Call Sign April 2007 - Page 37

This is my first opportunity to thank all those members who supported me in the election of officers. I am again extremely grateful at being re-elected and will continue to work on behalf of all DaC members to ensure we continue to maintain our position within the industry.
   In the last Call Sign, Colin Lewis (N55) remarked about how certain trips in the morning are offered after a time as non-rejectable and he felt that because these trips were then running late, drivers who were forced to accept them would be in for some aggro from the client.
   Not wishing to sound patronising to Colin, but the reason for altering trips to non-rejectable is because the call centre staff have already had the aggro, as he puts it, from the client because the taxi has not arrived on time! The problems of coverage, especially in the mornings, could be said to be an old chestnut. Senior day shift controller Lee Morland and I have recently been having discussions on a daily basis about this, because it is at the lowest level it has ever been.
   Controllers are becoming more and more frustrated that no matter what action they take, they are receiving aggro from both clients and drivers. Like drivers, they also do not want to get into confrontation with clients and to combat this, you may have noticed recently more work in the mornings is being made non-rejectable much earlier.
   Fortunately or unfortunately - depending which way you look at the situation - making trips non-rejectable earlier has improved coverage to our clients, but has not gone down too well with some drivers. Lee has been on my case to get the Board to agree to make the decision that all account work from 07:00 hours through to 10:00 hours, Monday to Friday, be totally non-rejectable. I have never been one to make change for change sake, but the continuous coverage problems that have occurred this year alone have made me look into the issue further.
   Initially, my commercial thoughts were to agree but my driver instincts told me not to do it. When you get into discussions with a controller who has been on the receiving end of the aggro from clients for a very long time, the conversation gets rather heated and a few ‘effs’ are bandied about! Certainly for the past month, each morning I ask what the coverage has been like and the answer from Lee is the same. He presents me with a list of call signs and the number of trips that have been offered along with the number of rejects done.
   To my astonishment, it not uncommon to see 60 plus rejects being made by a number of drivers. I have looked at how many were due to trips being offered from back-up zones and while they do count for quite a number of them, I am trying to understand why trips in the primary zones were being knocked back when they are dispatched without a destination?
   I came up with two theories of

CALL CENTRE CHAT

thought. One is that the client
must be a regular who goes to the same destination each morning and drivers recognise the pick-up address, make their assumption of the destination, thus deciding they do not want to go there. The other is a driver who books into a zone when they are nowhere near, hoping that by the time they travel to the area they will not have to wait too long for a trip offer. The down side of this is because we are very busy at the moment, trips are being offered as soon as the driver books in and because they are so far away, they are forced to reject.
Those drivers who book in incorrectly are not aware of the ramification it has on the whole call centre. Just prior to a booking being put into the system by a telephonist, there is displayed exactly how many taxis are in the pick-up and the back-up zones. From this information, they relay to the customer our expected service level. If drivers are shown as being booked in, we will offer a 10 to 15 minute service for any ASAP trip.

How controllers monitor time parameters
Controllers also have to judge how much lead-time to give zones for the pre booked trips. They monitor the fleet from a screen similar to the zone query screen that drivers have on their terminals. They can also see how many drivers are booked in and from this information make their judgement whether to leave lead times as they are or extend them. Controllers are fully aware that if they fire trips in too early, drivers will not accept them because they are not willing to wait for the client with the meter off for too long. If the information before them cannot be relied upon as being accurate, they end up in a very difficult situation and sometimes end up fighting a losing battle of knowing what action to take that is best for both the client and driver.
Whilst I fully understand the reasons why drivers work the way they do, I am beginning to become more concerned that they are starting to consider themselves only, with no consideration whatsoever to the Society. I would not even begin to criticise anyone for acting this way except to say that if it continues, it will not be long before we start to lose accounts and then drivers. The Society’s biggest criticism from clients is our inability to supply a cab when the trip is booked well in advance. Their frustration is compounded when we notify them just 5 minutes or less on some occasions before the booked time that there is no cab available. All clients require of us is a taxi on time. I have seen

accounts move to car companies because they can offer more of a guaranteed service for an early morning pick up than we can.
For those of us who have been involved in the Society for many years, we remember the times when it was growing. I go back to the late eighties and I know there are many more of you who go back even further. It was common practise that being on radio meant travelling some distance to pick up a customer. It was this type of service that gave us an excellent reputation, which has been built upon and has allowed us to be as successful as we are now. Members had the attitude that every trip they did, they did for the best interest of the Society as a whole. There may have been one or two who didn’t think like that, but the majority made it best for everyone.
My biggest fear now is that as the years move on, drivers thinking and reasoning behind why they are members of the Society could be changing. I have spoken with many who feel they are working for a company rather than a Friendly Society. I have always explained to them that every trip they undertake is really in the best interest of everyone associated with the Society and every piece of good customer service given will encourage that client to use us again. It is then that the odds are in favour of each member benefiting from the next trip. If we cannot take our clients to work or to meetings, then there is no hope on earth of them continuing to allow us to take them home in the evening from the office. I know drivers main interests are their families and themselves, but the point of all this is this; I sincerely hope that members start to include the whole Society within their thoughts when making choices in the work they undertake.

The rules are there if needed…
We have procedural rules in place to prevent drivers from booking into zones and we can prove this by monitoring the GPS system. However, to do this I have to take a member of staff away from their other duties and because we are as busy as we are, this puts the rest of the team under pressure. On some occasions, drivers are so blatant in what they do it is obvious and very straightforward to report them.
The initial request to make work in the morning non-rejectable, I believe should not be made without first bringing the problem to the member’s attention. If the members can resolve the situation first, then it must be for the good of everyone. We shall be monitoring coverage very closely and I hope that we can provide customers with the service they require and not have to alter the way we work.

Keith Cain
Call Centre Manager
Driver Operations Manager

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