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Allen Togwell’s Marketing Place I would like to start by thanking all those members who gave me their vote for a further term of office. The attendance at the AGM was once again very small and to those who didn’t attend, you missed a good meeting, conducted in a very professional manner. When people spoke they were listened to without interruption and at times it was quite jovial. Which is in stark contrast to AGMs of years past that became so unsavoury, they forced decent members to make excuses not to attend. |
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 Those
that read this column would have seen at the end of the article in
the January issue of Call Sign, a request to answer 8
questions relating to selling our services. Three subscribers
responded, and one of the answers to the first question, which
related to guaranteeing a service was: Money is the only
motivator to guarantee a service, put a high enough premium on a
credit ride and it will get covered… Yes of course, cab drivers are motivated by money just as any self-employed person is. But they are also businessmen and in business you have to adapt according to supply and demand or suffer the consequences. Continually throwing money at a trip to get it covered is both uneconomical and counter productive, because hardly any trips would get covered unless they carried a premium. In reality it shouldn’t be necessary because account work is regular business - tomorrow’s business - and should be valued as such. During the past few months, I have heard depressing stories about the lack of work on the streets. About cabs on ranks stretching out of sight and drivers having to cruise endlessly in the hope of trapping a fare. As we all know, January is traditionally a kipper period with this year being made worse by the economic crisis worldwide. A crisis that prompts the question whether lessons can be learnt? As JFK once said: The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining. And in that context I feel a lot more could be done during busy periods by way of promoting our business to compensate for the likely drop during the kipper periods. Much of our business comes from the large corporates in the City and E14. These are prestigious accounts to have and very rewarding when they are busy. The problems arise when they are not so busy, be it due to extended holiday periods or worse, a recession when they all start looking for cut backs, reductions in staff, lowering expenditure and searching the market place for cheaper suppliers. When this happens, at least part of the shortfall could be made up by the custom of smaller users that are rarely affected in the same way. But we need smaller users in large numbers. That can be achieved by resiliently giving out our give-away cards during the period when we are busy - in other words at a time when you think it isn’t necessary. These users ideally would be outside of the E14s, ECs and W1 areas, and who live in private residential buildings. These are easy to target and the reason why when you look in the front entrance, you will see numerous give-away cards from PH firms. This is a crude way of marketing, but it works, and you could do |
exactly the same by dropping in a
dozen or so of our cards whenever you are passing a residential
building. The residents of private flats save cards from all types
of services, it becomes a habit. I know because my neighbours and I
do it whenever cards are dropped in the letterbox of our flats. Quite often I have come across people who reluctantly use PH, but do so because of the difficulty when trying to book a licensed taxi. This needs to change. We need to be more accommodating towards the smaller user, including being conscious of the amount on the meter when arriving at the pick-up address. I’m not suggesting we undersell our services, just to be more accommodating. Believe it or not but Dial-a-Cab is still the only taxi company in London that offers a real-time taxi booking service via the Internet, payable by credit card without the need of a password. This should be exploited and you guys, all 2,200 of you, are the ideal people to do it. Not only to users that I couldn’t possibly target, but target without incurring any cost. I repeat, I have never agreed with the policy of selling our services cheap because history has proven that when you reduce charges or even worse suspend a charge, it is extremely difficult to get it reinstated. Conversely, neither do I feel comfortable when the quality of those supplying that service is below what it could be. The problem with this argument is one our members identify as quality. I once had one of our members aggrieved at my suggesting we should smarten up our appearance, argue that providing the cab arrives on time what difference does it make if the driver’s choice of dress was just a jock strap and flippers! Probably none if the passenger was desperate to get somewhere in a hurry. Unfortunately, in today’s fast-paced business world, image is of primary importance. And images are formed in seconds, based on your appearance. Projection is nine tenths of success. To get business, you need to project an image that attracts potential customers rather than repels them. I guarantee that all of you at one time in your life have made an effort to project an image and not just on one occasion, but over a period of time. And that time of course was when you were a Knowledge boy and went to the PCO dressed in a suit and tie. It’s strange that the moment that coveted green badge is taken possession of, the attitude towards appearance seems to disappear. ********** Another example of how damaging the wrong image can be. The very first B&B I stayed at put me off from using one again for almost 40 years. I was stranded in |
Newcastle, it was almost midnight
and pelting down with rain when I saw a light above a B&B sign
saying rooms vacant. I rang the bell and the door was opened by what
I assumed to be a woman because of the stockings rolled up to the
knees. She was built like a wrestler, dressed in a bathrobe, had a
fag stuck to her lower lip, no teeth, a chin in dire need of a shave
and what attracted my attention most was the huge pair of army boots
that she was wearing. Before I could open my mouth, she grabbed my
bag and headed up the stairs, to which I had little choice but to
follow. When I reached my room, she slammed the door with the heel
of one of her huge boots and began to rant on about something to do
with house rules. The room was bitterly cold and the bed had three
huge mattresses on top of each other. It was so high I had to climb
on the iron frame to get onto the top mattress. Once in
the bed, I sunk so low I had trouble getting off the damn thing in
the morning! There was no hot water, just a jug of cold water on a
washstand. And for breakfast, it was porridge or nothing! That image
of a B&B stayed with me right up until a few years ago, when my
partner, against my wishes, discovered two absolutely marvellous
B&B’s in Worthing that we visit often and which we now use instead
of hotels. The en-suite rooms are spacious, bright, comfortable and
extremely clean. TV, DVD and wireless connection for a PC, tea and
coffee facilities etc and the use of the bar in the guest lounge
where you leave a note of what drinks you’ve had. The breakfast is
both extensive in choice, plentiful and expertly cooked. All for £35
per head plus a key to come and go as you please. I mention that story because running a B&B is very much like running a cab. The dead mileage of the previous day cannot be recouped. Equally, the empty bed of the previous night at a B&B cannot be recouped. It is money lost forever. On the last page of this year’s Annual Report, you would have seen a graphic with the message: Make the most of the opportunity because you never get a second chance to make a first impression. That message is the mantra by which the owners of the two B&B’s we use run their business and why they are always busy and their competitors are not. All of us would do well to use it as our mantra, particularly during this recession. Distribute our give-away cards at every opportunity to attract new customers, and when those customers attempt to use our service, they are covered promptly and when they leave your cab, they do so with a feeling of wanting to use us again… Allen Togwell |
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