers asked to nominate their customer service stars throughout the week with red carpet treatment for drivers with healthy snacks, fruit and breakfast in Newcastle, Sunderland and Teesside depot in Stockton
- ‘Be the Customer’ – staff to take part in ‘Be the Customer’ days, where they will go out and about, using services to provide feedback
Stagecoach North East Managing Director Steve Walker said: “We know how important it is to deliver high quality, safe and reliable service for the many people who use our bus services every day.
“We need to provide good customer service at all times, including when things go wrong, and that’s why we are always looking at how we can deliver even better services for people who travel with us, whether that’s before, during or after the journey.
“This week is a great opportunity to showcase the commitment we have to customer service all year round and to hear from our customers how we can improve even further.”
This year, for the fourth consecutive year, Stagecoach was rated as the best value major bus operator in Britain in the National Bus Satisfaction Survey by consumer watchdog Transport Focus. The report also revealed that 86 percent of Stagecoach customers in England were found to be satisfied with their bus services overall.
The company is delivering even more convenient bus travel for passengers across the country offering a range of payment methods including the recent introduction of Apple Pay and Android Pay through the Stagecoach Bus smartphone app. Payments via the app can also be made by PayPal or via debit or credit card.
The app – which was launched last year and has been downloaded by hundreds of thousands of passengers – enables people to buy and download day and weekly bus tickets straight to their mobile phone.
Stagecoach is also currently delivering the first major deployment of contactless technology on Britain’s buses outside London which will benefit Stagecoach customers across England, Scotland and Wales by the end of 2018.
For further information about Stagecoach North East please visit www.stagecoachbus.com