Go South Coast wowed at the UK Bus Awards, with two phenomenal wins. Nikki Honer speaks to Madaline Dunn about how the Go-Ahead subsidiary won gold for ‘Sustained Marketing Excellence’ for morebus and the m1 and m2 routes
Originally starting out as Wilts and Dorset in 1983, the operator rebranded in 2004 as morebus. Nikki explained: “We developed two routes – the m1 and m2 – that were very simple and ran very frequently and rebranded them as morebus.
“It did cause a little confusion though. When I joined Wilts and Dorset there was a differential between m1 and m2 and the rest of the services. People thought that morebus was a different, better, bus company. So, we took the decision to rebrand all of our services as morebus.
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“We’ve seen bus usage continue to grow from that. We repositioned ourselves, because people thought Wilts and Dorset was a bit old-fashioned, and not very forward thinking. Rebranding allowed us to remind people that the company was united – and that we were interested in all of our customers, not just those using our high frequency m1 and m2 routes.”
Nikki said, from there, the company saw growing success – with a 110% growth in bus patronage, amassing a total of 75 million customers in 14 years.
“m1 and m2 have grown in popularity, and we’ve tried to keep them fresh and modern,” she said. “We installed WiFi on those buses quite a few years ago, and then came USB charging facilities – it’s all about enhancing customers’ journeys and offering better value.
Strategy implementation
With such remarkable results across its services, I asked Nikki about the marketing team’s strategy implementation which had led to such an increase in patronage. She explained some of the aspects.
“We carried out customer research and found that people preferred single-decker buses. They found it easier to get on and off. A lot of the people on the m1 and m2 services aren’t making end-to-end journeys, but short hop journeys – so actually a single-decker suited them better. In response to this, we built up the network around using single-deckers, and this proved to be very popular.”
Nikki said that the operator had also invested in additional new vehicles, improving the fleet to attract more passengers: “Last year, we introduced 41 brand-new vehicles for our m1 and m2 routes. The buses are the latest Enviro200 MMCs from Alexander Dennis Ltd (ADL), with Euro VI low-emissions engines. We also changed the liveries slightly to be more in-keeping with the new vehicle.”
Aside from improving the fleet and journey experience Nikki emphasised the importance of connecting with passengers on a human level, through humour: “We thought we’d have a bit of fun with the design. Although we usually only use the rear boot space for core marketing messages, we mixed it up a bit this time.”
The new livery was part of the ‘Slip into something more comfortable’ campaign. “It was just a play on words,” added Nikki. “For me it’s about passenger growth and bums on seats, and how we make the bus more appealing. I’ve always joked that if you want to make buses sexier, put leopard print on them. So, one of our fun rear designs has a faded light blue leopard print pattern, subtle but also tongue-in-cheek.”
This campaign was backed up with other stronger marketing campaigns. “In the Bournemouth area parking is quite expensive,” said Nikki. “And a lot of our bus travel is very competitively priced. There’s bus travel from £2.00 a day, and we use the rear of our buses to deliver these core messages. Then, we build a campaign around it. We pick two or three messages and add in social media, radio and outdoor marketing. It’s all about pushing the highlights of bus travel, its cost-effectiveness and convenience.”
Nikki explained two of the key factors in increasing bus patronage: “Value for money, over the cost of parking and convenience is key. Accompanying that when you’re on-board a bus, you can make use of free services, like USB chargers and WiFi. If you have to travel in rush hour, you can catch up on a few emails on a bus before you even get to the office. Or, if you want to chill out, you can surf the web or watch something you’ve downloaded on your tablet.”
Conducting research
With a lot of the work going on behind the scenes, I asked Nikki to explain how she and her team go about conducting market research and how they manage to ensure they are catering for passenger needs.
“We conduct our market research in various ways,” she revealed. “Including online, face to face and sometimes we work with a dedicated bus specialist marketing company called Bluegrass. They’ve just carried out a couple of research campaigns for us over the last 12-18 months, some of which was on occasional bus users. They looked into how to entice occasional bus users or non-users into becoming more regular customers.
