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Oh dear! It
seems I’ve upset former DaC Chairman Kenny
Burns (now vice-Chair of LCDC). He has
either taken umbrage at my comments in Call
Sign, or used it simply to fill his column
in The Badge - either way I guess I owe an
apology. I didn’t mean to be offensive, I
was simply using the LCDC’s approach to
getting things done (albeit in a radical
manner) as an analogy to the point I was
making about others doing little or nothing
to improve our trade. I rarely use a
thesaurus Ken, except when I need to find a
word less contentious than the one I
originally had in mind. Neither do I sit in
my office writing these reports, I do them
at home - invariably at weekends – and in my
own time, to which Brian Rice and Editor
Alan Fisher would both testify as we often
communicate with each other during that
period over a business issue or an item for
the magazine. Still, it’s nice to see Call
Sign amongst the reading matter of those
outside of our Society, even if they are
selective in what bits they read!
I did in fact praise LCDC Chairman Alan Fleming for having the
courage to put his convictions into
practice. My only criticism was why they had
a tendency to spoil their argument by
putting in front of the media those dressed
in a manner as to give the impression of
poverty, when dressing likes schlocks is
likely to draw from the public nothing but
contempt?
Oops! Apologies once again as I’ve been told I shouldn’t use the
word schlock. I had an ear bashing from a
driver, who I assume to be Jewish,
criticising my last article and telling me
not to use words that I don’t understand.
Also, in his opinion, nobody should ever
write anything other than good things about
the cab trade. I didn’t respond. I simply
listened to what he had to say. However, I
did wonder afterwards what he would do if he
were for example, a foreign correspondent in
Israel. Would he completely ignore the
terrible atrocities being suffered by their
people, many of them children, and instead
write repeatedly about what a wonderful
place it is to take a holiday? And as for
using words I don’t understand, it may
interest him to know that during the time I
was in the fashion trade, I had as a partner
and colleagues, several Frumers
(ultra-orthodox Jews), who with their
ringlets, wide rim hats and long silk coats
were colloquially known as the ‘Stamford
Hill cowboys’.
I spent many an enjoyable evening in their homes, eating their
food, respecting their customs and taking
great delight in trying to understand what
was being said when they spoke Yiddish.
Yiddish is a compilation of several
languages including German, so together with
the fact that I had worked in Germany and
the German speaking part of Switzerland for
two years, many of the words were familiar
to me. So to the driver in question, do not
jump to conclusions about what I know and
don’t know and please in future, should you
have reason to leave a message on my answer
phone, don’t be a ‘shvuntz’ - have the
courage to give your name or call sign
instead of just "subscriber."
Call Sign
Controversies
Whilst on the subject of writing only good things in Call Sign
(incidentally the reasoning behind his
comment is because of the clients who read
the magazine), does that also apply to the
letters page? Over the years there has
probably been as much written matter in Call
Sign exposing the negative side of our
business, than that aimed at consecutive
governments, whilst I personally have
possibly had more letters published
criticising me than all the Boards I’ve
served with put together! But even at the
height of those criticisms, I would never
have wished for that section of the magazine
to be removed, because to do so would be to
lose not just a valuable part of our
Society’s democracy, but a freedom of
expression that is admired not just from
within, but also outside of the trade both
in this country and round the world!
By
coincidence, I was cleaning out some office
rubbish recently and came across an old Call
Sign magazine. In addition to the front and
back pages that carried letters of complaint
- one from an ex-Chairman - there were seven
further pages out of a total of fourteen
devoted to Soap Box Forum. Then-editor Jery
Craig was a staunch supporter of the freedom
to publish letters no matter how
controversial and would fight his corner
vociferously should that freedom ever be
challenged. That too is the case with his
successor Alan Fisher, although Alan may not
need to fight so hard as this Board does not
interfere with his Editorship and long may
that continue… To the surprise of many
perhaps, I have never received one
word |
from our
clients criticising our Society or the Board’s
decision to allow such letters to be
published. In fact it’s been quite the
reverse. On one occasion, after receiving a
particularly large barrage of criticism, I was
visiting a client who reads Call Sign. As I
entered his office, he commented that he had
expected to see me wearing a tin helmet and
expressed his admiration at the freedom we
allow our members in expressing their views.
He also told me that he was pleased in the knowledge that should he ever
have cause to complain about a serious service
issue and wanted Dial-a-Cab members to be
aware of it, that we would have no hesitation
in publishing it in Call Sign.
In conclusion, I would like to stress that I take no pleasure in writing
anything derogatory about the trade or its
drivers. Unfortunately, given the way by which
we operate as a company whereby the bulk of
our workforce are isolated and operating
within an insular environment away from our
premises, we have no means of communicating
and discussing every day problems -
particularly regarding service issues - other
than through Call Sign.
Even when we used to have a large contingent of members attending
the AGM, there was little opportunity to
discuss anything outside of the day’s agenda.
Very few were interested, the majority didn’t
want to be there and sadly, the volatile
environment didn’t lend itself to sensible
discussion. That really was a shame because I
always believed it was the perfect opportunity
for getting feedback on ideas or gauging the
support of suggestions, however crazy, without
it being necessary to put it to an official
vote.
The alternative, of course, is to have regular forums. But of those
that we have held in the past, every one has
been an abject failure. Local Schools have
been hired; space made available in the
playground for parking; tea, coffee and
biscuits supplied; the Chairman and various
Board members giving their time. The result?
