Case Study: Virgin Trains achieves smoother passenger flow and a 28% NPS boost with OpenMarket

How SMS helped Virgin Trains be there for their customers

Virgin Trains, which carries nearly 36 million passengers a year and operates through extremely busy hubs like London Euston, was struggling with stressful crowd surges whenever platform numbers were announced. OpenMarket worked with Virgin Trains to deploy an SMS-based solution — Project Surge / Early Bird Message — sending reassurance texts 20 minutes before departure and platform/seat information 75 seconds before it appears on departure boards, targeting online bookers and priority groups to reduce panic and congestion.

OpenMarket’s intelligent mobile messaging system delivered staggered, personalized SMS alerts tied to bookings and passenger needs, splitting large surges into smaller, manageable flows and improving the customer experience. The program helped boost digital ticket sales (with 25% of passengers buying direct from Virgin) and produced a measurable uplift: Virgin Trains recorded a 28% increase in Net Promoter Score within six months of launch — all enabled by OpenMarket’s timely SMS service.

Virgin Trains