Jay’s Bus Service recently hit the milestone of 14 years of driving excellence, transporting their young travelers faithfully since their inception in 2008. Among the leading school bus services in the area, Jay’s services more than 150 schools and transports over 75,000 children daily!
When Jay’s turned to Forwardslash for a website, they shared their specific concerns. The company had grown tremendously and procuring enough drivers was a constant struggle. Too much of their staff’s time was devoted to obtaining drivers, with unsatisfactory results.
The shortage of drivers led to delays and cancellations of bus routes, leaving exasperated parents waiting at the bus stops. This in turn led to customer complaints and negative feedback, which Jay’s wanted to remedy.
Could all that be addressed in one website?
We immediately got started hashing out every concern Jay’s had in nitty-gritty detail, and brainstormed possible solutions. We knew that this website had to be multi-functional – it had to position Jay’s as a service of stellar quality, attract top-notch employees, serve as an application portal for drivers, and somehow knock out customer complaints at the source.
It was a steep order – just what Forwardslash excels at.
The first stage was developing the branding, design, and messaging. Jay’s needed a website that beautifully depicted who they are and what they do – in a way that positioned them as a leader in comfort, safety, and customer service. We got to work creating a site that emphasized their impressive track record and all Jay’s does to maintain high safety standards. We also included an area to report concerns or complaints – so that Jay’s could handle negative feedback in an orderly fashion and their clients would feel heard and taken care of.
In order to attract employees, Jay’s needed to differentiate themselves from the crowd and effectively illustrate why someone would want to join their ranks. Through interviews and research, we learned that some compelling employee benefits are Jay’s family-like atmosphere, the way each driver is viewed as an individual, and the flexibility the drivers have with their schedules. Consequently, we made sure this was strongly conveyed on the site and supported with the right visuals.
With all this in place, the applications were sure to start rolling in! In order to take some of the load off the office staff, we built a streamlined application process straight into the site itself. Now, any aspiring driver, mechanic, or aide can submit an application form without making a single phone call.
After much consideration, we concluded that an effective way to curtail negative feedback would be to introduce a parent notification system, which we got to work building from the ground up. This system sends a text message to parents notifying them of a delay with their child’s bus, consequently eliminating the problem of parents growing frustrated as they wait for a bus that’s just not coming. Thanks to the notifications they receive on their phone, they are able to come out to meet the bus exactly when it arrives, regardless of the delay. Even though delays are still inevitable (even we can’t fix rush hour traffic), the aggravation the delay causes is now greatly reduced and customer satisfaction is up.
Today, Jay’s has a single website simultaneously functioning as a window into the brand’s personality, a magnet for employees, an application portal, and a notification system – and it does it gracefully. Most of all, all these elements together function as a seal of quality, positioning Jay’s as a premium choice in the student transportation industry.
