Virgin Trains East Coast franchise to end 24 June 2018 and is temporarily re-nationalised

[Bletchleyite]

Yes- and VTEC did absolutely nothing.

Had I had the energy i'd have likely pursued it further.

Sounds just like my reports on the misuse of coach K (unofficial messroom) on VTWC. There's something institutionally rotten in the management of both VTs, and the staff know it.

They allegedly have now fixed it, with the first row of seats actually reserved for staff, but I'm betting they still try to push people out of K entirely on quiet trains.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Do we know that for sure though? If it was simply the bidding team the DFT should have picked up on it. Could it not have been poor management of the franchise meaning things have deteriorated as some posters are describing here and reputation and volume of custom has suffered compared to what was envisaged?

It has to be said that nobody comes out of this saga smelling of roses!

 

[FQTV]

So the dire overpricing, embarrassing marketing, skinflint loyalty scheme, useless website, offensive social media, the decimation of at seat service in both classes, the painful and out of place 'glorious' and 'awesome' schtick, tacky crumb infested First Class lounges, the James Martin sausage roll that caused my stomach to demand four Rennies an hour afterwards, and Seatfrog, were all the fault of the bidding team?

I'm (mainly) joking obviously but in my view the quicker this bunch of charlatans get moved on the better.

As someone who deals with them on a daily basis, I just want them gone.

It's not that I'm completely of the opinion that such a critical part of North East business life *must* be stably and sustainably operated by the state; I'm even of the opinion that now could be the time to offer open access operators the chance to take on more new feeds into the ECML.

Maybe too, to reduce First Class to two coaches and for one coach to be managed weekdays on a private Pullman-style contract.

But the volume market of linking the capital with the regions is a serious undertaking; providing a non-road route to major tourist centres is a multi-lingual opportunity; and acknowledging the willingness of highly-paid business people to pay for a service which allows them to be productive, or even to eat properly so that their office and home time is just that, is a complex concept that no-one since BR and GNER seems to have 'got'.

And no-one has so spectacularly failed to 'get' that more than Virgin Trains East Coast.

My personal frustration is that every other Virgin-branded operation, from express to red to Atlantic to cola to brides to parties to media to experiences to America has shown exactly, for those who care to look, what low-value opportunism is their stock in trade.

My railway is just too important to me to be run by people who are happy to be veneered by Virgin.

 

[Bletchleyite]

My railway is just too important to me to be run by people who are happy to be veneered by Virgin.

And yet VTWC, which is majority Virgin and not just "veneered" by them, seems to be notably better.

Why, I wonder? Is it Stagecoach bus-banditry sneaking through? (From what I see VTEC is on a par with the slightly mediocre EMT?)

 

[FQTV]

And yet VTWC, which is majority Virgin and not just "veneered" by them, seems to be notably better.

Why, I wonder? Is it Stagecoach bus-banditry sneaking through? (From what I see VTEC is on a par with the slightly mediocre EMT?)

The first thing to do, I think, is to identify anything operationally tangible that's common to Virgin Trains East Coast, and Virgin Trains West Coast.

It's likely that there'll be about as much that's operationally common to Atlantic, Galactic, Money, Media, Health, express, little red, cola, brides, parties, experiences, America, Australia etc., etc.

 

[NorthernSpirit]

As somone who is centre to right of centre, in my opinion the ECML franchise should have never been re-let in the first place. It should have been left to Directly Operated Railways to run the excellent East Coast, despite it being basic it was a damn sight better than what we have now with VTEC and their quite naff over-the-top marketing.

Should East Coast return to public ownership again, it should be kept in public ownership as it really does give competition on the ECML. Passengers will then have the choice of travelling with either the publicly owned East Coast, the privately owned Grand Central or the privately owned Hull Trains - either way the Treasury will be raking it in which the capital earned can be spent on the electrification projects that are either "paused" or are late running.

Is the livery just vinyl? If so tear it off and re-reveal East Coast - Its business as usual, its your (for the second time) East Coast.

 

[philthetube]

Not the senior management that made the mistakes, it was the bidding team.

And who employs the bidding team?

