Boltbus Business Strategy

Boltbus Business Strategy

Abstract

Boltbus rapid transport Bus Company is one of the most successful companies in this type of business in the US. Its success has been primarily attributed to its business model, which emphasizes brand promotion. It’s extremely low fare prices and focuses on young internet- survey customers have propelled to great heights in an extremely competitive business environment. Boltbus’s business strategies target its core customers while attempting to expand services to potential customers against all the odds in the business market. The company offers valuable lessons on how effective product promotion, advertisement and innovation can enable a business to thrive amidst stiff competitors.

Boltbus Rapid Bus Transport Company

Public transport has become one of the most competitive businesses in the recent past. This is occasioned by the rising cost of operation, competition from other players, and stringent regulatory framework, among other factors. One of the success stories in this line of business is the Boltbus Service Company, which was incorporated in 2008. It ferries passengers between major cities in the US and beyond at low fare prices. Even with fares of about 1$, their services remain to be of high quality, particularly for premium customers. Its reputation has intensified mainly because of its affordable prices, transparent service, speed and safety. Its services are available in cities of northeast US as well as western parts of the US, Canada and beyond. It is owned by two companies, Peter Pan and Greyhound, which came together in 2007 to establish BoltBus Lines.  The west coast operations are run exclusively by Greyhound lines (Rode et al., 2017). In other regions, it operates as a separate entity devoid of any affiliation in terms of advertisement. Its main competitors are Megabus as well as Chinatown, which are also low-cost public transport services.

Bolt bus’s business model targets regular long distance travellers between cities who long for an affordable but reliable means of transport. To affect this strategy, it utilizes online or mobile ticketing to encourage its customers to book in advance. Since every customer is guaranteed a seat when the bus nears its full capacity, the ticketing system increases the fare to cover the extremely low fares they charged early customers. Its customer base includes those aged from 18-43, especially college students, recent graduates, and young professionals. Besides, they also serve many low-income residents who may not afford regular intercity private transport and are likely to book early to ensure timely travel ( Li et al., 2017). Other core customers of Boltbus include students who are attracted by its new marketing strategies. Restriction of stops to major cities ensures timely arrival as scheduled.

Boltbus increases its convenience to customers of all classes by doing curbside pickups located near residential places, which also helps them to eliminate the cost of maintaining bus terminals like their competitors. Besides to remain attractive to customers of even middle-incomes or higher, they have established a predefined method of ‘class’ booking (A-C), which resembles the one for airline boarding. It also has a loyalty program whose membership is for regular travellers who are prioritized for class A seat bookings ( Li et al., 2017). It also enables the company to access customer information more readily.

Another strategy used by Boltibus to enhance customer loyalty is the provision of additional services in all its new buses like WIFI access, more legroom as well as power socket access points, especially to premium customers. These extra amenities have helped in attracting younger customers as well as converting regular customers to premium customers. The company sought to create an impression that bus-travelling is also ‘cool’ even too traditional private vehicle travellers. Since most of its customers are internet users, they have taken advantage of this by doing most of their marketing initiatives through online platforms like bloggers, social networks, among other online platforms (Schwieterman, 2016). Further, to impress students and recruit them s loyal customers, the company used pop culture bloggers, like Gothamist, Daily Candy, among others to promote their services. Other advertisement options such as TV stations, newspapers as well as national media outlets have also been used to reach other customers who may not be frequent internet users. (Schwieterman, 2016).  One of the major companies Boltbus uses to advertise and promote its brand is Edelman, one of the leading advertisement companies. The primary type of advertisement they have utilized is institutional, as well as comparative advertising. Institutional advertising is meant to improve the company’s overall image to the public, while comparative advertisement portrays their services in a positive light as compared to those of competitors.

Primarily, Boltbus uses comparative promotion by advertising their premium services as well as convenient pickup points to appeal to potential customers. The company also upholds transparency and honesty (Cohen,2018). It has been largely successful due to the use of low ticket price promotion, especially during non-rush hours, to ensure seats are full to capacity. Their strategy of keeping fare prices as low as possible and increasing volumes of travellers has been attributed to their success.

In conclusion, the case of Bolt bus’s business model is an indication that even when the competition is extremely stiff, being creative and sensitive to customers’ needs can enable businesses to sustain their profitability. With their aggressive marketing campaigns and reasonable fare pricing, Boltbus has been able to create a considerable base of loyal customers within a highly competitive market. They have also achieved their goal of convincing young travellers that bus travel is something ‘cool.’ These achievements are evident from their passenger satisfaction rating, which has remained over 90% for more than three years, while that of Greyhound has stagnated at 67% (Cohen,2018). Notably, Boltbus will have to improve its business model as it enters new markets to maintain its profitability and competitive advantage.

References

Cohen, R., & Skov, J. (2018). New Mobility Case Study.

Li, M., Collins, E., Lewis, J., Faghri, A., Kelly, C., & Scott, M. (2017). Research of Viable Attributes and Potential to Integrate Curbside Intercity Buses. Transportation Research Board.

Rode, P., Floater, G., Thomopoulos, N., Docherty, J., Schwinger, P., Mahendra, A., & Fang, W. (2017). Accessibility in cities: transport and urban form. In Disrupting mobility (pp. 239-273). Springer, Cham.

Schwieterman, J. P. (2016). The Decline and Revival of Intercity Bus Service. TR News, (303).