Transport for London (TfL) is up for pitch in September. The transport company is reviewing its ad account after a three-year relationship with agency VCCP. You can keep up with upcoming pitches on Campaign every Thursday and stay tuned for our insights into the most recent pitches each week.
Transport for London lives by their strapline to “Keep London Moving”. The London Underground, or the tube as it’s better known, has over 11 lines covering 402km and serving 270 stations. The company claims to handle up to 5 million passenger journeys per day! (Source).
When you are working with millions of customers daily good customer experience becomes even more important to get right. We analysed over 61,000 mentions of TfL on social media this summer from the 1st June to present. The data was analysed for 24 emotions in our emotion AI platform Emotics.
The Adorescore metric is used to assess the emotional intensity of the data on a scale of -100 to 100. The higher the score the more positive the conversation.
Three Insights
- Rude Drivers: -40 Adorescore
- Concerns about air pollution: -45 Adorescore
- Lack of air conditioning: -34 Adorescore
Rude Drivers
Driving 23% more disgust and 33% more anger than general mentions
An easy way to drive negative customer experience is to have rude staff. Throughout the data, drivers were one of the biggest sources of complaints with TfL customers displaying high levels of sadness, grief and disgust— but getting a good, friendly driver can drive trust and also be the highlight of a trip.
“@EllieMellie1 @hiltonholloway @KatiePennick @TfL Do you have a link to where they state this? Be good to have when this happens next. Recently my partner had to step in for a ♿ user as the bus driver claimed they no longer had priority, it was only being able to show the relevant page on the TfL website that resolved things”
“@TfL @TfLTrafficNews @TfLBusAlerts @TfLRail Service today is a JOKE bus driver on 113 towards oxford circus trying to get in a fight with a passenger, literally 100 people on a bus trying to get to work and man can’t get over his ego”
Concerns about air pollution
Driving 51% more disgust than general mentions
Concerns about environmental issues are becoming more and more prevalent amongst customers and with rising numbers of ‘keep cups’ and culling of plastic straws, TfL isn’t getting off lightly. Many people who reference TfL are concerned about air pollution, they express disgust about air quality in London, and are passionate about reducing pollution.
“Just noticed our driver of the Bakerloo line tube is (sensibly) wearing a full-on face mask – clearly he is worried about the high levels of pollution he is exposed to. Should we be too @TFL? #pollutionontheunderground”
“@TfL @SadiqKhan Whatever is being done is no way near enough. For one of the world’s great cities, we shouldn’t have to put up with these shocking levels of pollution, in 2019.”
Heat on trains/ Lack of air conditioning
Driving 18% more anger than general TfL mentions
Given the latest slew of heatwaves in London this summer, air conditioning was on the minds of many in the last few months. When TfL get it right they are praised, with ecstasy being expressed, but then they get it wrong, the complaints flood in.
“What have I got to do to get air conditioning on the Victoria line?? Have a near-death experience??? @TfL”
“@TfL #AskTube Central line trains are terribly boiling hot. Any plan to install air conditioning soon?”
“The Overground is the QUEEN of air conditioning – @TfL I love you”
If you’re looking for inspiration, here are the brands that feature in Campaign’s Pitch Update from Thursday: Beiersdorf, Lucozade, TfL, TSB, Tommy Hilfiger, P&O Cruises. Keep posted for our next update and drop us a message if you’d like some insight here.