“We use this information to target campaigns. A lot of it revolves around finding out what the barriers to bus travel are – and their tipping points for change.”
Nikki explained that it was all about zoning in on an issue and presenting a solution. “If people think bus travel is too expensive, because they haven’t had access to information on the costs, then we need to come up with a marketing campaign that shows the potential passenger how cost-effective travelling by bus can be,” she said.
“If they don’t think the bus will be reliable, that’s where new features like real-time information come in – which effectively puts the passenger back in control of their day. Then there’s the option and the benefit of group travel, with fare discounts. It’s our job to make people aware of all the things that are available.”
Nikki also highlighted the essential role that social media plays in the success of a campaign and the promotion of the company. “We use social media in a variety of ways. One of the biggest benefits of social media for buses in general is that it means we can always keep in touch with our passengers. If a passenger doesn’t know where the bus is, we can keep them updated – particularly with Twitter. If there are any emergency diversions to an RTC somewhere along our route and things are delayed, – we can communicate with our passengers quickly.”
She continued: “It is an extremely effective way to reach people and tell them about all the positive things that we’re doing. Recently we’ve heightened our activity on Instagram – there’s a younger market coming through there and it’s their preferred social channel.”
Working with the community is also of high importance to Nikki and her team, as she explained. “We very much see ourselves as part of our local community. We engage with lots of different stakeholders in the area. For example, we might come up with a competition for a free day out, or partner up with a local attraction, where we provide the travel package and they provide free tickets to an event, or a free dessert with a main meal. It’s about giving people reasons to go out. Our campaigns are very image-led. We live in a beautiful region of the UK, so we use a lot of imagery to encourage people to go out. Through our marketing, we incentivise people to explore, show them the way to do it and how to get to the place they want to be. It’s very much about working together in our local community.”
Being so embedded in the community, Nikki talked about another strategy her team had implemented to ensure bus drivers have a good relationship with their passengers.
“Years ago, people in the industry employed drivers who merely liked driving. That’s the least of our worries now. Yes, you have to be able to drive, but it’s far easier to train someone to be a good driver than it is to have someone with natural customer service and care skills. So, we’ve introduced the Customer Promise Course. This is a five-day course focused entirely on the customer, and what good customer service looks like.
“The needs of customers are changing as the years go on,” continued Nikki. “It’s all about equipping our drivers so they can handle all situations with confidence. We work with some minority groups and underrepresented groups too – and get them to come in and talk to our drivers about how to deal with certain situations, and what certain situations are like for them.
“Many of our drivers are also qualified ‘Dementia Friends’ as they receive specialist dementia training. It’s all about playing our part in the towns that we serve.”
Speaking about catering to the diversity within the community, Nikki hammered home the importance of remembering that the customer base is constantly evolving, and that people absorb information in different ways. “When we are running a campaign of any kind, we try and come up with multi-channel strategies because one thing will appeal to one person more than another,” she explained. “So, it’s never just a case of sending out an email and expecting people to absorb information that way – instead it’s a soft drip-feed. It’s also important to accept that not everyone is going to use us daily. However, I want us to be first of mind when they are thinking “Ok, I haven’t got the car today, what can I do instead?”
Visibility and being personable are also important factors in raising the operator’s profile: “Having a friendly voice at the end of the phone and travel advisors in travel shops or on the street is as essential as having a website that is interactive and provides good quality information,” argued Nikki.
“Hearing about our latest route on the radio, seeing us on a billboard, or social media, hearing about us through a friend down the pub, talking about their discounted ticket – all of these things combined makes us more of a success.”
The key message Nikki gives about marketing success is: “Don’t ever stop. Marketing isn’t just a one-time thing – we’re doing this every day, it’s as much about brand awareness as pushing a specific product.”
