Virgin Trains to increase Gosforth centre workforce by 50%

• Gosforth centre to increase workforce by 50%
• Virgin to visit up to 100 North East businesses from 6-10 February

LONDON, 2017-Feb-08 — /Travel PR News/ — Virgin Trains is to expand its customer call centre in Newcastle by 50%, just four months after it opened.

Up to 45 additional jobs will be based at its Customer Solutions Centre as it brings its web support team in-house as part of its drive to improve customer service.

Around 85 employees already work at the centre, which is within Virgin Money’s Headquarters, in Gosforth. They handle a range of customer inquiries, including bookings, special assistance, delay repay and customer feedback.

The Leader of Newcastle City Council, Councillor Nick Forbes, who opened the centre in September 2016, said: “I’m delighted to see Virgin Trains expanding in Newcastle, bringing more jobs to our city. It is a great reflection on the workforce here that a company such as Virgin sees Newcastle as a key part of its growth plans.

“It is great that staff who know and use the East Coast Main Line can continue to have a stake in its future, and contribute to our city’s success at the same time.”

Claire Ansley, General Manager for Virgin Trains on its east coast route, said: “We’re really pleased to expand the centre and bring around 45 more jobs to Newcastle. We’re recruiting now and see this move as very important to further improving our customers’ experience of booking and travelling with us, as well as continuing to support the city and wider regions’ economies.

“By bringing our web support team in-house, our employees can develop greater knowledge of the company and its digital channels and products. Their knowledge of the route is also very important and Newcastle is a great city in which to work and a key destination for our services.”

Jonathan Walker, Head of Policy and Campaigns at the North East England Chamber of Commerce, said: “This commitment by Virgin Trains is a huge vote of confidence in the North East as a centre of technical and customer service excellence. To increase the workforce by such an amount in such a short space of time shows how competitive our region is and what our workforce has to offer.”

Meanwhile, Virgin Trains will this week (6-10 February) visit dozens of North East businesses to promote its products and service improvements, including last month’s completion of a £21m refurbishment of the interiors of all 45 of its trains.

Claire Ansley said: “Our Virgin team will travel to dozens of businesses across the region this week. As well as talking to businesses about our service, we’ve got plenty of goodies to giveaway, competitions and a great travel offer – so feel free to drop us a line and we’ll drop by!”

For information about applying for a role within Virgin Trains on its east coast route, please visit the www.virgintrainseastcoast.com website.

To arrange for a visit from Virgin Trains during the company’s North East Blitz from 6-10 February, contact its Business Development Team via email at BDTeam@virgintrainseastcoast.com

About Virgin Trains:

Stagecoach and Virgin are working in partnership to operate the East Coast and West Coast inter-city routes under the Virgin Trains brand. Together, they are on track to revolutionise rail travel across the UK.

The combined network connects some of the nation’s most iconic destinations including Glasgow, Liverpool, Birmingham, Manchester, Edinburgh, Newcastle, Leeds, York and London.

Virgin Trains is committed to delivering a high speed, high frequency service, offering shorter journey times, more comfortable travel and excellent customer service. Customers consistently rate Virgin Trains as one of the top long-distance rail franchise operators in the National Rail Passenger Survey (NRPS) commissioned by industry watchdog, Transport Focus.

On the East Coast route, £140m is being invested to create a more personalised travel experience. We have already invested £21m to completely revamp our existing fleet and customers can now benefit from 42 additional services (22,000 extra seats) per week between Edinburgh and London. 2018 will see the introduction of completely new Azuma trains being built in the UK by Hitachi.

The West Coast route has a proud record of challenging the status quo – from introducing tilting Pendolino trains, to a pioneering automated delay repay scheme and becoming the first franchised rail operator to offer m-Tickets for all ticket types.

Visit the Virgin Trains Media Room – virgintrains.co.uk/about/media-room – for the latest news, images and videos. Subscribe here for regular news from Virgin Trains.

Press Contact:

Email: press.desk@virgintrains.co.uk
Tel: 0845 000 3333

Source: Virgin Trains

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