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As with most issues,
things are never as simple as they look and winning work back from
our competitors is something that is currently topical in Call
Sign. But to most people outside of the London taxi trade,
they must think we are a little mad. Firstly, discussing such things in such a public fashion and why the need to debate the topic in the first place? Then there is the length of time it is taking to come to an agreement about the best way forward; or should we just leave things alone or fight back? The trade has always been very reactionary, but we should start looking at ourselves when we begin getting advice about how to run our business from the PH industry! Perhaps we’re all just giving the issue lip service whilst things are quiet, knowing that all the issues will go away when the work comes back - which it eventually will. But even when it does, I feel there are two issues that need to be seriously looked at. Firstly, as DaC drivers we bemoan the fact that private hire has taken a lion’s share of the work that we used to call ours. But this wasn’t our work, nor is it private hire’s. It is work that’s distributed to a provider who gives the client what they want or nearest to what they want and that could be anyone and is liable to change. What I’m talking about is competing in the open market place. Yes, we have a monopoly when it comes to plying for hire, but not in the pre-booked market. Recently we lost major accounts because we don’t supply them with the type of service they want. When I buy items online, I usually buy with the company that wants my custom the most - but not always at the cheapest price. Ask any advertising agency executive and they will tell you that companies advertise in a recession simply to try and keep their market share. In essence, drivers want to get back big city company work that has left us for PH after previously asking us to lower their prices - but our drivers then tell the DaC Board to get the work back without lowering prices! It sometimes feels that when it comes |
Richard Potter asks: Whose work is it? |
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 to competing, we in the taxi business feel we don’t have to and as I have said before, unless something changes - things won’t change. Secondly, I think the gulf between DaC drivers and the DaC Board has never been greater and by this I mean that we drivers have only a limited understanding of the competitive market place in which we work. One of the reasons for this is that the Board have to maintain a silence so as not to alert our competitors as to what we are doing, but the rate of change and demands of clients has accelerated this during the recession. What we must do is to allow the Board to shake off the shackles and restrictions placed upon them by the DaC membership and allow them a proper role in running the company they are elected to manage. The Chairman can only tender knowing what the drivers will do and within the parameters of the ODRTS resolutions, which must often be a huge disadvantage. Let’s face it, DaC’s Board must be the only management structure that I know of that has so little say over what its members will achieve! Imagine you are the CEO of a major bank; he doesn’t have to phone the Chairman to ask what DaC has to offer, he knows. It’s the same in every tender! Then when the Board do something radical - like introducing Concierge - something JPMorgan asked DaC to produce and which has since been copied by many others, a minority of members were up in arms and almost brought the company to its knees – even to the extent of reporting the Society to the Financial Services Authority, causing a time-wasting period of several months, after which DaC |
were given a clean bill of health
anyway. Yes, change causes stress and is never liked, however if DaC is to survive as a company and still be a force in 10 years time and be worth anything, we have to begin tackling our weak points. If clients are asking for the wait premium and / or the fixed gratuity to be scrapped and this could lead to more business, then we should address it. Personally, I feel the gratuity should be optional and account customers should tell the driver at the end of the journey whether it should be applied. Tips have never bothered me at all; I don’t give a tip if I receive bad service. Clients should have a choice and yes, the £4 station premium should be withdrawn. These are known outside the trade as hidden extras. Personally I think that it would be far more beneficial if we as a company spent more time telling clients what we can do for them, rather than what we can’t do. Finally, let me leave you with this thought. I never used to buy flowers because they were expensive and didn’t last long. Florists must have thought that the quicker the flowers they sold perished, the quicker people would come back to buy some more - but not in my case. I spent my money on other things. But a few years ago I brought some flowers from Tesco and they had a little packet of plant food on the stem. By adding this to the water, the flowers would last two weeks instead of a few days. Now I am a regular buying of Tesco flowers and even though they are cheaper at the point of sale compared to that of a florist, over the course of a year I spend much more on flowers than I ever did and I am happy to do so. Indeed, a very clever piece of marketing. It’s all about giving the client what they perceive is value for money and looking at the big picture. Short-term losses can reward you with long-term gains. Richard Potter (T51) |
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