Tone of voice for East Midlands Trains
We helped East Midlands Trains become more approachable to their customers.
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East Midlands Trains (EMT) was the biggest transport provider in the Midlands between 2007 and 2019, providing transport services across the East Midlands and parts of Yorkshire into London.
The company first approached us in 2016 as it was going through a rebranding process and the marketing team wanted help creating a new tone of voice for the company.
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We worked closely with the team to develop a cohesive brand personality that represented the company's values and aligned with the new branding.
EMT wanted a voice that was friendly and fun, but also trustworthy. To capture these qualities we created a sliding scale of 3 voices - the ‘hey’, ‘hi’ and ‘hello’ tones - which could be used for different types of communication and different mediums.
We produced a tone of voice document that explained the need for a consistent brand voice, the rationale behind the 3 tones and gave clear examples of how and when to use each one.
To help the company understand and implement the new voices we created a series of best practice templates for each medium - website, emails, social media posts, posters, flyers and radio scripts - and provided training on how to write to the brand tone of voice and style.
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The new tone of voice was widely embraced by staff with positive feedback that it was much more genuine, human, warm and friendly than the previous cold and corporate version.
It also went down well with the public. In research carried out by EMT, 89% of their customers reported a positive response to their new style of communication. They even went on to win best train company awards, which was helped by the new approachable and user focused tone of voice.
The stats
tone of voice with 3 elements delivered
company-wide tone of voice training delivered
89% positive response from customers
spontaneous awareness rose from 27% to 62%
contributed to increase in ticket sales
CLIENT FEEDBACK
“Crocstar helped us by identifying what our tone of voice should be, and how that may differ depending on the situation. I was very impressed with how they nailed the brief first time and found the experience of working with them enjoyable, easy, and rewarding. It’s rare that an agency exceeds your expectations, especially high ones.”
Kate Squires, Head of Marketing, East Midlands Trains