Go North East thanks customers for patience after colleagues pull out all the stops during snow disruption

The North East’s largest bus company, Go North East, has thanked customers and colleagues for their patience and efforts during yesterday’s disruption that was caused by heavy snowfall and poor road conditions.

Many roads across the region were obstructed, blocked or closed but despite the weather conditions, Go North East drivers and support teams managed to pull out all the stops with most services running throughout the day, even during the morning disruption.

This helped get people to work, healthcare, education and more across the bus operator’s large operating area which covers a mix of urban and rural communities across Tyne and Wear, Northumberland, County Durham and into the Tees Valley.

Praise has flowed in across Go North East’s social media channels after the efforts of the driving team, which were complemented by the company’s customer services team and service delivery centre working together to provide real-time updates and deal with customer queries.

Go North East received up to 600 social media messages per hour and almost 70,000 website visits, which contributed to a 300% spike in web traffic and reaching well over 100,000 people across Facebook and Twitter. The company’s customer service team also managed to deal with 500 phone calls.

One customer, on the company’s Facebook page, said: “Well done to you all, including bus drivers, engineers, customer services and depot managers, who have kept all the buses running and informed us of everything that’s happening.”

Martijn Gilbert, managing director at Go North East, added: “Our hardworking teams came together to do all they could to provide our customers with a service, despite the treacherous conditions.

“We’d like to say a huge thank you to our customers for their patience during the day – we honestly can’t thank them enough for their perseverance and understanding.

“I’d also like to thank our drivers and support teams, who showed an enormous amount of professionalism, compassion and determination with some journeys in some areas taking up to 3 hours. I’m incredibly grateful and proud of everyone’s efforts.”

To find out more about Go North East, visit www.gonortheast.co.uk.