Omnibuses meets Phil Stockley

A graduate in transport management, Phil Stockley joined Southern Vectis in 1995 as a management trainee. Leaving in 1998 while traffic manager, Stockley moved to Stagecoach West, later West & Wales, as a director. Following a short stint at Stagecoach Devon, he moved back to Southern Vectis in 2004 to run Solent Blue Line and later under Go Ahead was responsible for operations at SBL & SVOC. Stockley left GSC in 2007 and after a short period running projects for First, set up Velvet, Eastleigh, in late 2007.

In Part One below, Phil looks at Velvet, customer focus, social media, Best Impressions, concessionary fares and artics. Later in the week, Phil talks candidly about Go South Coast… i Phil also has his own blog

OB: What have you learnt in your first year or so running your own business and what would you now do differently as a result?

PS: The learning curve is so steep it’s nearly vertical! The list of things I would do differently is way too long to repeat here, but I also think we got many more things right than wrong. We set up a functioning six-vehicle bus business from absolutely nothing in three months. At the time it seemed glacially slow but in hindsight it seems like warp speed! My advice to anyone contemplating the same would be to work out carefully how much cash you need, then double it; carefully work out how much time you need, then double it; be prepared for the fact that everyone apart from your closest friends will let you down somewhere along the way, but it is the most exciting journey you will ever take!

OB: What were your main challenges in setting up Velvet?

PS: Again the list is huge, but the sheer practical grind of raising cash, finding premises, getting an o-licence, finding vehicles and getting those vehicles on the road was far harder than we ever imagined. The main problem is that as a new company you struggle to get credit for anything, so things that more established operators take for granted become a huge challenge. One example—fuel: it took a while to persuade anyone to give us fuel cards, so for the first few months, we were having to meet every single bus that needed fuel and loading up our credit cards. We were maxing out our cards every few days so I was forever sending money to the credit card company! Things like that, you don’t even think of before you start—or if you do you have no idea how much of a chore they will be!

OB: Your customer focus is reported as excellent. Why do you think so many in the bus industry fall short of this ideal, at the last hurdle?

PS: I am delighted that we have this reputation, because it is customer service that caused us to start Velvet and it is customer service that makes me excited about coming to work every day. The problem is that many operators don’t even get near the final hurdle.

Along with all aspects of brand management, customer service is not a bolt-on extra, it has to be designed into the process from the very beginning, and it mostly revolves around the people you select to work for you and the way you harness their talents. Small teams, short rotas (ideally fixed duties), schedules that are realistic, ticket products that are easy to understand and sell—these are just a few examples of things that are pre-requisites in my view, not optional extras.

OB: The commercial world’s a harsh one and Velvet has seen a number of what appears as U-turns. Are these mistakes or do you feel that you need to take risks to succeed?

PS: Firstly, we are certainly not perfect and as I have hinted at already, if we had our time again then yes there are some things we might have done differently. Equally, there are some things we could not have foreseen, the unprecedented four-month closure of Eastleigh’s main arterial road from the south being the most obvious. If we hadn’t done what we did, when we did, who’s to say we would still be here now? The most successful companies have only got where they are by having good ideas, and when you try new things you have to accept that not everything will work out as planned. And when that happens, my view is it is much better to face up to that and make the changes you need to make, rather than fiddling while Rome burns!

OB: You have a reputation for being optimistic. Is there room for such optimism in the commercial bus world?

PS: I couldn’t be anything else, and believe it is only because of this that I have had the great pleasure to be involved in a good many highly successful projects, and work with some brilliant people, in my first eighteen years in the industry. But of course there have to be checks and balances and my good fortune now is to be surrounded by a fantastic team of people whose diverse views and experiences all play a big part in helping us make the right decisions.

Of course, the world needs optimists, but it needs accountants as well!

OB: After Best Impressions designed your Velvet livery, they were warned off by fellow Stenning users, Go South Coast. Was this fair?

PS: Were they warned off? I’m not sure I buy that. My opinion is that Ray Stenning is unparalleled within the industry for his ability to marry design expertise with an intuitive understanding of how customers and potential customers interact with transport systems. He does first class work for Go South Coast and we respect that they are a big customer for him. I have no doubt that he will work with us again some time in the future.

OB: What role does social media have in the bus industry?

PS: Traditional advertising has lost its appeal. The range of media is far too great and the ability to capture people’s attention is too limited. Moreover, our customers and potential customers resent being “talked at” and have ideas and opinions that can usefully influence how we develop our product. Social networking gives us the opportunity to capture this knowledge in the context of an informal conversation, during which we can also take the opportunity to share ideas about how our products can help them go about their lives. In the end, people know that we are a business and we are trying to sell them things, but as long as it’s genuinely a two-way process and we can have a laugh and make some friends along the way, I don’t think people mind that.

My view is we are only just seeing the tip of the iceberg of what social media can achieve but that is all the more reason to embrace the potential rather than sitting back waiting to see what happens next.

OB: What was Stagecoach like to work for?

PS: Fantastic. I don’t have a bad word to say. It is an inspirational organisation full of great people.

OB: Do concessionary fares help or hinder?

PS: I do not begrudge people for one moment for taking advantage of the fantastic facility that is available to them. But I had the good fortune to be working in Wales when free travel started there and saw how a healthy reimbursement rate could be used to kickstart commercial network improvements, logically resulting in a virtuous circle that ultimately decreases the financial burden of tendered services. I like the principle that public money follows the user and how he/she uses the system rather than being used to prop up an artificial network that may or may not meet people’s needs, and for this reason I deeply regret that England did not learn from Wales!

OB: I hear there are a good few articulated buses going cheap. Any room in Eastleigh?

PS: OK I admit it—I love articulated buses!!! They are so much more modern, stylish and classy than double deckers. If I had an excuse to run them I would take all of Boris’s cast-offs tomorrow, but the first and most obvious difficulty is that if you parked one in the workshop we use, the other end would block the entire industrial estate! So for practical reasons, sadly not!

OB: Where do you see yourself in 5, 10 or 15 years’ time?

PS: Continuing to develop Velvet, trying to find innovative ways to develop the public transport network based on first class customer service, looking for the common ground where good commercial instincts can combine to best effect with the political and social priorities of our local authority partners, and having lots of fun doing so.

OB: Where do you see the bus industry in 30 years’ time?

PS: Smaller but more perfectly formed. My vision is of a frequent, simple network of high quality links (not just buses but hopefully more innovative modes too) within towns and cities, surrounded by a ring of park & rides and main line routes radiating into the surrounding rural areas, providing modal choice and social inclusion where there is the critical mass to support the required levels of quality.

I believe that the quality of local transport provision to be much better overall, but that may be at the expense of quantity.

OB: What one thing could the (central or local) government do to make it easier for you to operate more successfully?

PS: Sort out concessionary fares, then leave the industry alone for a bit!

i Phil has his own blog

Photo credit: Stephen Hooper