 

[Chrism20]

Do we know that for sure though? If it was simply the bidding team the DFT should have picked up on it. Could it not have been poor management of the franchise meaning things have deteriorated as some posters are describing here and reputation and volume of custom has suffered compared to what was envisaged?

It’s been a combination of everything rather than the bidding team or the senior management imo.

David Horne was the bid director for the EMT & SWT bids - both of which they won and he was the MD at EMT before VTEC. Whilst EMT is not as high profile as VTEC his tenure was far from disastrous and he had previous experience with VTWC so was not a stranger to the Virgin brand.

Perhaps if he had been involved in the bidding things may have been a bit different who knows. He’s obviously looked at it when he’s been offered the job and thought it was doable and up until early 2017 it looked like it was or wasn’t going to be a million miles off.

Once it started to go seriously off track the cost cutting has started in earnest and things deteriorated quickly.

There are things within the management control though and there are a few that are glaringly obvious....

Having a troll through linked in shows that there is layers and layers and layers of management positions within VTEC. Many more layers than I have seen in a long time which leads me to question whether or not the business is efficient and wasting cash unnecessarily. There seems to have been more emphasis on saving money on the stuff that makes money than trimming the fat.

Marketing - there was a lot of fanfare about the huge budget there was for marketing. It must have been obvious at some point that it wasn’t having awesome results and they should have changed course. Decisive action should have been taken there.

To say E-Commerce has been poor is an understatement. A website and an app that has been disastrous coupled with a complete failure to acknowledge that it wasn’t working properly. Again decisive action should have been taken when it started to go wrong instead they plodded on letting it get worse.

Those are just a couple of the glaringly obvious things. I have no experience in railway management but have fifteen years experience in management and almost ten in HR Management and to me the management structure at this company is obese.

 

[47271]

For all we know they were restructuring management to save costs at around the same time as crewing and on train maintenance started to go to pot around a year ago. The failure to address the new website's issues could be consistent with them turning off the taps on the developers to save money. Thankfully we don't know, because for us to know we'd have to be in the middle of the mess.

To be positive for a moment, I'd like to pay tribute to the front line staff as this drama has unfolded. I think they've been doing extremely well in the circumstances, and I hope that everyone on this thread can agree with me on that?

 

[SaveECRewards]

It’s been a combination of everything rather than the bidding team or the senior management imo.

David Horne was the bid director for the EMT & SWT bids - both of which they won and he was the MD at EMT before VTEC. Whilst EMT is not as high profile as VTEC his tenure was far from disastrous and he had previous experience with VTWC so was not a stranger to the Virgin brand.

I wasn't aware that David Horne had previous experience on VTWC, I knew he had lots of experience but never knew his history prior to EMT. What did he do on the west coast?

EMT made some weird decisions which no one would tolerate on east coast. One being the closure of the buffet (even though the trains still had one taking up space) on weekdays and on the weekend when it's open it's not using its full potential (just a parking bay for the static trolley).

EMT is well run but I'd consider it a no frills franchise. Perhaps we were spoilt by GNER but we expect more on the east coast.

I remember when NXEC took over the east coast I came into the office and someone there who used MML frequently was complaining that National Express did a much better job than Stagecoach (proper buffet with free tea and coffee). He was complaining about NX losing their franchise and I was complaining about them gaining the ECML franchise. I think most would say that MML did a better job on the InterCity services but EMT also has a huge regional network to deal with.

Perhaps if he had been involved in the bidding things may have been a bit different who knows. He’s obviously looked at it when he’s been offered the job and thought it was doable and up until early 2017 it looked like it was or wasn’t going to be a million miles off.

Once it started to go seriously off track the cost cutting has started in earnest and things deteriorated quickly.

There are things within the management control though and there are a few that are glaringly obvious....

Having a troll through linked in shows that there is layers and layers and layers of management positions within VTEC. Many more layers than I have seen in a long time which leads me to question whether or not the business is efficient and wasting cash unnecessarily. There seems to have been more emphasis on saving money on the stuff that makes money than trimming the fat.

Layers of management at VTEC are ridiculous and I've seen no evidence there's been any trimming back here.

