Linda Stephenson

Said the following about Christophe Bourgeois:

“I would like to nominate Christophe for the customer service award. Christophe joined us in November 2020 leaving behind a long career in the airline industry. He did not have the easiest of starts, joining the railway during the pandemic meant remote training which was hard. He quickly took to the role of Train Manager, being a happy, helpful addition to the team at Bournemouth. In a very short time we started to receive lots of feedback, both from customers and other railway staff of what fantastic customer service skills Christophe has, here are some examples :-

(I’m on the 09:42 from Southampton Central to Manchester Piccadilly, 01/05/22. Just thought I would make it known that the ticket inspector, a middle aged man with a European (French?) accent, is easily the friendliest one I’ve ever come across, and deserves some praise! Thanks,)

(I just wanted to pass on some feedback about Christophe.

I had two friends travelling on one of his trains on Saturday. One of them struggles with crowds and travelling in general and had expressed her concern about needing to travel on Saturday. Both of them contacted me after their journey because they were so impressed with Christophe. He looked after them brilliantly and quickly put to bed the concerns they had about their journey. They both mentioned how great his customer service was and how much of lovely person he is. They could not speak highly enough about him. It's always interesting when you have friends using our services as you naturally want them to have the best experience possible. I'm delighted that they were fortunate enough to come across Christophe on Saturday. He is a credit to Bournemouth depot and the business as a whole.

Please pass on my thanks to Christophe on a job well done!)

And there are many more.

He has not had an easy time on board either. He has dealt with some really difficult incidents in his relatively short time with us. A medical emergency, a sexual harassment of a female passenger and a fatality. This was what a passenger, who was unfortunately on the train at the time of the fatality said:-

(I would like to commend all your staff on the 15:15 Crossrail from Reading to Manchester especially Christophe who continues to look after the whole of the train passengers during exceptional circumstances.)

He has shown himself time and time again to be an absolute professional with customer service his highest priority at all times, no matter what is going on around him. He has even volunteered to be part of a working group looking at how we can strive to continue to improve our customers experience in the future. He is a total asset to both Crosscountry and the railway as a whole.“