- Company
- Elite Cars, Wakefield
- Fleet
- 40 cars
- Result
- 30% fewer office calls
- Contact
- Imtiaz Khan
Summary
“We at Elite Cars are a small company with only 40 cars. We were heavily reliant on operators taking calls in the office. We wanted to shift to more automation and ‘help yourself’ services to relieve the pressure on staff and even reduce the number of staff. This was compounded by two of our best operators relocating for family reasons, so we had to act fast to find solutions that would let us not only continue, but become more efficient and future-proof the business as much as possible.”
What needed resolving?
With only a handful of operators – two of whom were relocating – Elite Cars needed solutions that would make them more efficient and less reliant on office-based operators.
Action taken
“We spoke to a number of telephony and cab dispatch suppliers to see what was available, and reached out to InfoCabs, who were already our dispatch provider but not our telephony provider. InfoCabs have always provided a fantastic service and are very approachable, but we wanted to carry out due diligence. After speaking to three other suppliers we felt InfoCabs were the right match: they have never let us down and only promise what they can deliver.”
With InfoCabs' help, Elite Cars introduced the following:
- Telephony moved to InfoCabs, so the whole solution is under one roof – giving a much better, more flexible service.
- Auto attendant booking: customers book without an operator. Those who prefer a person press 0 – the system remembers and routes them straight to an operator next time.
- Automatic “where's my driver?”: when a customer with a live job calls, the system tells them their driver is on the way, which road they're on and the ETA. “A godsend on a Friday and Saturday night.”
- Driver-to-customer connect: when a driver can't find a customer and rings the office, the system knows they're on a job and puts them straight through to the customer.
- Cloud-based booking and dispatch (beta) for the relocated staff, who now work remotely – so successfully that other operators have asked to do the same.
- Business portal for account customers to book and amend their own jobs, with cost codes and import/export. “Our customers are loving the portal – all of them say it has made them more efficient.”
- One-tap booking app for bars and clubs, linked directly into dispatch with no operator needed.
- Own-branded customer apps so customers can book their own cabs.
Results
“Operators deal with fewer calls from both customers and drivers, so they are happier, and as a company we are more efficient and more profitable because we don't need as many operators when it is busy. We have 30% fewer calls coming into the office than before – and at the same time our job count has increased. We're working to make this 60%.”
Next, Elite Cars plans to push further on automation and bring more efficiency to account customers and accounting for both customers and drivers, using the InfoCabs accounts module.