CALL SIGN COMPETITION
Congratulations to Mr B.J.Blanks (S85), who was the first
all-correct answer pulled out of the hat in the October competition and who has won a free
months DaC subscription. The answers (which lots of you had) were: Bill and Ben,
David Jacobs and Skippy.
Now for November and again the prize is one months free subscription to DaC. The
following are all famous celebrities and these are their real names. What are the names
that they are better known by?
- Wally Willison
- Michael Dumble-Smith
- Annie May Bullock
The answers are three out of the following: Michael Caine, Wally Whyton, Bruce
Willis, Michael Crawford, Jerry Lewis, Tina Turner and Judy Garland.
Send or drop your answers, name and call sign into the
competition box in reception or post to Call Sign Competition.
WESTMINSTER SPECIAL NEEDS RANKS
As most of you are now aware (following the Mailshot letters sent last
month), the majority of Westminster Special Needs jobs are dispatched from ranks in the
Maida Vale area. There are two ranks now in operation (the Kensington park rd rank was
disbanded); the two are situated at Elgin Avenue and Warwick Avenue. The ranks were set up
at your request to make to allocation of these lucrative jobs fairer. Might I remind you
that we are historically regarded as the "Gentleman’s Circuit" (apologies
to all you lady drivers!) and in this spirit could I suggest that procedures be followed
to avoid any unpleasantness between your colleagues, as such incidents do not show up the
circuit in a favourable light to the general public !
FIXED PRICES
As the heading suggests, the prices for the Westminster Special Needs jobs
are fixed. The prices are set to allow you to do the jobs within a set amount of time,
which we in the control room have calculated to be fair to you, the driver. With this in
mind, may I request on behalf
Opened by Gary Gates
of the dispatchers that you not request removal of the fixed price of the job you are undertaking until you exceed the allotted time. The account pays waiting time of 10 pence per minute when exceeding the allotted time.
PASSENGER ON BOARD (POB) TIMES.
Although a particular moan of the Council, it is becoming apparent to not
only us in the Call Centre but also to our clients, that certain drivers are not following
procedure once they are POB. This causes a number of problems to us in the control room,
which I will briefly (!) try to illustrate to you.
When you send an advise arrival or no-show message to the Call Centre, the
message remains in the control room until you press your POB. It doesn’t take a
genius to realise that this can waste precious minutes for the both the clients and the
ring-back operator chasing up a passenger that is already in your taxi! As we are getting
closer to Christmas we are obviously going to get extremely busy as the rush reaches a
peak and for this very reason, please take into account the depression of that little
button which could be wasting valuable time.
Certain accounts (including Westminster council) are monitoring POB times on
remote terminals to check up on how long the passengers are keeping you waiting once
you’ve arrived at the pick up. With this in mind, it has come to light that certain
drivers neglect to press their button until well into the trip or in some cases until they
are ready to drop off.
Please make that little extra effort as we approach the busiest season of the
year for our profession and I’m sure that we can run the circuit just that little bit
more efficiently.
CODED MESSAGES
In reply to the critique of the ‘Huckstep messages’ that was so
kindly sent in by K83 in last months issue, I can only apologise for the inconvenience
that was
suffered by himself and the
majority of drivers on the circuit and in the same breath I feel I must thank him: As soon
as the ‘canned’ messages were consigned to the bin, the drivers in question who
were not complying with the messages, began to send code 11’s by the thousands!
Obviously a case of reverse-psychology by my peers out there!
The code 11’s are there to let the Call Centre - and therefore the
client - know that you have been kept waiting. That enables us to elucidate what the
problem is, so that we can get things speeded up for you. In the long run, this helps us
fine-tune the Westminster school jobs so that we can provide a better service for one of
our biggest clients and also provide you, the drivers, with a viable and profitable
account to service and prosper from. Just as a brief reminder, there are six codes
associated with code 11’s, indicating to us why you are waiting, these are :
1. No contact with the escort
2. Escort not ready
3. No contact with the child
4. Child not ready
5. Child not going
6. School closed
YES AND NO MESSAGES
A common task performed by representatives of the Help Desk is to elucidate
whether or not a driver has found an item of lost property in his/her cab mislaid by a
careless passenger. Although often not immediately important, if and when you do receive a
message from a Help Desk representative requesting that you check for a lost phone or
umbrella, please check your vehicle for the relevant item and send a coded message back to
the control room as soon as you can.
A brief reminder for those of you that can no longer remember:
To send a ‘yes’ please use code 001, and to send a ‘no’
message, please send code 002.
CALL CENTRE EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH
The prize for Call Centre employee of the month was shared by Tracy
Willis and Sam Livermore, both Help Desk representatives. They were both presented with a diploma and a
monetary prize for their overall performance and attitude. On behalf of the Board of
Management and staff , well Done girls!