I'll give an example. Despite outsourcing their 'loyalty' scheme to Nectar they still have a full time loyalty manager. The previous loyalty manager came from the East Coast time so had experience of a better loyalty scheme but she left to join Visit York at the end of 2016, so her job was advertised. I actually applied for the job, I'd rather VTEC had succeeded than failed and had some ideas on how to improve the loyalty offering even if we weren't allowed to make dramatic changes.

As you guessed I didn't get the loyalty manager job, someone else did and nothing has changed on that front. Surprisingly a few months later the recruitment site was looking for a 'loyalty assistant' so the loyalty manager that appears to do nothing important now has an assistant to help with the workload.

The reporting line for the loyalty manager is to report to the marketing manager who then reports to the sales and marketing director who reports to David Horne. Despite marketing being done jointly with VTWC since the 'Bound for Glory' campaign both franchises still have a full marketing team.

Marketing - there was a lot of fanfare about the huge budget there was for marketing. It must have been obvious at some point that it wasn’t having awesome results and they should have changed course. Decisive action should have been taken there.

The sales and marketing director has always been open to meetings with us (presumably because loyalty comes under his remit when you did a few levels down) and so he always claims the marketing has been a massive success. I did think Bound for Glory was good, the SHOUTY ADS before that (the only ad campaign done before VTEC and VTWC started joint promotion) were awful and I think the current campaign is just irritating. Remember the current campaign started as Spandau v Speedcore (where Virgin Trains were the relaxing Spandau Ballet and flying/driving were the chaotic speedcore), but then they probably realised that associating your rival modes of transport with speed was a bad idea so it relaunched as Spandau v Thrash Metal.

To say E-Commerce has been poor is an understatement. A website and an app that has been disastrous coupled with a complete failure to acknowledge that it wasn’t working properly. Again decisive action should have been taken when it started to go wrong instead they plodded on letting it get worse.

Those who follow me will know I never shut up about the website, I knew it wasn't ready to launch and had predicted major issues if they had went live when it wasn't ready. In my last meeting with VTECs sales and marketing director I was told I should lay off the head of eCommerce as these failures weren't her fault but the project was led by Stagecoach and VTEC only had limited input on it.

This raises the question what is the role of head of eCommerce for if they can't direct the eCommerce strategy, more layers of needless management it seems!

Those are just a couple of the glaringly obvious things. I have no experience in railway management but have fifteen years experience in management and almost ten in HR Management and to me the management structure at this company is obese.

Those I've spoke to on the front line agree. A former station worker at Kings Cross that I met recently said even at the station level the layers of management became over the top. These management had no hesitation cutting the budget for the first class lounge.

For all we know they were restructuring management to save costs at around the same time as crewing and on train maintenance started to go to pot around a year ago. The failure to address the new website's issues could be consistent with them turning off the taps on the developers to save money. Thankfully we don't know, because for us to know we'd have to be in the middle of the mess.

To be positive for a moment, I'd like to pay tribute to the front line staff as this drama has unfolded. I think they've been doing extremely well in the circumstances, and I hope that everyone on this thread can agree with me on that?

I would have loved to be in the middle of the mess. East Coast is something that I care about. I work on many IT projects on things I don't care about but do my part to deliver a quality product. I would have worked extra hard to turn around the VTEC DICE project (this was the name of the project to deliver new ticket machines, website, app and DORIS the new ticket app for the guards). I think the website was specced poorly, perhaps whoever drew up the specs looked at thetrainline and didn't look at WebTIS as the things the site lacks seem to be things thetrainline lacks such as cycle reservations and an easy way to modify tickets that WebTIS had since 2007. VTEC needed to hire someone who was willing to speak out when they saw failure approaching, instead they seem to have hired a bunch of yes men and women!

The front line staff are indeed excellent. Many have had to suffer NXEC too (and some say Virgin are worse than NXEC as the staff also get these patronising 'everything is awesome' briefings but NXEC were more honest that they were cutting costs). Most of the excellent on-board teams want a change, they have lost all faith in the current management. It's a shame as there's definitely good people in there but collectively they've failed.

 

[sleepy_hollow]

EC is presumably one of the routes where a service, not necessarily the current service, could be run at a profit, including infrastructure costs, without government subsidy. Infrastructure costs are supposedly covered by track access charges, with the premium a bonus for the government, or a resumption of the cross-subsidy concept supposedly abandoned in the 1960s. This and the previous EC franchise have both failed because the premium required by the government is higher than the profits being made. This suggests that the problems would never have occurred if the line had never been nationalised.


