You might be wondering why there’s a need to have a connected taxi business but streamlining your communications has never been more important in a heavily populated industry.
Gone are the days where a two-way radio system was the most effective way to communicate; now getting connected can improve your communications, boost your drivers’ productivity and transform your customer experience.
The internet has made revolutionising every aspect of taxi operations management possible. From upgrading to a Voice over IP (VoIP) solution to installing a high-quality internet connection, embracing technology in your taxi business can revolutionise the way you work for the better.
Connecting to head office
As a head office, it’s vital you’ve got instant access to your fleet wherever they might be. It’s essential to know where each vehicle is, whether they’re with a customer and how many vehicles you have free at any time.
Synchronisation between the operators and your drivers is essential for a seamless operation and, to achieve it, you’ll need a good quality internet connection.
A high speed, reliable connection can enable the head office to keep track of your fleet with GPS tracking and telematics can help them obtain critical vehicle location information. Not only that, but GPS tracking can also prevent, and reduce, theft, stop unauthorised vehicle use and prevent poor driver behaviour.
With GPS tracking, you can vastly improve your customers’ experience too. Gone are the days of delayed taxis and drivers taking the booking because they know it’s a high price.
Instead, with innovations in technology, a first-class dispatch system can be implemented in your business.
Manage client information and log customer enquiries online. Manage your bookings and schedule journeys in an online calendar; accessible to all your fleet via their mobile phones. Ensure you’ve got an effective dispatches process and track your fleet’s routes and location to take control of your bookings effectively and efficiently. Ensure payments can be made via card and cash with a reliable Point of Sale (PoS) system, powered by a high-speed internet connection and communicate with your drivers through Bluetooth headsets.
Benefits
Without an effective, reliable phone system, there’s no taxi business. However, is your phone system enhancing your business in the way a VoIP system can?
To enable VoIP to be utilised to its full capacity, a fast, dedicated internet connection is ideal to ensure seamless call quality and remote flexibility.
As a taxi business, you want to answer every incoming phone call as quickly as possible to ensure that you never miss a booking, but you also want to provide the best quality experience to every caller.
A VoIP system can streamline communications to help both taxi operators and drivers receive and deliver clear, concise information.
A VoIP phone system can take a booking and automatically pass it on to the booking and dispatch system while the software can also be programmed to recognise customers’ phone numbers meaning the whole process can take place without any human interaction at all.
The call management features offered by a VoIP phone system, such as call routing and instant messaging, can help your employees easily collaborate and communicate with each other and effectively manage bookings to help you organise which driver is taking which booking.
A VoIP system can easily integrate with dispatch software helping you to seamlessly manage all callers and enable drivers to respond to incoming calls and recall customer history quickly, allowing a personalised touch to your business.
Connect to drivers
How often do you get a customer that asks you to stop at a cash machine so they can pay you a fare?
With a connected taxi business, you’d enter the world of cashless cabs and enhance the customer experience while increasing your convenience in a populated marketplace. With enhanced technology, you could also add the option of paying online with fast transfers, detected instantly via an online wallet.
A driver app is the communication tool that taxi drivers simply cannot be without. Through their mobile phones, they’ll instantly be able to see where the next job is rather than trawling the streets for fares, saving time and money on fuel. The app could allow drivers to view their own earnings and performance reports, pay subs and receive fares from the head office, without having to visit. What’s more, they can instantly connect to head office via the VoIP system to get up to date information on customers, routes and fare pricing.
