Drive your taxi bookings up with a simple call recording solution

The taxi and private vehicle hire sector, like most other service-based industries is under increasing pressure to remain competitive and secure bookings, win council and corporate contracts and cultivate repeat bookings to help ensure long term survival. Additional pressures are also placed on ad hoc business with the launch of online companies like minicabit who offer to automatically compare and present the quotes from local taxi companies within seconds for the customer to then select their preferred option.

Customer service is increasingly becoming a key consideration, particularly when bidding to win contracts and with the advent of social media where customers can tweet in an instant about the good or bad experience they just had.

Today’s taxi firm is becoming increasingly technology savvie according to ‘Private hire and taxi monthly’ magazine and many of the most successful firms are using technology to build a solid foundation on which to grow their businesses.

Companies like Addison Lee understand this, using call recording technology to really get to the heart of what makes the ‘perfect call’ to a customer. The perfect call is not easy to come by as different customers want calls handled in different ways. However call recordings can help by replaying those exceptional calls and trying to replicate that success by encouraging dispatchers to use certain words or phrases in future booking related enquiries.

Dispatcher training and evaluation
The first experience a potential customer has with your firm tends to be with your taxi dispatch team. It is therefore imperative that dispatchers handle calls diligently and in a professional and effective way. The taxi market is highly competitive and a customer may hold no loyalty to a firm, so a badly handled call may be the deciding factor between one company and another. Being able to replay back recorded calls with telephonists or dispatchers whilst highlighting what was handled well and what wasn’t will inevitably lead to more competent staff and ultimately help improve your re-bookings rate.

When evaluating staff, the discovery of badly handled calls enable supervisors to isolate call handling issues and arrange training accordingly.

Fact Verification
Where mistakes may occur with collection times, pick up points or destinations it can become very expensive to always give the customer the benefit of the doubt. Using recordings of the initial conversation can verify where the error occurred and again may identify a need for re-training amongst a particular staff member or could be used to highlight to a customer that they in fact provided the wrong information initially.

Cut costs with more efficient taxi dispatchers
For private hire companies keeping a record of the operator who took the booking and the booking details are compulsory. Where call recording is used these details are automatically captured and safely stored for future reference and can help demonstrate compliance. This can also lead to increased dispatcher productivity, as they spend less time logging bookings and concentrate more on answering calls and scheduling drivers.

Do you know what’s driving away taxi bookings?
Being able to identify what is preventing your taxi dispatchers from ending a call with a booking is vital, is it their lack of local knowledge, their demeanour or a lack of interest in the job? How will you be able to find this out without reviewing their call handling capabilities?

For a no-obligation discussion on how the right call recording system can drive more taxi bookings, contact Business Systems.