Stagecoach East Scotland marks national customer service week

The local bus company is celebrating the national campaign with a series of activities throughout the week from October 2-6.

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 East Scotland will highlight the importance of continuing to deliver good customer service day in, day out for passengers.

During the week, the company will be carrying out mystery shopping activities, handing out goodies to customers in locations across the East of Scotland, directors and managers are going back to the floor to carry out driving shifts and assist customers, and producing some additional customer service training materials for all staff, with tips directly from the East Scotland customer service team.

The company have also launched a campaign to find their customer service star - a member of staff nominated by the public as providing exceptional levels of customer service. Customers can nominate high performing staff by completing an online nomination form (available at https://www.stagecoachbus.com/promos-and-offers/east-scotland/ncsw17) or by sending details to Stagecoach East Scotland for free by writing to FREEPOST STAGECOACH.

Stagecoach East Scotland Managing Director Paul Thomas said: “We know how important it is to deliver high quality, safe and reliable service for the many people who use our bus and rail 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 in Scotland, 9 out of 10 Stagecoach passengers reported being satisfied with their overall journey.

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.

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. Payments via the app can also be made by PayPal or via debit or credit card.

It also provides customers with journey planning, next-stop information and live bus tracking to make their journeys even smoother. It is available free of charge for Apple and Android devices.

The latest payment methods complement the existing suite of payment options offered by Stagecoach which includes traditional cash payments and StagecoachSmart ticketing.

Stagecoach is also currently delivering the first major deployment of contactless technology on Britain’s buses outside London which will benefit Stagecoach customers across Scotland by the end of 2018.

Just last week, Stagecoach East Scotland announced investment of almost £2m into 6 brand new coaches for the Express City Connect network, and earlier this year also launched 7 electric-hybrid vehicles to the fleet to reduce carbon emissions and provide even higher quality bus services in the Tayside area.

Further information on the activities taking place during customer service week are available at https://www.stagecoachbus.com/promos-and-offers/east-scotland/ncsw17