East Midlands Trains will be closing the doors of its Derby Headquarters for the day on Thursday 5 April, with all of the company’s head office managers and staff getting back to the floor and working at stations and on trains to help passengers with the Easter getaway.

The initiative, which has been named ‘Day of the Customer’, is designed to provide extra support to passengers travelling on Maundy Thursday which is traditionally one of the busiest travelling days of the year.

David Horne, Managing Director for East Midlands Trains, said: “We’really really looking forward to our first ‘Day of the Customer’ on Thursday. Since recently taking over as Managing Director, I’ve spent a lot of time working with our staff on the front-line to understand more about how we deliver the day-to-day service to our customers. It’s really important that we see and experience things as our customers and front-line staff see them and we have to get out of the office to get this experience.

“We’re constantly looking at ways to improve the way we communicate with our passengers, and in addition to the ‘Day of the Customer’, we’ve also launched initiatives to get more feedback from our passengers, such as ‘Tweet the Senior Manager’, which provided an opportunity for people to tweet us with questions or feedback.

“As well as helping passengers on one of the busiest days of the year, the ‘Day of the Customer’ will also provide an opportunity for our headoffice staff who don’t normally get a chance to experience the customer service side of the business and to help out for the day”.

In addition to helping customers with information at East Midlands Trains’ stations and on board trains, head office managers and staff working on ‘Day of the Customer’ will also be asking passengers to complete a short questionnaire on their travel experiences, and for ideas and suggestions of how the service could be improved further.