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Avanti West Coast: tens of thousands of comments, zero manual tagging

When tens of thousands of comments arrive every period, manual categorisation simply doesn't scale. Here's how Avanti West Coast's Voice of Customer team let the tagging happen automatically — and got their time back.

Last updated 8 June 2026

Key Metrics
1.3M Voices heard
7,102 Working days saved
£1.35M Labour cost savings

The challenge

Avanti West Coast received tens of thousands of survey responses and social media comments every period — far too many to categorise by hand. The team's manual, Excel-based tagging was laborious and less accurate than it needed to be, and the sheer volume made it hard to see the themes driving sentiment across channels.

Every period, tens of thousands of survey responses and social media comments arrived for the Voice of Customer team to make sense of. Categorising them manually — comment by comment, in spreadsheets — was slow, repetitive work that never quite kept pace with the volume.

It was also imprecise. Manual tagging introduced inconsistency, and with so much feedback to get through, the themes that were actually moving satisfaction across surveys and social were easy to miss.

The solution

Wordnerds took the manual tagging off the team's plate and gave them one view across every channel.

  • Automated categorisation and sentiment

    Every piece of feedback is categorised and scored for sentiment automatically, across all sources — no manual tagging, and consistent every time.

  • One holistic view

    Surveys and social media sit together in a single view, with the key themes surfaced automatically so the team can see what's driving sentiment without hunting for it.

  • Insight where the team works

    Reports flow into the platforms the business already uses, so positive staff mentions are easy to highlight and the right people can recognise great performance.

The impact

From laborious manual tagging to strategic improvement

By automating the categorisation of 1.3 million voices, Avanti West Coast freed the time it once spent tagging comments by hand for strategic improvement. Actionable insight showed the team what was working and what needed attention, and sharing positive feedback lifted morale across the organisation.

With the repetitive manual work gone, the Voice of Customer team could spend its time on interpretation and improvement rather than data entry — turning feedback into action faster than before.

Because the insight was both accurate and easy to share, positive mentions of frontline staff could be surfaced and celebrated, giving teams across Avanti a clearer sense of what customers valued.

About Avanti West Coast

Avanti West Coast is a British train operating company providing high-speed intercity services, with approximately 35 million passenger journeys a year connecting major cities across England, Wales and Scotland.

Its Voice of Customer team is responsible for understanding how those passengers feel — and turning what they say into improvements across the network.

Avanti West Coast
Pete, founder of Wordnerds

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