CALL CENTRE CHAT

Decisions on the Island…
When the new account commenced on the island we thought long and hard how the trips should be dispatched, with or without destinations, as directed or non rejectable? The decision that we eventually arrived at and with which you are now fully aware of, was to let the driver see all destinations except for work after 21:00 hours that picks up from the account address.
   The only reason we adopted the genuine ‘as directed’ way was because of the bank’s policy that instructs their staff to physically be in their main reception area to order their taxi from the in-house taxi coordinator. In doing this we had to mirror the procedure of their previous taxi supplier.
   The biggest problem we had to overcome was if a trip is dispatched within our system for a individual going to a specific destination, it would be a high risk for us that the passenger first in the queue at the taxi desk would be the person waiting the longest for their taxi to arrive. With the set up time of the account being reduced by three months due to their taxi supplier making the decision not to extend the existing contract, we needed to develop a method of putting the first passenger at the desk into the first cab.
   In order for us to give this client a better service than their previous cab company, it now becomes your responsibility. The decision to accept or reject a genuine ‘as directed trip’ from the E14 area is yours.

And changes in the Call Centre…

A recent change I have made in the Call Centre to help handle our increased workload may interest you. It involves the finishing time of our evening shift. Instead of going home at 23:30, they are now working until midnight.
   We have always had problems handling call volumes between 23:30 and midnight for as long as I can remember and despite introducing an overlapping shift a few years ago to cope with this, we were still finding it difficult to meet demands. Our staff have cooperated and agreed to the change and for that commitment I just cannot thank them enough. Nothing works without people’s cooperation and those drivers who book in to assist and take our staff home, remember the staff cabs will now be dispatched 30 minutes later.

Keeping cool?
During the month, the Board received a very embarrassing email from an account manager regarding the appearance of a few drivers. One of our long established clients, who are also based on the island, actually took the trouble to leave a voice message and an email complaining about the dress of a few drivers.

Signal improvement
The improvements we are making with our signals can be read about in this issue. New hardware has been manufactured especially for us and the fitting is almost complete. In Allan Evan’s report you will note that a driver was able to get a strong enough signal to clear a trip in the depths of Hampshire. Before anyone writes into Call Sign, we also hope the signals in the centre of town are equally as good.
   Even making these improvements will never be able to guarantee 100 % accuracy within the dispatch system, but if we can achieve 95/98% then you will experience a remarkable improvement. It’s very similar to the service we offer to our customers.

Keith Cain
Driver Operations / Call Centre Manager

TOUTS AWAY…