Since most people in the UK do not use trains very much it is not too surprising that they support squeezing them for every penny for the treasury, but it is not clear why anyone claiming to represent travellers should be keen on the idea.

 

[158756]

As somone who is centre to right of centre, in my opinion the ECML franchise should have never been re-let in the first place. It should have been left to Directly Operated Railways to run the excellent East Coast, despite it being basic it was a damn sight better than what we have now with VTEC and their quite naff over-the-top marketing.

Should East Coast return to public ownership again, it should be kept in public ownership as it really does give competition on the ECML. Passengers will then have the choice of travelling with either the publicly owned East Coast, the privately owned Grand Central or the privately owned Hull Trains - either way the Treasury will be raking it in which the capital earned can be spent on the electrification projects that are either "paused" or are late running.

Is the livery just vinyl? If so tear it off and re-reveal East Coast - Its business as usual, its your (for the second time) East Coast.

The Treasury is raking it in anyway - more so from VTEC than East Coast. It's also a fairly safe bet that the consultants behind DOR will be taking their cut, unlike Stagecoach recently. Competition between public and private operators isn't any better for the customer than multiple private operators - and that's assuming the state operator actually has any interest in competition, knowing everyone will be paid anyway.

I'd quite happily be rid of Virgin's marketing **** though, to a lesser extent on the WCML as well. They run a public transport service - yes it needs a bit of a push to get people out of their cars, but Virgin take it too far, with too much focus on the brand rather than the service, and why do we need to 'Arrive Awesome'?

 

[SaveECRewards]

The Treasury is raking it in anyway - more so from VTEC than East Coast. It's also a fairly safe bet that the consultants behind DOR will be taking their cut, unlike Stagecoach recently. Competition between public and private operators isn't any better for the customer than multiple private operators - and that's assuming the state operator actually has any interest in competition, knowing everyone will be paid anyway.

I'd quite happily be rid of Virgin's marketing **** though, to a lesser extent on the WCML as well. They run a public transport service - yes it needs a bit of a push to get people out of their cars, but Virgin take it too far, with too much focus on the brand rather than the service, and why do we need to 'Arrive Awesome'?

I think most people would say overall things were better with East Coast. That may or may not be because it was publicly owned. Personally I think the pre-2005 GNER was the best operator of the ECML but East Cost were good in their own way.

 

[pt_mad]

As somone who is centre to right of centre, in my opinion the ECML franchise should have never been re-let in the first place. It should have been left to Directly Operated Railways to run the excellent East Coast, despite it being basic it was a damn sight better than what we have now with VTEC and their quite naff over-the-top marketing.

Should East Coast return to public ownership again, it should be kept in public ownership as it really does give competition on the ECML. Passengers will then have the choice of travelling with either the publicly owned East Coast, the privately owned Grand Central or the privately owned Hull Trains - either way the Treasury will be raking it in which the capital earned can be spent on the electrification projects that are either "paused" or are late running.

Is the livery just vinyl? If so tear it off and re-reveal East Coast - Its business as usual, its your (for the second time) East Coast.

So what are the common themes on this thread?

Seems that nobody has actually stood up for VTs marketing at all. Mass criticism of arrive awesome and associated themes. So the image Stagecoach wanted and probably brought VT on board for has been a waste. Virgin obviously believe in this brand, but it appears near enough everyone who was wrote on the brand on this thread has said it's too much and isn't right.
Not sure Virgin would even know how to change direction with their brand?
There was a news story about a wild rowdy Hen party being asked to leave an airline, and then Virgin came out and said they'd gladly take loud parties and welcome them openly. And I think the airline even invited said group to a holiday in America complementary and it made the news. And yet large rowdy groups can often be the ones on (trains) to be anti social, disruptive, drink, messy, rude to staff, swearing loudly etc, being a problem to other passengers and staff, so it's a questionable image, calling for these types of customers to come in mass onto your transport products. Especially when it's the staff who have to deal with any repercussions.

