When Scotland’s government took back control of Britain’s only overnight rail service, the operator faced a technology deadline that demanded a rapid CRM overhaul
Few travel experiences in Britain carry quite the romance of the Caledonian Sleeper. Board at London Euston after dinner, settle into your cabin and wake up in the Scottish Highlands — Fort William, Inverness or Aberdeen — ready for a full day without losing time to travel.
The service traces its origins to 1873, when the North British Railway introduced Britain’s first sleeping car on the Glasgow-to-London route. More than 150 years later, the trains still run six nights a week, carrying business travelers avoiding early flights and tourists seeking a more leisurely approach to reaching Scotland.
But the operation behind those journeys has changed considerably in recent years — and so has the technology that supports it. When the Scottish government brought the Caledonian Sleeper into public ownership in 2023, the operator’s IT team faced an urgent mandate: replace the legacy systems they’d inherited and bring customer service capabilities in-house, fast.
Legacy technology, limited visibility
The challenge wasn’t just bringing systems in-house. The systems themselves were a patchwork.
“Caledonian Sleeper’s legacy managed customer relationship management (CRM) solution and telephony platform meant we had limited access to customer information, sales data and call center management stats,” explains Mark Lonie, guest service center manager at Caledonian Sleeper.
“To complicate matters, our customer service team also relied on approaching end-of-life versions of software and a customer-facing live chat platform. Neither of which could integrate with the managed CRM solution or telephony platform.”
In practical terms: an agent answering a customer call couldn’t easily see that customer’s booking history, previous complaints or ongoing issues. Managers couldn’t get a clear read on how the contact center was actually performing. Separate systems, none of them talking to each other.
A tight timeline
UK-based cloud integrator Node4 had already been assessing Caledonian Sleeper’s CRM environment through a Microsoft-funded assessment.
“But the project became a much higher priority when we were tasked with bringing the managed components back in-house,” says Olamilekan Taiwo, senior IT project manager at Caledonian Sleeper.
The company commissioned Node4 to create a “seamless solution that replaced our third-party CRM system with the Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM platform,” including an omnichannel contact center and updated live chat.
“The project was complex, yet Node4 delivered it in just a couple of months — around a third of the time usually required,” says Taiwo. “Their flexibility and collaborative approach made this possible, and we were able to meet the Scottish Government’s strict timeline.”
A unified view
The difference, according to Lonie, is night and day.
“It’s a million miles away from the disparate systems we used to rely on,” he explains. “Now, when a customer contacts us, their information is automatically gathered and presented to the agent, giving them the context they need to resolve queries quickly.”
Managers now have visibility into call performance and can identify patterns: which routes generate the most complaints, which issues recur, how problems ripple through the customer journey. When disruptions hit, like weather delays on the Highland routes, the team can update automated phone messages immediately rather than waiting for customers to queue for an agent.
And AI brings further productivity gains.
“Our agents can use Copilot to help write accurate replies and generate call notes,” says Lonie. “That means less time on admin and more time focused on customers.”
Early results
Staff have responded positively, reporting they feel better equipped to handle inquiries. Performance has improved from 84%, just below the 85% target, to consistently between 86% and 89%. Customer satisfaction, Lonie said, is improving.
“We’re starting to see a real shift in how our customers perceive us,” he says.
For a rail service whose history stretches back to 1873, the goal remains the same: make sure customers sleep well.