Taxi booking apps lower costs and improve customer satisfaction
Tech is simply how we live. As people living in modern cities, if a technological function isn’t available for a service that we use every day, we start wondering why not. Taxi services are no different. People are used to booking their car ride on their smartphones. It saves them and you time and the cost of running a call centre to book fares. With an app, your taxi company will be easily accessible to your customers and on par with industry disruptors, bringing your business into the 21st century.
1. Lower Barriers to Use and Higher Visibility
People like to support their local businesses and having a smartphone app to book their local taxi
makes it easier for the customer and lowers the barrier to using your service.
Tourists to the local area can find your taxi or limousine service easily via their app store, which increases the chance of booking while they are in town. Tourists will also increase your chance of positive reviews, which will increase the popularity of your app and your taxi service.
2. Real-time location tracking
Location tracking is a feature on taxi-booking app that is a win-win-win for all – drivers, passengers and your taxi service.
- As soon as the driver accepts the fare, passengers can track the location of the taxi, to see which way he is travelling and move to a suitable location for pick-up, if needed.
- The driver can track the location of the passenger. Drivers who know the area well can see if a passenger is in a spot that is difficult to pick-up from or traffic is delaying the time to reach.
- Real-time tracking of the taxi means you can manage the driver reaching the passenger efficiently, if needed.
- This reduces uncomfortable conversations with irate customers who are waiting for a fare to arrive, because your call centre can easily locate the taxi and communicate an estimated time of arrival to the passenger quickly.
3. Cost-effective bookings 24/7
Running a call centre to manage taxi bookings is one of the largest fixed costs for a taxi service. Late night and early morning bookings can be managed with relative ease via a mobile app, educing the need to have too many staff. It also reduces the time it takes to book a fare for passengers who are likely tired from long flights and simply want to reach home in comfort.
4. Marketing made easy
When a user downloads your taxi app for use, she registers herself using her mobile number and email address. This reduces mistakes made in manual data entry and is valuable, accurate data for your CRM (customer relationship management) system.
A mobile app will also allow you record when trips are taken, destination and origin locations. Based on this information, you can tailor your marketing messages and promotions, for example a coupon for your return trip from the hotel to the airport.
5. Avoid price wars and unnecessary negotiations
Taxi fares can be a contentious issue, especially with disruptors entering the market. Use your mobile app to your advantage. Let customers know if there is a special fare rate during a certain time in the day. Or if there’s discount during peak times for pre-bookings. There are plenty of ways to use your app to your advantage.
6. Customer reviews are gold for SEO
Organic searches are best served by customer reviews and feedback. Business that rank highly on search engines such as Google and Bing have tons of positive customer reviews. But it can be difficult to get these, especially if your customer is in a rush to get to their meeting. With a mobile app, it’s as simple as a ping! Remind your customer to review his most recent trip and link him straight to your Google Business listing, making it easy for him to give his feedback
7. Security for passengers
Security is a huge concern in today’s increasingly dangerous world. It’s important for passengers to know that her taxi driver is a licensed professional and vetted by others. More importantly, a function to ‘Share Your Trip’ with a friend removes any anxiety a passenger may have in using a taxi or limousine service.
8. Security for drivers
The world can be dangerous for drivers too. It takes considerable risk to drive a taxi late at night, not knowing who is getting into your cab and not knowing how far you’ll need to travel. A mobile app allows the driver to rate a customer, possibly also state if a customer was abusive or threatening violence. As a service, you can take a stance against such unacceptable behaviour and ban customers with low ratings. This will further enhance your taxi service as creating safe environment for passengers and drivers alike.
9. Secure in-app conversations
Drivers and passengers can use the app to text simple messages like “please wait, I’m nearly there” or “hi, I’m running a bit late”, to keep the communication going. To make it even more congenial, use an easy-call function that allows either one to call the other, without having to exchange personal contact details.
10. Multiple payment options
An app allows the customer to choose how they wish to pay for their taxi or limousine ride. They can choose to link it to their credit card, direct to their bank account, or maybe even Paypal or Stripe. The choice of payment is in the customer’s hands, which means, less chance of non-payment for your drivers. It reduces the use of cash so there will be less chance of theft and robbery, giving your drivers peace of mind.
11. Enhanced productivity
An app can keep track of driver hours, how quickly they pick up available jobs, ratings from customers and conversation prior to pick-up. These are metrics that could be used to reflect the driver’s productivity and used to motivate improved performance.
Developing your taxi booking app can be hassle-free and easy if you choose the right development team to build and support it. Our process of “Simplify. Align. Enable.” can turn your complex, high-maintenance IT products into IT assets that are simple to manage, aligned with your business goals, and enables you to stay ahead in the competition.
Interested in implementing taxi booking APPs? Contact us!