Also we see that many feel service levels, changes to onboard staffing and catering have deteriorated, the service, and catering appears to be a lottery has several have put it. Yet we also see claims that management is vast with many layers. So it appears staffing has been thinned at lower levels, and ticket barriers removed, and yet this is the area which the public notices the most. And it has not gone un noticed, if VTEC thought it would.

Many posters are calling for a change, and probably state takeover of the operation. However, Chris Grayling is dead against nationalisation of any kind so this still seems unlikely at this point although a possible option. Notice he said operator of LAST resort. I.e. try everything else first.

If the state do take over this is gonna hit the fan big time in terms of bad publicity. Mentioned it to my mum the other day and she'd seen or heard nothing about it despite living in the area. However, if the franchise falls, Virgin is thrown out and the state brought in I think everyone will know about it. And it could blow up to the extent of the First group WCML saga in 2012 where the whole franchising system is questioned and all tendering goes on hold.

Also note that Chris Grayling is still calling for 'combining track and train' for the next East Coast franchise. Said it this week .Could be dangerous talk giving the track to a franchisee given what we've seen here and should it or will it actually happen? Perhaps the East Coast Partnership should now be put on hold pending an investigation. After all the national audit office is investigating the way the DFT handled the renegotiation of terms and early ending of the franchise in 2020 which was agreed late last year.

 

[Marklund]

Seems that nobody has actually stood up for VTs marketing at all. Mass criticism of arrive awesome and associated themes. So the image Stagecoach wanted and probably brought VT on board for has been a waste. Virgin obviously believe in this brand, but it appears near enough everyone who was wrote on the brand on this thread has said it's too much and isn't right.
Not sure Virgin would even know how to change direction with their brand?

You can't compare here, with the general population.

 

[backontrack]

I noticed that too. Interesting, I have to say.

Typical beardy. Would normally go to the opening of an envelope, but when the ordure hits the air-blower...

Indeed. This fiasco increasingly feels like an episode of The Thick of It.

 

[pt_mad]

You can't compare here, with the general population.

Didn't say anyone was. Said the themes from this thread are...

But I think if staffing is cut from customer facing roles, rather than say somewhere else, it will be more likely to be noticed by customers.

Take away the ticket barriers at Newark and it's noticed by every regular fairly quickly. They will also notice theres less staff at the station. Take away Joe (example) the Nectar rewards marketing manager and I don't think they would so much.

 

[Marklund]

Didn't say anyone was. Said the themes from this thread are...

No you didn't, but did follow up with "Not sure Virgin would even know how to change direction with their brand?"
Why would Virgin change direction with the brand just because a bunch of spotters don't like it?

 

[61653 HTAFC]

The Treasury is raking it in anyway - more so from VTEC than East Coast. It's also a fairly safe bet that the consultants behind DOR will be taking their cut, unlike Stagecoach recently. Competition between public and private operators isn't any better for the customer than multiple private operators - and that's assuming the state operator actually has any interest in competition, knowing everyone will be paid anyway.

I'd quite happily be rid of Virgin's marketing **** though, to a lesser extent on the WCML as well. They run a public transport service - yes it needs a bit of a push to get people out of their cars, but Virgin take it too far, with too much focus on the brand rather than the service, and why do we need to 'Arrive Awesome'?

It isn't just the cringey slogans that grate (though they do), it's the sheer volume (as in quantity) of advertising around stations and even on trains: if I'm already on the service, I don't need or want to see posters in every vestibule. I especially don't need or want to be advertised at while I'm using the toilet, and surely you shouldn't be working in PR if you think that's a good idea. Again, less really is more.

 

[jyte]

Idk if anyone cares but I'm young (but old enough to be grumpy) and I find Virgin's (especially twitter) continuous use of memes, gifs and god awful slogans in an attempt to seem 'hip' and 'cool' the worst example of the Fellow Kids Problem.

You're overcharging me for a seat on a train, you're not delivering a life-changing experience. If you want to deliver a life-changing experience run your services properly for a change.

 

[pt_mad]

No you didn't, but did follow up with "Not sure Virgin would even know how to change direction with their brand?"
Why would Virgin change direction with the brand just because a bunch of spotters don't like it?

