Christmas Incentive
By now you
should all have received your payment
regarding the Dial-a-Cab Christmas
bonus. I must say it was very successful
and some members really did extremely
well. The thinking behind the philosophy
was really quite simple; we wanted to
return something to members whilst
enhancing the service we gave to our
customers during what I knew would be an
extremely busy period before Christmas
(November 1 to December 21).
As you are aware, we have been extremely successful as a company in
recent years, however, as a Mutual
Trading and a Drivers Co-operative we
cannot return a dividend to our members.
Consequently, it was decided to
implement an incentive that was very
easy to achieve for members who wanted
to do that little bit extra.
Our old building, Brunswick House, has now been sold and if you
look at the Balance Sheet on page 11 of
this years Annual Report, you will see
that it is shown as an Asset held for
Resale valued at £1.42m. I am
delighted to report that I was able to
negotiate a deal with the purchaser,
whereby they paid £2.75million. As you
can no doubt appreciate, if you can
replace a tangible asset with
£2.75million of cash, then you have had
a little windfall of £1.33million
It was decided that we would endeavour to return some of that cash
to members, especially the ones who
endeavoured to enhance the service we
give to our clients during a very busy
period such as the lead-up to Christmas.
As I stated earlier, it worked extremely
well and from a mercenary point of view,
made my life so much easier during that
period! Under normal circumstances, I
would spend a great deal of time
endeavouring to visit all our large
clients in an attempt to placate them
regarding service levels etc. You and I
know the problems that we experience at
that time of year
regarding supply and demand, however,
our clients quite rightly are not
interested in our problems, |
they want a cab to arrive
the same as it does for the remainder of
the year.
However, this year was so much better as members were accepting
trips rather than rejecting them, which
in turn put less pressure on our Call
Centre
because clients were not constantly
ringing them up with an enquiry as to
where their cab was? This, in turn,
freed up our Call Takers to take calls
instead of dealing with queries.
The figures this year for December were better than the
corresponding period last year despite
all the gloom and doom that was reported
on the High Street! But regardless of
figures, I would like to make it quite
clear the amount of Christmas bonus that
was paid to members this year was a
one-off, purely due to the cost
involved. However, as I explained
earlier, we experience that little
windfall and that will not happen again
in the near future.
Now for the bit you’ve been waiting for. The cost of the Christmas
Incentive was in excess of £520k! Yes
you read that correctly, over half a
million pounds paid to members as a
bonus, which will probably make our
competitors choke on their corn flakes
and turn their drivers a rather pale
shade of green. But let me repeat that
this was a one-off and any bonus next
year will not be so generous – always
assuming of course we continue to be as
busy as we are at the moment.
Elsewhere in this issue of Call Sign, I believe there
is more of an in-depth report regarding
the incentive, but I am delighted to say
that we had two members that received in
excess of £2,500 and one over £2,000. We
also had in total, sixty seven that
received more than a £1,000 and four |
hundred and eight who
received more than £500, while no less
than eight hundred and twenty picked up
over £250.
The remainder of the fleet varied between £250 and nothing,
however, everyone had the same offer and
chance to make the 2007 Christmas period
an extremely profitable one. I am just
delighted we were in a position to
reward our members – long may it
continue.
Tariff Increasee
It has been
recommended to the TfL Board there
should be a tariff increase on the 5
April this year, although at the
time of writing it has not been agreed
by the Board as they do not meet until 6
February. However, I have no
reason to doubt that the increase will
not be granted. I am led to believe the
20p Environmental charge is going to be
removed, but that the flag fall will be
increased to £2.20 – if that makes
sense! The reasoning is that the flag
fall will remain the same even though
the Environment charge is no longer
there. It had originally been introduced
in April 2005.
Also the extras button will be changed so that in future it
will go up in 50p units rather than the
current 20p, which basically means you
will not have to press the extras
button so many times to achieve the
desired amount on the meter.
Overall the increase will amount to 4.7% across all three tariffs,
however, I would like to re-iterate the
above increase has not yet been
endorsed, but hopefully will be on 6
February.
Dial-a-Cab AGM
Finally, I
would like to remind you that our AGM is
on Sunday 10 February at 11.00hrs at The
Brewery in Chiswell Street. I would also
like to remind you that should you
choose not to vote by post, then you
must attend the AGM otherwise a £50 fine
will be imposed. I look forward to
seeing as many of you as possible on the
day.
Brian Rice
Chairman
Dial-a-Cab |
