East Midlands Trains, part of the Stagecoach Group, has demonstrated its continued commitment to improving the service offered to its passengers by becoming the first train company in the UK to offer a 24-hour, 7 day a week point of contact for its customers within its control centre.

From today (26 March 2014) the new customer contact team, based within the East Midlands Trains operational control centre in Derby, will be on hand 24-hours a day, 7 days a week, to book passenger assistance, answer help-point calls, help to track lost property and deal with any urgent customer queries. The team will also be available to respond to customer queries coming via social media 24-hours a day.

Jayne Moyses, Head of Sales & Customer Relations for East Midlands Trains, said: “We are very pleased to have become the first train operator in the country to be providing a local point of contact for our customers for 24-hours a day, 7 days a week. Our new customer contact team are based within the operational control centre in Derby, which we share with Network Rail, meaning that our team have first-hand information to pass directly to our customers at any time of the day or night.

“This is a clear demonstration of our commitment to providing the best possible service to our customers. We know that many of our customers work around the clock and want to be able to speak to somebody when it’s convenient for them. For the first time ever, our new team will be able to provide a point of contact for these customers regardless of the time of day or night, and being Derby-based, our team will have all the latest information on our services and network at their finger tips.”

Linda McCord, Passenger Focus senior passenger manager, said: “Passengers travelling on East Midlands Trains will welcome the launch of this service. We hope East Midlands Trains’ approach to providing round the clock access to its customer service staff catches on with other train companies.”

East Midlands Trains’ Customer Service Centre Team, also based in Derby, will continue to be the main point of contact for any general customer enquiries, comments/complaints, assisted travel bookings, lost property and group travel bookings between 08:00 and 19:00 Monday to Friday. Outside of these hours, the new customer contact control team will now be available to deal with any customer queries.