Fair point. But are you a spotter as you are here too? Some users are members of staff.

Can we take a guess then that the majority of the public/customers are impressed by arrive awesome etc? And thus no need for a change in direction? If so why couldn't they generate the projected revenue that they said they would?

 

[Bletchleyite]

It isn't just the cringey slogans that grate (though they do), it's the sheer volume (as in quantity) of advertising around stations and even on trains: if I'm already on the service, I don't need or want to see posters in every vestibule. I especially don't need or want to be advertised at while I'm using the toilet, and surely you shouldn't be working in PR if you think that's a good idea. Again, less really is more.

I don't mind the brash and bold Virgin approach - I like the bold interior schemes, I like the radio-presenter-style "banter" between the male and female autoannouncer on VTWC, but the immaturity with regard to the toilets really does grate somewhat. They might as well just play Monty Python's Flying Circus[1] on screens through the train and be done with it.

And none of that is an excuse for poor operations or not treating/managing staff properly.

[1] Did somebody say Semprini? Now now, stop that, it's filthy!
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=semprini

 

[Tetchytyke]

Why would Virgin change direction with the brand just because a bunch of spotters don't like it?

If a marketing strategy sees you lose custom and end up nursing an (alleged) £200m loss, perhaps it isn't working?

Virgin's brand is largely toxic in the UK. Suing the NHS has that effect. But look at Virgin Media, another company largely loathed for ripping customers off and treating them like vermin when they want to leave. John Bull, one of the men behind London Reconnections, proved how bad THEY are when he live-blogged his six-hour battle to cancel his contract last year. Virgin Active have a similar reputation.

Other than Virgin Atlantic, is there a Virgin company that has a good reputation? I'd have previously included Virgin Holidays, but they're not what they were and even Kuoni seem to beat them on price these days.

 

[Marklund]

Fair point. But are you a spotter as you are here too? Some users are members of staff.

No, not a spotter, just a grizzled railwayman.

Can we take a guess then that the majority of the public/customers are impressed by arrive awesome etc? And thus no need for a change in direction? If so why couldn't they generate the projected revenue that they said they would?

The Virgin brand still seems to have some value to others, the results of the 2017 Brand Finance show an increase for Virgin Media.
Whether the arrive awesome etc, impresses, you've have to commission a report to see. Basing it purely on comments here does not give a true reflection of the general population.

Arrive Awesome is not the reason for the massive failings in projected revenue. It may (or may not) have a small part in it, but there are other major reasons, other than the cheeky Virgin style.

 

[47271]

All sorts of people use this forum. You might be a spotter, I'm just an ultra frequent user of the railway who has an interest in how it works.

Anyway, we shouldn't confuse a bad reaction to Virgin's marketing generally to being irritated by how VTEC overdid it. As I said in an earlier post it's almost like the brand was given to a bunch of sixth formers as a school project and they tried to make it more so, but they were sadly clueless.

For the most part I don't have a problem with the awesomes on the West Coast because the approach is largely proportionate to the service being delivered.

For example, when VTEC launched their useless new website they insisted on greeting my purchase with a 'Wahey!' at the heading of the confirmation email. No it isn't wahey, all I've done is bought a Standard Class Advance between Edinburgh and Newcastle. When I book on the West Coast site they greet me with a 'Hello'.

I don't know whether they still wahey us in a confirmation, it's so long since I bought a ticket off VTEC...

 

[Marklund]

But look at Virgin Media, another company largely loathed for ripping customers off and treating them like vermin when they want to leave.

I was surprised at the Brand Value report that showed an increase for VM, but there you go.
You don't like them, I don't like them, but some people seemingly do.

 

[SaveECRewards]

No you didn't, but did follow up with "Not sure Virgin would even know how to change direction with their brand?"
Why would Virgin change direction with the brand just because a bunch of spotters don't like it?

It's not the "bunch of spotters" they need to be worried about. A lot of people in the past had considered Virgin had brand value but they've devalued this by going into less glamorous industries that weren't known for the best customer services (e.g. Virgin Media which was originally two companies nicknames Teleworst and NThell due to their reputation for poor service). If VTEC had used the Virgin brand, delivered quality and didn't go overboard with trying to be in your face I'm sure most people would be happy with the VTEC brand.

