As promised by Anna earlier - each month we will bring you an interview with someone who works in the marketing and communications industry. This month we had a chat with Richard Baker, who has been instrumental in getting Virgin Trains on Twitter.
Hi Richard, could you start by telling us a bit more about who you are and what you do?
I am part of the senior leadership team at Virgin Trains. Over the last ten years I have had a variety of roles in the business including people management, catering logistics, service development and helping shape change in Organisational Development. I am currently the General Manager for the Liverpool and North Wales. The role is varied and involved the leadership of a large team (over 160 people) delivering service on board our trains as well as working with businesses and stakeholders around the region to support commercial growth.
We know you and a few of your colleagues are very active on Twitter, can you tell us how you got involved with Twitter and why it is important to be on Twitter for Virgin Trains?
I began my current role in a region I was not at all familiar with. I wanted a way to accelerate the building of relationships and to understand what my customers value about what we did. After some thought I decided social media might be a good way to do that, and then started on Twitter.
I think it is important for us to be wherever our customers are, and a great deal of our customers use social media. This has been helped by the introduction of WiFi on board all our trains and in our First Class lounges. Despite my relatively senior position in the company, I can talk to commuters, MP’s, holiday-makers and consumers on a daily basis. It’s great to be able to connect with them even when they are flying across the country on a Virgin Train!
Does Virgin Trains have an overall social media policy or strategy and how does Twitter fit into this? And how much guidance and/or governance is there from the main Virgin brand?
Like many other UK companies we are new to social media, Twitter in particular. You could say our strategy is emergent; we are feeling our way, listening to our customers and developing our online presence. Virgin Group are of course very supportive of the work we are doing and we share ideas often, online and offline.
You are well known for moving Virgin Trains onto Twitter, but we’d love to know what else you guys are currently doing in social media. Are you active anywhere else? And is all your social media activity integrated or operated on a standalone basis?
We did something interesting a few years ago called ‘Be Inspired by Time’ which was a precursor to all the activity around social media and involvement. We have recently been having some fun with YouTube promoting our Chester service. The Marketing team have spent a great deal of time working on an advertising campaign and a brand new website that is now live. They and I now have a little space to share ideas and hopefully come up with something exciting for both our internal teams and external customers.
You have a very strong personal brand on Twitter, which is great – but also presents a challenge. What happens when you leave Virgin, who has ownership of the account?
I began using Twitter to build relationships with our customers and stakeholders. At the time, there were very few people doing what I did so I just did what felt natural to me and went on instinct. That’s why I created @Richard_Baker. I have since created @VirginTrains working with our brilliant Communications Team that I am very involved with. I am encouraging my customers to follow that but what I have found is people tell me they don’t just follow me for information about trains! We talk about our lives too. They are real relationships just in a different space.
This week I took the step to effectively ‘retire’ my personal brand association with Virgin. I have put a great deal of personal time and energy championing the socmed cause and am pleased that it has paid off.
The main focus of your work on Twitter seems to revolve around customer service – can you see Virgin Trains using Twitter and social media for other business purposes as well?
Absolutely. I am very keen for us to do more. We have some exciting stuff in the pipeline…
Do tell!
Okay! Well, I would like our Twitter to be much more inclusive, and use other channels to include user generated content. I am saying no more! 
Having mentioned customer service and ownership in previous questions – where does social media actually fit into your business?
At the moment I am working closely with our Communications Team. However, I see a time when it becomes a central part of Customer Service, Marketing, Operations, Communications and Human Resources. In my opinion, we have only just scratched the surface.
How is the success of your team’s work on Twitter and in social media judged? Are there metrics that help you determine your success?
I measure our success by the strengths of the relationships we have created and the feedback we get. After all, isn’t good business all about relationships?
Amen to that Richard, and thank you so much for your time!
