Driving the customer experience

The challenge

Citylink (Megabus), part of the Stagecoach group, were concerned with becoming ‘outdated’ and as such wanted to evaluate their current offering to understand what changes were required to stay ahead of the competition in an ever-changing digital landscape – basing all future brand development on a sound understanding of their users. To do this, Citylink wanted:

• Personas (this will open in a new window)and Customer Journey Maps – to ensure that the voice of the customer was embedded throughout the process.
• A detailed Road Map outlining a future plan that would help Citylink ensure they created an omni-channel deliverable for their customers.

Our approach

User research looked at the full service experience over multiple touch-points. We also wanted to better understand how users interacted with Citylink. Our research included:

• Ethnographic research – undertaking coach journeys and interviewing staff and customers, to understand the full, contextual experience at each touchpoint (from initial ticket purchase, boarding a bus, the journey and departing from the bus).
• Call centre listening and depth interviews – to evaluate why customers were calling and how those calls were being handled.
• Focus groups – with customers across many different travelling segments to identify differing needs of those users.
• Digital audits – providing detailed evaluations of the digital properties available in both the UK and the US.

Interactive focus groups with customers explored their brand expectations and experiences

The result

Our insights were used to create detailed personas, mood boards and customer journey maps. These were then used to create a detailed road map of innovation. We worked closely with team at Citylink to match business requirements with user needs, to create a strategy for improvement. This included the stages needed to deliver a compelling service responding to internal objectives and customer needs.

These were fed back into the business and socialized around the wider organization.

Based on our findings, Stagecoach launched a new Citylink Gold route, with improved on-board customer experience, which continues to delight customers.