The appearance of a dozen or so of the same
regular faces. That is indicative of why over
90% of the members have preference for postal
voting rather than to attend an AGM. Cab
drivers, by the very nature of their job of
working alone, are not natural team players.
This is not a criticism; it’s a simple fact
and why any attempt to promote our business
with the aid of our members as a collective
body, has as much chance of succeeding as
those trying to change the AGM policy.
The tragedy is that the Private Hire industry has no such problem.
However big, however many drivers a PH company
has, when the drivers are told to do
something, wear something or act in a
particular manner, it will be done because
they are employees and controlled by a general
manager who dictates policy.
I’m not suggesting for one moment that our members should be
dictated to. As self-employed businessmen
protecting the future of their trade, being
dictated to shouldn’t be necessary. However,
having said that, neither should it be
necessary for me to beg and be met with a
negative response whenever I ask for
assistance to promote our own business.
On the subject of PH, Brian Rice mentioned this matter in last
months Call Sign, but it seems that some
drivers either don’t bother to read, or just
want to hear their own voices, because since
Brian’s article I have had several calls
asking why we work with PH companies and one
company in particular?
Working with
Private Hire
Firstly, I would like to emphasise that the company in question is
predominantly a courier company. In addition
to their main courier service, they also have
a fleet of executive cars, a small fleet of
passenger cars and they also offer a black cab
service which is Dial-a-Cab. The company was
originally established a number of years ago,
in fact I remember coming into contact with
them when I first
joined the Board and was trying to generate business within the-then
fashion trade area of the West End.
We have for several years now discussed the issue of "one stop
shop" with the radio circuits supplying
alternative transport in addition to taxis. As
of yet, the feasibility of such a venture
is yet to be proven financially viable or even
acceptable to the majority of those within the
taxi
industry. But that doesn’t stop clients asking for it and as I’ve
mentioned only recently, money men are coming
into the trade and Private Hire, minicabs,
executive/courier services - call them what
you like - are developing and
being run in a very professional manner by |
senior executives with
contacts into the large City corporates.
We now have a choice, because for them to offer an all-in-one
package it has got to include
Licensed Taxis paying licensed meter prices. So do you want it to
be Dial-a-Cab who is getting this work or our
competitors? Incidentally, the company in
question was previously using one of our
competitors and their financial loss by us now
doing the work is not to be sniffed at,
because the potential earnings from this
company could well exceed £2million annually.
The irony, as Brian mentioned in his article,
is that we have clients who we’ve serviced for
many years and whose turnover with us has been
unchanged until recently when the work
increased. The reason is that the courier
company we are working with is also their
supplier and we getting additional work from
the same client through them! The only
difference is that we are billing the courier
company for the extra work instead of the
client.
Whilst on the subject of work, I occasionally get asked as I did
over Christmas, why our give-away cards only
carry our credit card booking number and not
cash, as some drivers don’t like taking credit
cards. On giving the reason, one driver
suggested that I relay the answer in Call
Sign, as there might be others with a similar
attitude to him…
As a company, we get no financial return from taking cash trips. So
consequently, the Call Centre telephone lines
for our regular account clients or those
booking a cab with a credit card, has to take
preference over cash. So advertising our cash
number could be counter productive because
someone wanting to give our company a trial by
using 7-253-5000 and finding that they cannot
get through, will give a poor reflection on
our service and they will go elsewhere. There
are also other problems when taking cash
trips…
Firstly, there is no redress should the driver get scrubbed off. We
also have a legal problem when we failed to
supply a cash booking. In the past we have had
several instances where customers have
threatened to sue us for a lost flight to the
airport or spoiling their night out to the
theatre. Legally, if we accept a booking, we
are duty bound to supply a vehicle. This
doesn’t apply with credit work or credit card
work because we are protected by our Terms and
Conditions.
Obviously it’s the prerogative of every driver to choose the
type of work they do and I respect that, but I
am nevertheless curious as to why some drivers
object to taking credit cards - or DaC charge
cards for that matter - particularly since the
installation of our touch screen terminals
where taking cards is so simple compared with
how it used to be with the old system - which
I honestly believe is the problem.
There have been several occasions when I have been out on the
road, wanting to get back to the office and
have had drivers refuse to take my DaC card on
the pretence that their terminal was faulty,
or that the cab wasn’t theirs etc. Needless to
say they were unaware who I was and after
identifying myself, they admitted they didn’t
know how to do it! On the last occasion, I was
only at Moorgate Station, it was raining and
after showing the driver what to do, he was
both pleased to see how simple it was and also
at getting the minimum £8.80 ride to the
office in the bargain.
Condolences
Finally, and it’s a belated message I know,
but I would like to take this opportunity to
offer my condolences to the family of ex-DaC
Chairman Martin Gellman who sadly passed away
just before Christmas. I only knew Martin from
visits he made to the office, but was aware of
his association with our Society from
discussions I used to have with Aubrey Siteman,
who knew him personally. My immediate
impression of Martin was of being affable,
kind, astute and very knowledgeable of the
trade and above all, always appearing to have
such a kind word for everyone. I did, however,
know his daughter Janine very well, as I was
extremely fortunate to have her as a valuable
part of our Sales team during my early years
on the Board. Martin RIP…
Allen Togwell
DaC Marketing
allent@dialacab.co.uk |