The dream team
Paying tribute to the key players in her marketing team, Nikki said: “One department that I’m incredibly proud of – which we built ourselves – is our in-house graphic design team, made up of six graphic designers. We produce all of our own timetable leaflets, billboard adverts, digital adverts and now, even some or our own liveries.
Nikki stressed the importance of an in-house team: “It means they can respond quickly and as they live and work in the brand it means they understand us. They understand our perspective, and because of that, we get better results. And of course, they use our services themselves, so will understand the needs of our customers and potential new customers.
“Within each of our brands we have a marketing executive, who concentrates on day-to-day tasks. This includes anything from preparing for new publicity for the roadside to communicating to customers about major diversions, working with travel planning groups, doing an event in the town centre with giveaways and more. There’s lots to do and never time to get bored.”
Nikki also spoke of the importance of running ideas and headlines past others to test them. “When we come up with concepts, we go to colleagues or customers in our bus stations and ask what certain things mean to different people. That is usually how we come up with some of our better campaigns – through engaging with real customers first.”
The big win
After years of continued hard work and results, I asked Nikki how it felt for the team to be recognised on a national level for their continued efforts. “It was an amazing feeling for all of us,” she said, “and because we got shortlisted for Bluestar too, we were first and third for marketing. We must be doing something right!
“We’re all very passionate and work really hard so it was lovely to be rewarded. It goes to show that if you put the effort in, the reward will come back. Fundamentally, we received the reward through increased usage of our services – and this isn’t just down to marketing but the efforts of everyone at Go South Coast.”
In terms of the impact that the award has had, Nikki said: “I think we just have to keep going and not get complacent. Once you get to the top there’s only one way to go and that’s down. You have to continue pushing on. You have to be innovative, think of what’s next and think of what’s really needed. That absolutely means listening to your customers and delivering what they want.” Nikki said however it was a collective effort: “It’s not just one department that makes that happen – if you haven’t got a reliable clean bus that’s on time, driven by a friendly driver then no one is going to want to use you anyway. It takes a lot of us behind the scenes to get to be as good as we are – it’s because we’ve got a lot of very passionate employees and we’re very lucky to have them.”
The future
When I asked Nikki what was next for her and her team, she replied that they were trying to integrate more video into their campaigns: “We’ve found that for certain events Facebook Live goes down really well with some of our brands – so we’re going to be focusing on developing that side of things.”
In an industry that is ever-changing, I asked Nikki about her thoughts on the future of the industry and how Go South Coast would tackle any potential issues.
“We tackle any problem as a team – because one person doesn’t have all the right answers,” she replied. ”As things are thrown into our industry, or new challenges come along, we sit down as a team and work it out together and come up with a robust response of the right way to approach things.
“One of the strengths of Go South Coast is that we can adapt, we are flexible and passionate. So, it doesn’t matter what kind of problem comes along, we will work together to solve that and do the right thing to protect our business and our customer base.”
Concerning how technology was shaping the industry and how the company was responding to it, Nikki said: “There’s lots of talk of electric,” she said. “But we haven’t got the infrastructure in place as a country to cope with that at the moment. Currently an electric bus wouldn’t survive in service all day for what we need it to do, but I know there are millions of pounds being invested in research and development of that.”
Nikki emphasised how the industry was already striving for cleaner transport: “A Euro VI low-emissions engine for example is significantly cleaner than any car on the market. As a company we have invested a lot of money in greener technology, so we are already cleaner and greener than many other forms of transport out there, it’s just remembering to tell people about that.”
Paired with this Nikki emphasised the bus’s role in cutting down congestion: “Congestion is a problem in every city – but one double-decker bus can take 75 cars off the road.”
Nikki also said a few words on the social benefits of the bus, adding: “People are lonelier than they’ve ever been. Life is behind a smart phone – but when you get on the bus and take the same journey every day, you start to see the same faces and make friends. It brings people together. Our recent launch of the ‘chatty bus’ has been very well received.”
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