Kevin Mayne, Operations Director at Maynes Coaches, has been involved with the family firm since the age of eight. Angela Youngman caught up with him to learn about Maynes’ current strategy [wlm_nonmember][…]
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Alcohol and coaches rarely go together, but for Maynes Coaches it is proving to be a winning combination – enabling the company to play a significant part in one of Scotland’s most iconic industries.
It is a far cry from the taxi business set up back in 1947 by Kevin Mayne’s great grandfather. Consumer demand led to the move to coaches, and the company has never looked back since. It has grown steadily and added two new depots in Elgin and Orkney. Maynes Coaches remains very much a family business, with three generations currently involved. Kevin’s father, Gordon, and Kevin’s brother David are both closely involved within the operations side of the business, while both David’s and Kevin’s children are now also working in the company.
“Personally, I didn’t have much of an option but to get involved in the family business. I became involved unofficially when I was eight years old, washing down the coaches. When I left school, I joined the company and learned the business the hard way, from the bottom up,” recalls Kevin.
“I do everything from driving to training, running the company. My father, myself and my brother – we do anything that needs to be done in the business. We have got the experience, as my father has been doing it for over 50 years, and my brother and myself grew up in the business.
“It has grown from a small family business with coaches parked outside the house, to a company which has coaches going all over Scotland and further afield. It is an interesting business. A lot of people outside the industry don’t understand it and think we are all mad!”
In 2001, Maynes was invited to join the Guild of British Coach Operators, becoming the Guild’s first member north of the border. It still remains the only Scottish member. Apart from schools, corporate and incentive travel, Maynes offers wedding and group hire for a wide range of consumer organisations, as well as golf and ski packages.
A different approach
Over the past few years it has taken a very different direction to many coach companies, having ceased involvement in the day trip/holiday sector. Instead, the focus has moved to the corporate sector, particularly the whisky industry.
“Fifteen years ago, we had 25 coaches a month in Europe. Now we have 12 a year,” Kevin revealed. “What has made the difference was the growth of cheap flights. Customers began going by plane, rather than by coach to Europe. We lost business travelling to Europe, but on the other hand, it brought more people to Scotland. People started coming here and needed transport.
“As a result, we were growing as a business. It is actually easier having most of our coaches here than coming up from the South of France all the time. We have gained a lot of business, especially in the whisky market.”
According to the Scotch Whisky Association, there are 128 operating Scotch Whisky distilleries in Scotland, creating an export market of around £4.37bn in 2017. During the first half of 2018, exports increased to £1.97bn, 10.8% more than the comparable period last year. As a result, exporters and their clients are extremely busy with overseas sales and other personnel constantly visiting Scotland.
“A lot of people don’t realise just how much money whisky brings into the economy. We see it first hand,” Kevin continued. “The whisky business is much bigger than most people realise, and it has become our core business.
“We work with many different whisky brands in Scotland. It may involve just five or 10 people being collected from an airport and taken to a distillery, or it could be much bigger. We could be transporting anything from 20 representatives up to 1,000 people attending a major event. There could be six people on one trip, 140 on another, and sometimes many more,” he explains.
“Recently I had 900 Chinese passengers to collect and take to various distilleries. We were doing all the logistics work, including transporting them and organising the trip on a 24-hour rotation.
“Sometimes we are providing transport for a group of salespeople or high-profile celebrities, sportspeople who are ambassadors for a brand, or it might be a media tour. Last week we had a very influential group from Australia being taken around the distilleries. It is very important that these people are treated well; there are no second chances to make an impression.”
Corporate work is not confined to the whisky sector. Maynes also works for other local organisations that are household brand name food suppliers – taking care of corporate visit requirements for soup and jam manufacturing company Baxters and shortbread company Walkers and Deans – together with local company Johnstons Cashmere, which brings in visiting clients from high-end fashion houses across the globe including Burberry.
Kevin added: “We have also worked for the private school Gordonstoun for many decades and have provided transportation for our many army and RAF bases across the area for a long time.”
A varied fleet
Maynes operates a fleet of 42 vehicles. The fleet includes:
- 13 Mercedes-Benz Tourismos
- 4 MAN MOBIpeople 74-seaters
- 3 MAN Marcopolo 70-seater
- 2 Neoplan Tourliner 53-seaters
- 1 King Long XMQ6120C 66-seater
- 1 Iveco EuroRider 57-seater
- 1 Temsa HD12 53-seater
- 1 Neoplan Starliner 44-seater
- 1 Temsa MD9 30-seater
A mixture of Mercedes-Benz Sprinters, Plaxton Cheetahs, Iveco Dailys and Noone Turas vehicles make up the remainder of
the fleet. In addition, there is a vintage 1947 Bedford OB and a 1974 Ford Duple tucked away in the depot. 80% of the fleet is Euro VI; of the rest, 18% is Euro V.