I mentioned earlier my Twitter poll for the best private ICEC operator GNER is still winning by a landslide (96%) VTEC and NXEC currently joint 2nd (or last) on 2% with 10511 votes
https://twitter.com/SaveECRewards/status/961669119648116736

But go back to 2016, I ran a poll on the website. The results are here. Basically 84% were relatively positive about VTEC, only 16% described VTEC as rubbish. The most popular answer was "Love VTEC, hate Nectar" at 43%.

So there was a large number of people who follow Save East Coast Rewards that thought very positively of VTEC back in 2016 but now are disappointed.

Some other polls show satisfaction dropping recently:
Dec 2017 "@Virgin_TrainsEC pre-departure emails have won gold in a recent direct marketing awards. But what do you think of them?" 72% said too frequent and annoying
Jan 2018 "Overall do you consider @Virgin_TrainsEC a positive influence on the East Coast Mainline?" 58% said no, generally worse,

Fair point. But are you a spotter as you are here too? Some users are members of staff.

Can we take a guess then that the majority of the public/customers are impressed by arrive awesome etc? And thus no need for a change in direction? If so why couldn't they generate the projected revenue that they said they would?

I can imagine it's a bit like marmite - some people will love the Virgin way and others will despise it. If you tone it down a bit you'll still keep those happy that like that approach without annoying the others too badly. Different Virgin branded companies seem to do things better. I'm a member of Virgin Active and I don't think they overdo the branding in the gyms - obviously it's there but it's not annoying. I used Virgin Media when I lived in a cabled area and although their customer service was awful I wasn't bombarded with annoying emails with 'wahey' and other cringeworthy nonsense. VTEC were doing mostly fine until 2017 when declines in service seemed to be matched with the increase in annoying emails.

If we got back the VTEC of 2016 I could live with that!

 

[pt_mad]

Also the image of arrive awesome and ''' bound for glory' might have been mildly in fashion five or so years ago when attitudes were more impressed of the rich. I.e. there were a lot of TV programs about high celebrity lifestyles, cribs, high faluting property programs and the rich were admitted and aspired to more.

However, lately attitudes seem to be more anti rich wealthy powerful and anti anything large powerful corporate possibly tax dodging so big businesses don't seem as respected as they were ten years ago.

Wanting to be rich, feeling successful,bound for glory kind of thing seems less in fashion due to it being so hard to get on especially for under 35s so making do with what you have and enjoying it is more fashion now imo.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Whilst EMT is not as high profile as VTEC his tenure was far from disastrous

I think a lot of the changes made at EMT only went through without a whimper because they are more under the radar. Shutting the buffet cars (but still having the space, just not using it) was a very odd decision and one that wouldn't fly on VTEC or VTWC. The cuts to staffing, especially in first class, similarly.

EMT are a low-thrills franchise. You can get away with it when your main flow is to a city barely an hour away from London. Obviously Horne tried to repeat the trick at VTEC. Seatfrog shows they've clearly trashed their first class market.

 

[SaveECRewards]

Also the image of arrive awesome and ''' bound for glory' might have been mildly in fashion five or so years ago when attitudes were more impressed of the rich. I.e. there were a lot of TV programs about high celebrity lifestyles, cribs, high faluting property programs and the rich were admitted and aspired to more.

However, lately attitudes seem to be more anti rich wealthy powerful and anti anything large powerful corporate possibly tax dodging so big businesses don't seem as respected as they were ten years ago.

Wanting to be rich, feeling successful,bound for glory kind of thing seems less in fashion due to it being so hard to get on especially for under 35s so making do with what you have and enjoying it is more fashion now imo.

Worth mentioning "Arrive Awesome" was never a VTEC slogan, it was started by Virgin Trains before VTEC started their franchise and ran as the VTWC slogan until their first joint project "Bound for Glory" was launched.

I actually liked Bound for Glory, although East Coast's "Feel at Home" I thought hit the mark the best.

But although I was a fan of Bound for Glory, in traditional VTEC style in 2017 they launched a new ad campaign which was totally irritating. Spandau v SpeedcoreThrash Metal

Here's a summary of ECML ad campaigns over the last few years.