Hey Taxi!
November 12, 2009
Many companies spend small fortunes to generate new business, while at the same time allowing poor service to drive away existing customers.
It doesn’t really matter what you do to attract new customers if you fail to deliver what you promise.
We were on vacation a few weeks ago visiting some friends and had to catch an early-morning flight back home. Since we had to be at the airport at 6:30 am, we didn’t want to inconvenience our host by asking her to get up that early. Instead, we opened the yellow pages and looked up the taxi ads.
One large ad said the company offered “prompt, reliable service to the airport.” That sounded like what we needed, so I called and reserved a cab for the next morning at 6:00 am.
We were all packed with our suitcases on the driveway promptly at 6:00, but – you guessed it – no taxi. I went inside to get the phone number and called the company to find out why they hadn’t showed.
I explained the situation to the dispatcher, and after being put on hold for about five minutes, was told that the cab had broken down about ten minutes from the house. He put me on hold again for a few minutes and told me that another cab was on the way and would be there within eight minutes.
When another 15 minutes had passed with no taxi, I called again and was put on hold while the dispatcher contacted the second cab. He was at a location about five minutes away. Finally, at 6:30, the taxi finally arrived.
Fortunately, I had built some extra time into the schedule, so we wouldn’t miss our flight, but the cab coming fully 30 minutes later than expected added a bit of stress to what was already going to be a very long day.
What I did wonder was if the replacement taxi would have been dispatched if I hadn’t called in the first place to let them know of the problem.
As an interesting footnote, the friend we were staying with went out of town on vacation this week. She wanted the name of the cab company and asked me if they did a good job for us. Needless to say, she chose another company for her own early-morning departure!
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