Some of the coaches are used for school transport, taking kids to and from school or away on trips. No matter what the use, all the coaches within the fleet share a common element – all are top of the range models. “Our school coaches have a dual purpose; come the holidays, our 74-seaters are converted into 57-seaters to provide transport for additional corporate work and industry tours,” Kevin explained.
Transparency and trustworthiness
To cope with the expanding needs of the business, Maynes has undertaken considerable investment in its Buckie, Aberdeenshire site. The business is currently being restructured and a new office extension built. It is anticipated that the new building will be opened in January 2019.
“We have revamped our offices and extended them, as we had outgrown the space. It will make a much more user-friendly office, with more open space and big glass windows so that we can see what is happening outside. It will create offices for the future,” Kevin commented.
Customers are encouraged to visit the offices and depots whenever they like, as Kevin explains: “We aim to show what we are all the time. We encourage customers to come and have a look around our garages.
“We held an open day recently when over 2,000 people came through the garage. You have to show what you have, and how you operate. It is not a price match business, but a coach business. We have to show continually that we do everything to the best of our ability.”
It is an approach that clearly works for Maynes. Most of its consumer and corporate customers represent repeat business, with some customers having been using Maynes for many years on a regular basis.
“As management, we don’t hide behind the scenes,” said Kevin. “If people come to the door, we are there. One of us will always be ready to speak to a customer. You have got to engage with the client and have respect from the staff. Everyone has to see that we are doing the job, not hiding away.”
Recognising the sheer value of the coaches and drivers within the business, Kevin pays close attention to every aspect of their operation: “I am a great believer in drivers and coaches as being ambassadors for the company. Our biggest market asset is the vehicles. These are being seen everywhere by thousands of potential customers. Every driver is allotted a specific coach. They have to match the vehicle when it comes to standards.”
He continued: “I never ask my people to do something I wouldn’t do. I have driven all over Europe. I have got the experience to be able to discuss and talk things through with my drivers. I personally train all our drivers to make sure they reach our standards. We only have the best. We had 45 drivers apply to join us recently – we took on seven. We have to be fussy, and make sure they are the right person for the job.”
Thinking ahead
Customer care has priority, as Kevin explains: “Every customer is important. It is essential to provide the same standards of service, regardless of the age of our passengers. I tell drivers that they have to treat every customer, young or old, well.
“If school journeys are using rubbish buses, then the school kids will treat them like rubbish. If they are travelling in high quality buses, they will treat them appropriately. They may be kids now, but you have to think about what they will become. The school kids of today are our customers of tomorrow. They may be the ones who are booking us for a corporate event or special event in a few years’ time. Their memories and views on our services will be affected by what they experienced in their school trips. It is all about dealing with people and showing respect for everyone.”
Maynes Coaches has always placed great stress on public relations, a policy which has brought it nationwide publicity in unexpected ways. In 2004, model manufacturer Corgi designed a model coach in Maynes’ blue and white livery. Within months of going on sale, the Baby Bova as it became known, sold out UK-wide.
Two years later, Corgi produced another model of a Maynes Coach. On this occasion a Van Hool coach was selected to feature in a diorama scene, forming part of a 1,000-item limited edition. More recently, Holland Models designed limited edition VDL Futura models of three types to be made and sold throughout Europe.
Flying the flag
This emphasis on public relations is one of the reasons Maynes is a regular participant in awards programmes, ranging from the Highlands & Islands Business Awards to the UK Coach Awards. Since the mid-1990s, Kevin Mayne has taken part in many coach rallies and returned home with silverware from events all over the UK.
At one point, the regular appearances at the Brighton rally took four days and over 2,000 kilometres to proudly show what standards the Mayne team strive to maintain. In April 2001, Kevin was named the Top Scottish Coach Driver of the Year and winner of the Top Berkhof award.
Over the years, Maynes has appeared frequently within the winners lists of the annual UK Coach Awards. In 2017, it became the overall UK Coach Operator of the Year.
“Winning awards is good for our clients, our passengers and staff morale,” said Kevin. “It is good PR. It shows that we can do anything bigger companies can do – and do it better. It shows we are doing things right because we are gaining recognition within the industry. We have to show what we can do, and that what we are doing is very good. If we didn’t have a great team, we would not be where we are today.
“When we win an award, there is an immense amount of pride in the company. For a small family company to be in the same awards category as a large UK-wide company is very important – and we often do the job better than the big company!”
He added: “We are flying the flag for the whole of Scotland. There are a lot of good companies north of the border that get forgotten in awards. It is good for us, and good for the business.”
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