Member Article

Stephen King, Go North East

The North East is fast becoming a hub of environmental activity, and as one of the region’s largest transport providers, Go North East is making efforts to get involved. By investing in greener busses and providing passengers with incentives, the transport provider is now hoping to make public transport an attractive option once more.

Stephen King, marketing and sales manager at Go North East has been speaking to Bdaily about the methods the company is using to engage with individuals in the region.

“As the largest bus company in the North East, we are a market leader in the transport field - which means that we need to develop innovative new ideas to keep us ahead of the game.” He explains.

Which is where the Key Lifestyle package comes in. Key lifestyle offers Go North East customers the opportunity to save on bus travel, and also provides optional free membership on car and bike hire with Commonwheels short term car hire firm and Scratch Bikes, Newcastle’s self service bike hire system.

“The idea came about after years of offering different types and levels of discount travel.” Stephen explains. “Despite offering annual, monthly, weekly and corporate packages, we still felt there was a gap that needed filling and Key lifestyle pulled together lots of these initiatives.”

Since the scheme was established in December 2011 160 people have already signed up, with a further 10-20 joining each week - strong figures for the early stages of the new scheme.

The partnership with Scratch Bikes and Commonwheels is important to Stephen and Go North East, as despite being vastly different in size, they share a similar ethos when it comes to business.

“When we all first met up, it was very interesting to see an established brand and entrepreneurs pitching to each other.

“However, it soon became clear that our objectives resonated with one another, and since forming the partnership we have had nothing but positive dealings with both of the companies.

“Recently we have also become involved with the ‘Scrap a Banger’ scheme, which gives you free bus travel in return for the scrappage value of your old car.”

In order to promote their new offering, Stephen and his team have made increasing use of new technologies and social media to attract new customers.

He continued: “It can be difficult to get messages out and speak to consumers directly, but we have developed inroads through social media.

“On Facebook we have more than 40,000 followers who use the site as an open forum for discussion about bus services.

“In another sense however, the website shows the wider world that busses aren’t actually that bad!”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .