Helping your business thrive as lockdown restrictions ease.
We're a couple of weekends into the latest easing of UK restrictions with reports showing that the high street is busy again, the public is going to the pub and for dinner - enjoying the beautiful weather we are having.
It is time to ensure that your business can capitalise on demand returning as we all expect a busy summer of people enjoying freedoms that have been greatly missed during lockdown. It is vital that your business makes the most of the economic rebound and cements itself as the reliable taxi company of choice for locals. We've put together a list of things to think about to make sure your business thrives.
1) Making the most of what you have
As we return to normality, there will be periods of very high demand (think pub closing times, for example) versus the quieter lulls in the day. After a year of low revenue for many in industry, you need to ensure you can maximise supply when demand is high.
Our customers do this through our configurable allocation methods and automated booking channels which work in tandem to ensure maximum efficiency for your fleet as a whole, increasing the number of jobs a driver can do.
2) Driver satisfaction
You may have lost drivers over the past year through a lack of work to sustain your normal fleet numbers. Moving forward it is going to be vital that you attract drivers again and retain them. Businesses that use Sherlock can provide their drivers with a truly resilient and reliable driver app with 99.99% uptime - so you can guarantee it won't keep crashing on them like some others on the market!
We have also introduced a suite of features to maximise driver earnings such as offers and bids which allow drivers to select or bid for additional trips if they are not automatically being allocated a trip by the system, and pre-book heat zones which show drivers the best areas to wait in to reduce the time until they are given another trip.
3) Customer loyalty - our Retention & Rewards Programme can help
Getting passengers to use your business in the first place is essential, and if you provide a good service, they will come back. Using efficient allocation will allow you to service as many trips as possible during the busiest times.
You can help retain that customer loyalty through Sherlock's exciting Retention & Rewards Programme (RRP). Unlike anything else on the market, RRP takes all the traditional promo and loyalty features, and combines them with other features to ensure you are making your marketing and marketing budget as effective as it can possibly be. Incentivise customers with discounts based on app downloads, mileage driven, pick-up locations and much more!
4) Data, data, data. Build on your data to make strategic decisions
Use all the data at your fingertips to make smart operational decisions moving forward. For example, looking at historic data you can assess the busiest parts of town on a Saturday to ensure that you plan to have enough drivers working in that area the following weekend to maximise bookings, maximise revenue and maximise driver earnings. A triple win. Or, if you can see you're taking a lot bookings over the phone and would like to reduce the pressure on the call centre by increasing automated bookings, you could send a promo code to passengers to download your app to book.
5) Supplier support
To manage all of this, you need a supplier that will support you and that you can trust is working in your best interests. You don't need a provider who will install the system and then leave you to it - you need frequent interaction and ongoing support, evolving to help the needs of your business and ensuring you can harness technology to succeed.
Sherlock is developed by a team with real-world taxi ops experience and a true passion for the industry. We are privately owned and operate a licence fee which is a sliding scale meaning that as you grow, we grow too so it is a truly mutually beneficial partnership. We currently have clients in 20 countries globally so we urge you to not just take our word for it, talk to our customers about what they think about making the switch to Sherlock.
