Insurer McCarron Coates recently released consumer research suggesting that coach operators are out of touch with their customer base. What initiatives can be taken?
Insurance broker McCarron Coates released consumer research findings in late July that suggested the UK coach industry is “out of touch with potential customers”.
The findings followed a survey of 1,500 adults over the age of 18. In addition to the research, the supplier suggested ways in which the coach industry can alter its marketing strategies – to “embrace the negativity and act fast.”
routeone speaks with members of the industry to understand how that might look.
‘Concerning’ results from coach consumer research
Director of McCarron Coates Paul Coates describes the results as concerning. “They shocked us, so naturally the response was to ask ‘what can we do about this?’ We worked with our marketing company to see what operators can do to change perceptions around the industry.”
According to Paul, meetings with the Confederation of Passenger Transport (CPT) and RHA have led to agreements that the industry should respond by increasing awareness of the benefits of coach travel. But how does the industry – both as a whole and as individual businesses – reach the audiences it wants to reach?
Paul acknowledges that a broad brush approach is not necessarily the answer in reaching those customers – and that it requires knowledge of operators’ audiences and targeted marketing to have meaningful conversions.
Positive response from some within the industry
Despite the concerning findings, Andy Warrender, Operations Manager for Coaches at RHA, says the research has provided a necessary independent view of the coach sector, and that can be used to constructive purposes. “All too often the industry is very much inwardly looking,” he says. “We have to welcome the report because the one thing this industry lacks is any real data or qualitative views of itself per se. To that extent, anything that contributes to providing an external view of the industry is to be welcomed.”
Andy takes the opportunity to remind operators of a facet that he warns is often overlooked and forgotten: That coaches are simply a means to the service being provided – group travel. The research suggests that this is where marketing efforts should be directed.
”Coaches are just a tool for what we actually deliver,” Andy says. “We are providing leisure, we are providing transport, be it for leisure purposes or for commuting. But the industry always says ‘we are in coaches’ and builds its image around coaches. Actually, we are in group travel; we are connecting people with different places and giving them a travel experience. You have to reach out and look at specific opportunities that may arise that present the industry in a particularly attractive light.”
Good basis for action?
Good basis for action?The consumer research stirred up conversation at the office of Johnsons Coach and Bus Travel at Henley-in-Arden.
While commending the findings, Commercial Director John Johnson (pictured, left) does criticise the pool of participants selected, suggesting that results were twisted by an overly broad age group of potential customers.
“A coach holiday in a traditional sense is very much aimed at seniors that are well over 65,” John argues. “In all honesty, most coach holiday customers are 75 plus – so the survey taking into account all age groups would naturally be skewed, and would naturally come up with a result of people not knowing about or wanting to take part in them.
“If McCarron Coates had surveyed over 75s throughout the UK, I think it would get a very different story. A coach holiday – very much like a cruise – is the last holiday that anybody can take before they are too old to take a holiday. We would all like younger customers, but the facts remain that most – and I’m talking traditional coach holidays here, of 6-9 days somewhere in the UK or overseas – are over 75 and can be up to 95. I think the research was over-critical in that respect.”
Some useful takeaways in coach consumer research
However, John did see good points in the research findings. That includes pointing out the necessity to celebrate and sell the advantage of coach travel more on social media, the web and in marketing. “We should be telling people why coach travel is attractive and not just presuming it,” he says. “We tend to advertise on the presumption that customers, whether they be younger or older, know of the benefits of coach travel. There are many. That was a good thing that the survey did – it made us realise we can’t presume all our customers know of the benefits of coach travel.”
Johnsons will be taking action to change its brochures and website to point out those benefits more clearly – particularly as an avenue for single travellers to make new friends, or as an environmentally conscious option over solo travel. But John acknowledges it is always a challenge to source new customers. “None of us are finding it easy to find new customers,” he says. “But of course, we should do, because all of us age year by year.
“Most of our customers don’t want to drive or can’t drive for various reasons. Trying to find those people – as they become too old for their own holidays or air travel – and getting them to turn to coach holidays is a challenge. We rely on a mix of online and offline marketing – we do spend a fair bit on our brochures, and we try to harvest email addresses to e-shot customers every other week to offer new products that might attract a new audience, through shows, day trips and weekends. The simple answer is you have to work hard at marketing.”
Kevin Mayne, Operations Director at Maynes of Buckie, also discussed the research in depth. He agrees with John, in the sense that coach operators tend to succeed in their own local region.
“I get what McCarron Coates was trying to do, but if you’re running your own company and have a firm grip on it, and steer it from the front line, you know what’s going on in the front line, too. You always must gauge your industry and your local customer base needs; it’s your company’s job to sell and promote itself well and to do it can be cheap if you find the cost-based tools out there.”
Equally, Kevin confesses that the industry doesn’t sell itself too well. That, he argues, changed with the advent of COVID-19: “We didn’t have a clear strategy, and I feel we have slipped a bit backwards on that ‘coaching together’ message, as we have all gone back to being busy again.
“But we must not forget that, if we want to get a future for our industry, we need a clear strategy, a clearer message, and a signpost to push that message across. I’m quite biased that with CPT Scotland we’re still working behind the scenes, with many avenues that will benefit our industry, and in doing so hopefully we can do this to help drive coaching forward and out of the pandemic.”
Download the McCarron Coates report here.
