Stagecoach, parent of Hull bus operator Stagecoach East Midlands, has achieved an historic milestone by being shortlisted as a finalist for the first time ever at the prestigious UK Customer Satisfaction Awards 2026, receiving nominations in two categories.
Stagecoach has been named a finalist in:
‘Customer Focus – Large Enterprise’: An award open to organisations with more than 250 employees that have successfully placed the customer at the centre of their operations and strategies.
‘Employee Engagement’: An award open to any organisation with an employee engagement strategy that has led to a demonstrable improvement in performance and customer satisfaction.
This double finalist position reflects Stagecoach’s significant strides in enhancing the customer experience. The Company’s focus on service improvement and customer engagement was recently highlighted in the latest UK Customer Satisfaction Index (UKCSI) results, published in July. In these results, Stagecoach was one of the 20 most improved organisations across all sectors year-on-year for customer service. It also earned its spot as the top-performing bus operator in key customer experience metrics and impressively climbed from 28th to 20th out of 37 transport organisations, recording a significant 4.6-point increase on the previous year.
Matt Cranwell, Managing Director of Stagecoach East Midlands, said: “It is wonderful to get this recognition for all the hard work that is put in, day in and day out, by our team. We are passionate about getting people from our local communities where they need to go, and doing so with the best possible customer service. From the Cleaners and Engineers, who work so hard to clean and prepare our local buses, to the Drivers who interact with our loyal customers, and all our Support teams, this result have been achieved by a true team effort.”
Debra Goodwin, Chief Customer Officer at Stagecoach, added: “We are absolutely thrilled and immensely proud to be named a finalist in not one, but two categories at the UK Customer Satisfaction Awards for the first time. This recognition confirms that recent changes to our strategy to become a truly customer-focused organisation are starting to pay off.
“We never do it for the awards; it’s all about improving the experience we give our customers every single day. This takes immense commitment, effort and care every single day from everyone behind the scenes at Stagecoach – from our drivers to engineers, our cleaners to our upholsterers, our painters and colleagues in recruitment, learning and development to our colleagues in safety, tech, insight, communications, as well as those in customer experience and customer service. It’s all about everyone in the team showing up every single day.”
The winners of the UK Customer Satisfaction Awards 2026 will be announced at a ceremony on Tuesday 10 March 2026 at the London Hilton, Park Lane.