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ALLEN TOGWELL’S MARKETING PLACE |
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Remembering Jack Taylor On reading last month’s Call Sign, it was somewhat ironic to see the Editor’s choice of Flashback article feature the late Jack Taylor during his time as the Society’s Sales Executive - or PRO as the position was then known. Like many, I knew Jack on nodding terms but had never spoken to him at any length until one day, soon after I joined the Board, he came to Brunswick House and seeing me in my office, took the opportunity to voice his opinion of how I was doing the job that he once did - well not so much the job itself, but my sales articles in Call Sign of which he was not very complimentary to put it mildly! Practically everybody in the taxi trade knew Jack Taylor both as a driver, a DaC Board member and above all for his untiring charity work for under privileged children. If ever a man deserved a Gong it was Jack. Jack was a colourful man - as was the way he spoke. Upset him and he would make Gordon Ramsey sound like a saint! He was also a big man and what with his Kojak-style pate, the sight of him leaning down on me over my desk blasting a volley of f-words and worse was such that I can remember his comments almost verbatim to this very day. I can also remember at the time thinking of the old maxim of the pot calling the kettle black when one of his criticisms was the manner in which I put my point of view, especially when addressing our members on issues such as on the importance of being presentably dressed. Amongst Jack’s many pearls of wisdom, he advised me to lower my tone otherwise I wouldn’t last five minutes on the Board or if I did, I’d end up driving myself mad or most certainly get ulcers trying to drum anything that they didn’t want to hear into our drivers thick ******* heads! But I disagreed then and I continued to disagree throughout my entire tenure on the Board because I strongly believed that in addition to service and technology, a change in attitude and especially the manner in which our members dressed, was going to be a major factor against the fight with PH as well as the catalyst on which our society would rise above our competitors and become the most successful and most sought after taxi circuit in London. I also believed our members to have more intelligence than that which they were being credited with and that if I stressed the issues of appearance often enough, albeit sometimes in a not always too civil a manner, it would eventually be taken on board and common sense would prevail. Sadly and much to my despair, recent events have proven me wrong and Jack to be absolutely right. Incidentally, Jack was also right about me being kicked of the Board, which I was for a year as well as picking up the ulcers! Exactly why this is I honestly don’t know. No matter how much I dwell on the subject, I cannot draw a general conclusion. I ask myself if a lack of money could be preventing drivers from buying of adequate clothing? Are there no mirrors in bathrooms or if there are, do they show someone who mistakenly believes he looks the dogs cojones? Is it a statement of freedom of choice? Is it laziness? Is it a lack of self-esteem? Is it perhaps to assure a jealous partner that her other half is not out on the pull? I really don’t know, but whatever it is it is an absolute disgrace and embarrassment when after all these years of me carping on about the subject of dress, we have a situation where the unkempt state of some of our members has become an issue at the highest level at one of our most senior clients to the point where they felt compelled - and no doubt embarrassed themselves - to not only make a formal complaint, but have also issued an order banning any of our drivers entering their premises who are inappropriately dressed. What a sad indictment on a company celebrating its 54th year of trading and with a £45m annual turnover, yet powerless to prevent our members from walking into client’s smart receptions looking as though they have come straight from digging up their gardens. If this was an isolated incident we could argue that fact, but it isn’t isolated because many of you have told me of the numerous occasions you have felt ashamed at being associated with the taxi business because of the manner in which some cab drivers dress. In Jack’s day, the biggest and most prestigious client we had |
was the BBC (TV and Sound), which Jack was not only
responsible for procuring - in itself an enormous achievement in
those days - but helped retain for many years by making sure our
members did nothing to jeopardise it. I dread to think what Jack
would have done had he been called to Wood Lane and suffered the
embarrassment of answering a complaint about the state in which DaC
drivers were entering their premises. One thing is for sure; he
wouldn’t have just printed his anger in Call Sign, he would
have made it his duty to name and shame those members in the hope of
inflicting the same embarrassment - and possibly worse - on them
that he himself would have suffered! A
rainy day in Botolph Lane… |
 change into and freshen up in the washroom at any number of hotels or public toilet halfway through my working day. It took only a few minutes, but the reward was knowing that I felt and looked fresh and clean in myself and looked presentable when walking into a client’s reception to collect my passenger. The above is not unique, as I’m sure many of you do exactly the same thing - but evidently not all of you. It is those that have no interest in upholding a standard of dress that benefits their Society and support the work that the majority of you, staff and the Board are doing to secure our future, who would be the first to moan if the work began to slow down and blame everybody but themselves as for the reasons why it is going to the ever growing PH industry. I’ve often been asked what’s more important; a cab arriving on time or the state of the driver? Before the emergence of PH, it could be argued that service was more important. However, since then and particularly over the past 10 years or so, the volume of money spent by the business sector in London has been such that: a) they are demanding more and more for their transport expenditure and b) the competition to procure that business is becoming ever-more competitive. For many years we were always operating in the shadow of ComCab, but then there came a shift in this dominance after we pioneered Data Despatch and shifted further ahead when during the mid-90’s, we, the Board, saw the potential in using the Internet. We became the first taxi circuit to produce a website, register domain names and made it possible to book taxis on-line, a facility that is still exclusive to Dial-a-Cab. We set a firm policy on future development, produced far reaching technology in all areas of our business and since capturing brilliant IT guru John Bankes, developed among other things the Concierge system which has revolutionised the concept of booking and controlling the usage of taxi transport. But - and but being the operative word - we don’t have copyright or a monopoly on service or the systems we develop. Having made something feasible and a proven success, it is natural that it will soon be copied, which means our Research and Development must forever think of new ideas to keep the competition at bay. And this is where all of you can be part of that R&D. You are our front-line ambassadors, how you dress, what you say and how you act are the first impressions on which Dial-a-Cab, your Society, is judged. People of any level never forget first impressions. It creates comments. Everybody likes to talk about having used something which is the best, be it an hotel, restaurant, hairdresser or whatever - including taxis. Nothing pleases me, the Board and particularly the Chairman, more than to hear someone who has used our service say something complimentary about a driver. It gives us a buzz. Unfortunately it doesn’t happen often enough and what’s worse is when we hear the opposite and get a disparaging comment.
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