Stakeholder engagement website for a train operator

Project details:

Client: c2c Rail (National Express)
Type of business: Train operator
Location: London & Essex
Date: Winter 2014

We designed this stakeholder engagement website for train operator c2c Rail, which runs services between London and South Essex. At the time, the company was part of the National Express Group.

c2c needed a platform to keep in touch with their stakeholders, including local MPs, councillors, council officials, business leaders, charities and transport industry bodies. They required a newsletter system, as well as the facility to run regular surveys.

Although c2c had an existing Umbraco-based public website, there were limitations on access and functionality of this site. Therefore, we chose to develop a separate WordPress-based microsite, which was quick and cost effective to setup.

Newsletter facility

The newsletter system ran directly through the website, without relying on any third-party services.

This allowed c2c to maintain a database of contacts (with segmentation into different lists), send out fully branded newsletters, and view email open statistics. The newsletter template was designed as a styled grid, with a responsive layout, meaning it loaded well on smartphones. In addition, images were embedded and saved into the emails, so images would load straight away, without recipients needing to click any confirmation message in their email program.

Survey system

A forms system was also included in the website, so c2c could gather feedback from their stakeholders via short online surveys.

c2c used our drag-and-drop forms builder, which is quick and easy to use. They could also duplicate previous surveys, re-using these as a basis for new surveys.

Every form response triggered an email to c2c, allowing them to read the feedback as it came in. All the responses were collated into summary reports, which were presented as graphs for c2c to analyse internally. As a result, the survey process was very simple for c2c to manage themselves.

This stakeholder feedback was especially important as part of the company’s continuing improvement process, where they were assessed each year by auditors under the EFQM (European Foundation for Quality Management) Recognised for Excellence process.

Interested in a stakeholder engagement website for your organisation, or any of our web design services? Please get in touch so we can chat!