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ALLEN TOGWELL’S MARKETING PLACE |
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| May I
start by thanking those who gave me their vote for a further
term in office to serve you as diligently as I have done in the
past. Once again there was an exceptionally low attendance at
the AGM due, I can only guess, to the fact that the majority of
those who didn’t attend are content with the direction their
Society is going at this time. The months preceding elections
are always disruptive with projects being put on hold, but now
we can concentrate on the tasks ahead - included in those tasks
will of course be the imminent relocation to our new premises.
When I first joined the Board, we had just moved into Brunswick House and renovations were still in progress. The difference then was that it involved very little technology, in fact I was the first Board member to have a PC, a second hand Amstrad with a monitor so small it wasn’t much bigger than the ‘bins’ I wore in those days - I looked like Brains out of Thunderbirds! Now, almost 20 years on, we are on the move again and the bulk of the renovation is likely to concern little else but the sort of technology more suited to Cape Canaveral. It’s going to be exciting times for Dial-a-Cab and I’m sure everybody will be pulling out all the stops to make the transition as smooth as humanly possible without having too much effect on our normal business. Writing of those early days prompts me to comment about the Editor’s reply last month to the driver questioning what benefit Dial-a-Cab derived from sponsoring a football team? It reminded me of a marketing campaign I undertook when I first joined the Board. At the very next Board meeting when I gave an update on my activity for the month, several Board members voiced their concerns at my inability to furnish the financial return expected from the campaign, which involved a mailshot where the outlay for stationery and postage alone was in excess of £200. I tried without success to explain that apart from the pittance that the project cost by my producing it totally in-house, marketing is not the same as buying and selling a sack of potatoes and that promoting a product, be it by advertising, sponsoring, PR, direct or indirect marketing, is well known to be the most difficult to quantify since there can be a long delay between customers viewing a branding and a purchase. And to prove that point, several months later I received a phone call from a large company in the City urgently requiring me to visit their office with a view to opening an account with DaC. At the meeting, I was told that a driver from their-then taxi suppliers had upset his passenger - who happened to be the MD’s wife - to such an extent that the MD demanded their account be terminated immediately. The procurement manager, who had only been in the job a few weeks, promptly set about searching for an alternative taxi company when by chance he came across some colourful literature in his office from Dial-a-Cab. When I enquired as to when his company had received this literature, the date on the accompanying letter was the mailshot I had sent out four months earlier! Terms were quickly agreed and within the hour a taxi account with DaC was active. That, incidentally isn’t an unusual way of winning and losing business in our industry, emphasising what I’ve said on many occasions in the past, that it can take several months of hard work to procure a new account and one driver just five minutes to close it. But returning to the original issue, Dial-a-Cab is practically a household name in London and this has been achieved, particularly over the past 10 years, by raising our image through usage amongst the business and the public sector, carrying our branding on vehicles, networking, advertising and sponsoring various events and activities. In marketing parlance, it’s known as the ‘awareness factor’ and to give just one small example of what ‘awareness’ can achieve, on the 13 occasions the Evening Standard has published cartoons involving taxis, they have always put the Dial-a-Cab logo on the vehicle. This may seem insignificant to the driver in question, but I can assure him, such recognition, particularly in our industry, is priceless. Reading Stanley Roth’s Letter in Call Sign last month re drivers doing their bit, was also interesting particularly when looked at in the broader context. Dial-a-Cab is entering into its 54th year of trading and heading for what is likely to be another successful year. But for how much longer do we envisage enjoying this success? How much longer can we rely on being led by the Board with no guarantee of a united |
support from the shareholders? Yes, of course our members cover the work, exactly as the small group of drivers did when the Society was first formed, but little if anything else has changed with regards driver cooperation since those early days in 1953. There are many of you, I’m sure, who would be surprised at how extensive tender documents are that we have to complete when trying to procure new business. There are occasions when they look as large and as complex as the Maastricht Treaty, with questions covering all manner of subjects - many of which we often wonder what they have to do with supplying taxis! Most of the questions we can answer with confidence, then we get to areas that are totally beyond our control such as those appertaining to 90% of our work force and all of the vehicles that we supply, which is controlled entirely by you the shareholders. Fortunately, up until recently the positives in our tender replies far outweighed the negatives to the extent they were never a great issue, environment being just one example. But this is changing rapidly and not by choice as the Government, society as a whole and the business sector in particular are being forced into action. You don’t need me to tell you the effect minicabs have had on our industry over the past 30 years and the lack of response to that effect by the majority of cabmen, due one would assume to the generally accepted cab trade malaise - apathy. But is it apathy or is it simply an inability to self motivate? Whilst driving a cab can become a pretty mundane occupation, I could never envisage Mr Roth, for one, ever being the type to say: "The cab is just a workhorse, who cares about PGN, I get paid no matter where Joe Public takes me and as I’m answerable to no one, I needn’t bath for a month and can go to work dressed in jock strap and flippers if I wish – am I bovvered? I make a living, why change?" Fortunately Mr Roth is bothered by the environment, the general perception of the cab trade, the future of the cab trade and the drivers doing their bit to protect it. And I sincerely hope there are many within our ranks that think likewise. To those that are not bothered, perhaps the following might be of interest… Most of you I’m sure will have read or heard about the effect on the plumbing industry in this country by the intake of Polish immigrants. Since 2004, official records show that 230,000 Poles have immigrated to the UK (the British governments original prediction being between 5,000 and 13,000 a year). What the unofficial figures are is anybody’s guess and a phenomenal amount of these Polish nationals put plumbing as their means of employment. Personally, I have no particular view on the rights of immigrants choosing the UK to work in, but you don’t need the brains of Einstein to realise the effect on any industry when a sudden influx of foreign labour is prepared to work for 50% or less of the normal going rate. Although in this instance, when the going rate is usually an arm and a leg just to change a washer, I cannot imagine many of those requiring a plumber complaining! Nor can I imagine many amongst the general public complaining if a similar situation affected the cab trade. I mention Poles in particular because I recently saw an article supported by photos of a taxi knowledge school in Prague, and because of the growing interest in this school amongst their neighbours Poland, the company running this school is about to expand into that country. So what may you ask is so special about other countries having taxi knowledge schools? Well ordinarily, nothing, except in this case the knowledge is not of their local town or City - but in fact of London. Yes, apparently they are teaching the Knowledge of London in the Czech Republic and Poland! In the photograph was a class of well-dressed students, all wearing the obligatory white shirt and dark tie, emphasising the first strict rule that to be successful when driving a taxi in London - is to be of smart appearance plus fluency in the English language. The average salary in Poland amongst adults is €460 (£316) a month, so it isn’t difficult to see why they are so attracted to working in the UK and London in particular. Industries suffering at the hands of immigrants is nothing new and will continue to happen. The fashion trade I was involved with for many years in which the vast majority of the workforce were Jewish and many of them being descendents of immigrants, was affected enormously by the surge of Asians in the early 70’s and from which it never really recovered. In part, that was because the majority of those running the antiquated sweatshops were stuck in a time warp, very |
much like the cab trade and rather Allen Togwell |
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