Welcome to Bluebird, a decades-old business that’s keen to evolve and keen to involve the next generation of staff and customers
“If we can’t do it right, we don’t want to do it.” That’s the ethos behind Bluebird Coaches of Weymouth, a small coach operator that’s right where it wants to be.
It’s a 90-year-old business that runs 18 coaches, with no intention of getting much bigger. It has been based in Chickerell Road for 60 years. And it has recently welcomed in the fourth generation of the Hoare family. But that’s not to say it doesn’t know how to move with the times: Evolution has been key to its success.
Started by Cecil Hoare in 1924, the firm is now run by his grandsons, brothers Steve and Martyn. It has developed a strong private hire business using well-chosen vehicles, and in more recent years, a coach holiday programme.
Personal touch
Martyn and Steve have a son and a daughter each; so far Martyn’s daughter Gemma is the only one to enter the business, which she did three years ago after working for 10 years at a boat building company.
Her experience is similar in a way to her father’s and uncle’s. Martyn and Steve both did apprenticeships at Bere Regis Coaches, to get experience elsewhere before joining the family business, which was run at the time by their father Trevor.
Nowadays, they’re joined in the office by Martyn’s wife Christine doing the wages, their aunt Maureen in accounts, and Steve’s wife Gillian also helping with IT work. Steve Ring, whom Martyn and Steve met at Bere Regis, has also worked at the firm for many years as Tours Manager – and he’s as good as family.
It’s very much a family firm, says Steve: “I hope we treat staff in the same way we treat each other. We certainly wouldn't ask anyone to do anything we wouldn't do ourselves.”
It’s an ethos that also extends to customers. The largest the firm has ever been was 22 vehicles, and it will probably never get bigger than that, for one reason: “Steve and I agree that if we were to go over 25, we probably wouldn't have the same control on it, and we wouldn't be able to give the same personal family touch we do now,” says Martyn.
Gemma’s joining of the business came about as Bluebird developed its tour programme: The business needed someone who could develop that, and also deal with quotes straight away.
“Having someone who deals with quotes immediately has got us more business,” says Martyn, and Steve adds: “People expect it to be instant– they don't want to wait. That's the society we live in now.”
Next generation
It’s just one example of how the business is moving with the times. It is targeting a younger generation of customers by offering them a different way to travel to things they want to see: It has sold Olly Murs and Robbie Williams gig tickets with coach travel to good effect, using social media.
“I put the Olly Murs tour on social media and the next morning we had about 50 notifications,” says Gemma. “90% of the bookings for that were made online, and most of those had seen it advertised on Facebook.
“They're our next generation of customers. It does make you think about the people we carry.”
It’s also targeting a younger generation of staff. Three new drivers have joined in the last year between the ages of 23 and 36: ‘Rough diamonds’ who had struggled to find employment and wanted to be coach drivers. “It’s quite a long, drawn-out process and we’ve had no help from the government,” says Steve. “They’ve done casual labour around the yard while we put them through their training. We’ve taken them on trust.
“But they bring a whole new dynamic to the driving workforce. It’s worked really well.”
There’s a risk involved in training up new drivers – but Bluebird has a very low turnover among its 30 staff, and Martyn and Steve put that down to treating staff how they would like to be treated. “It's the personal touch,” says Steve.
Standards advancing
Bluebird’s diet of 25% holidays, 60% private hire, and corporate contracts is bolstered by schools and rail replacement work – but it is not prepared to work cheaply, says Steve. “As the industry’s driving up standards, it should be driving up the money too, but that’s not always the case,” he says.
“The industry has changed – we do a lot more last minute work, like rail replacement, and we’ve got to be able to react,” says Martyn. “You have to react quicker these days with everything, so it’s no good being stuck in your old ways.”
The business has changed too: Technology has been embraced over the years, from new better-quality vehicles to on-board tracking.
“The minute you stop doing that, you start to fall behind,” says Steve. “We constantly re-assess what we’re doing.
“We’ve never been afraid of change.”
Its most recent change was gaining CoachMarque accreditation at the beginning of the year – one of few in the south west. With a 100% pass mark, the full audit means that there’s less work for schools that are thinking of using the company to do – and it has also won the company attention from schools that didn’t know it did private hire.
It has also done marketing around the accreditation: School-specific flyers that make the point that the school’s risk assessment is already done for them.
“It’s just a bit of effort,” says Steve. “The effort you put in, hopefully you'll get back out.”
The fleet
The fleet is 50/50 Volvo/DAF: Usually Volvo Jonckheeres are joined by DAF VDL Bovas.
Bluebird usually buys two new vehicles a year; it bought three in 2016, including an update to its smart dedicated touring coach.
“We have a very good relationship with Moseley in the South and very good relationship with Volvo in Coventry,” says Martyn. “We look at those two before anyone else.
“It’s easiest for us to minimise the number of bodies and chassis in the yard.
“And their re-sell values tend to be higher. If we buy something very different, we don’t get the same residual value five years down the line.”
The new coaches are to exec spec, with USB charging points, two monitors each, fridges, toilets, and Webasto heaters. Bluebird is also looking at installing telematics on the fleet in the near future. The touring coach has a forward-facing camera and other vehicles have rear cameras – as requested by the drivers.
There’s a theme here: Most improvements are brought about because either the staff or the customers have asked for them. The last touring coach had dark-tinted windows and a destination blind: Both have been omitted from the new coach because customer feedback was that they spoiled the view. “We take it all into account,” says Gemma.
‘Eye-opening’ support
Bluebird enjoys a very good relationship with local operators, and has recently made more of an effort to meet operators across the country, including attending CPT and CoachMarque meetings.
The strength of those relationships was proven in 2007, when a massive fire in the yard destroyed six or seven vehicles, including two that were brand new.
No one was hurt, and the garage itself was unaffected by the fire, but it was a massive blow nonetheless. Martyn lives opposite the depot, and Gemma lived with him at the time – to see the smoke and flames across the road was every operator’s nightmare.
However, thanks to quick action, including by other operators and by insurance broker Wrightsure, “there wasn’t as much disruption as you’d expect,” says Steve. “People were really helpful. It was a major inconvenience – but it could’ve been something that ended the company.”
“The number of operators ringing us up asking if we wanted to borrow a coach, and offering to cover work, was eye-opening,” adds Martyn. “It showed that the industry really does stick together.”