Call Sign August 2010 - Page 11 - CALL CENTRE CHAT

CALL CENTRE CHAT
SE75 We are now entering the quiet period and it is essential that everyone follows and complies with our procedural rules. Focus should be on booking into zones correctly, especially the outer zones where you have to be physically in the zone before booking in. With the work being slightly down, controllers will have more time to monitor the system. For those drivers who regularly work SE75, I can inform you that the account client’s summer break will end on 5th September and normal working will begin again on the 6th September. Cab licence We are also still finding drivers	forgetting to bring in a copy of their cab licence. This finds us having to send out reminder letters, which in some cases does offend. Please remember that a sure way of proving you are the owner of the taxi is by us seeing the cab licence. If your overall looks like it will be taking a little longer than necessary, please call Driver Services and inform them so we can update our records.	That also goes for any personal details that change, including mobile telephone numbers. It is essential our records are fully up to date, especially if we need to contact any of you in an emergency. Courtesy One last point is to remind all drivers to remain courteous to clients even when you might find them being a little unreasonable. Let us take the higher ground and prove the service we provide is second to none. If you are going away, have a lovely time... Keith Cain Call Centre Manager Driver Operations Manager
South side stories???
Gordon Bennett (Y91) has been with Dial-a-Cab since 1994, but his only previous contact with Call Sign was in our July 2005 issue when he asked all drivers on the circuit to look out for dodgy minicabs with what appeared to be fake licenses. And his interest in the "little people" seems not to have waned too much since then! Living on the south London / Kent border, Gordon sees more than his share of both legitimate private hire and the touting variety and has sent Call Sign several examples of PH life in the south. It starts with Lightning Cars whose flyer leaflet in the local Bromley News Shopper announced that each time you entered one of their minicabs, you were entered into a Ł750 holiday voucher competition. Even Call Sign found it difficult to be too nasty about that, but not to worry, Gordon’s south side stories hadn’t quite finished. Next in the paper and spread right across the front page was the story headed: "Absolutely Disgusted." This told of kind-hearted Orpington minicab firm, Jason’s Cars, whose driver refused to take a deaf and visually impaired passenger because she had a guide dog with her. The Disability Discrimination Act – of which Call Sign has always supported, especially when it comes to seeing and/or hearing	*Guide dog Drew doesn’t look to vicious to us! Pic Courtesy Bromley News Shopper* dogs – makes it clear that taxis and private hire companies have a duty to carry passengers with those amazing animals at no extra cost. Invariably, that type of dog is always extremely well-behaved and as in the case of Drew, extremely cute with a lovely smile! And ever since that part of the Act came into being back in March 2001 to bolster the original from 1995, anyone failing to comply with these duties would be guilty of an offence and, on conviction, liable to a fine of up to Ł1,000. But in all the years we have reported on misdemeanours against the Act, not once have we had to report that it was a licensed taxi driver who was the culprit – it was always a minicab company.	Yet another reason this magazine doesn’t like the equalisation that Transport for London seems to be pushing for. But getting back to Gordon’s south side reports; last but not least comes a piece on page 15 where a 64-year old minicab driver was sent to prison for 3.5 years for drug offences after his Skoda Octavia was stopped by police in Biggin Hill. They found it stacked with crack cocaine, Ecstasy and cannabis in addition to bundles of cash. That’s Gordon Bennett’s life in the south. Call Sign’s only comment – and yes, we know we’re picky - is that there were very few mentions of the words private hire. The Bromley area obviously know that a minicab is a minicab and always will be a minicab regardless of TfL’s fascination with PH. Yet the only mention of the word ‘Taxi’ was when a source from the Guide Dogs Association quoted from the DDA and said that it was an offence for Taxis and private hire to refuse seeing / hearing dogs. How strange that they felt they had to mention taxis in the same breath when they have probably never had a complaint about us refusing dogs! Thanks Gordon, at least we know that nothing changes whether in London, Essex, Kent or anywhere!

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