The problem

Great Western Railway (GWR)’s brand is all about pride, passion and personality. But like many rail companies, their writing was formal, impersonal and full of ‘rail speak’ – more schedules and rolling stock than pride and passion. 

This was causing problems. When we compared GWR’s internal quality measures to their customer satisfaction scores, we found a big difference in opinion. Whereas they rated their communications ‘good’ to ‘excellent’, customers scored them ‘poor’.

The solution

As part of GWR’s rebrand, we developed a tone of voice all about communicating with pride and passion. But when we spoke to GWR’s teams, it became clear they felt disconnected from the brand. 

We knew that before we could help them to improve their communications, we had to reignite their sense of pride. To do this, we ran interactive workshops which encouraged the teams to talk about their passions and express themselves. Many felt a deep loyalty for the ‘old’ GWR and pride in working for such a historic, important railway.

By listening to GWR’s teams and tapping into their pride, we helped them to feel comfortable putting their personality into their writing. This more relaxed approach helped them to stop sounding like rail robots and start sounding like real human beings. 

To support the teams, we rewrote communications across the customer journey, including their Passenger Charter and 100s of standard paragraphs.

The results

• Our new approach was praised by the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) for making their communications more customer friendly.

• Customer effort went down from 51 points to 41 points. Their target is 35 points.

• Their Net Promoter Score (NPS) (used to gauge customer loyalty, satisfaction, and enthusiasm) improved by 29 points.

• The work won a Change Programme award for Best tone of voice at Transform Europe.