If you are living in a major city, no matter where you are in the world, you probably have some form of taxi booking service in your neighborhood already. Businesses like Uber have transformed the entire private transportation industry and left companies running after app like Uber. We have many taxi services which use the smartphone today, and the market seems to have reached a stagnant stage.
However, as it turns out, modern businesses like Uber has been able to penetrate the market by 9.8% in 2018. The penetration is expected to increase to 13.3% in 2022 which leaves room for the entry of new players in the industry.
The Top 9 Strategies to Help You Grow Your Taxi Business
The question for you is how to improve customer loyalty, and it all boils down to the user experience along with your marketing strategies.
Today, we are going to give you a lesson on how to boost your taxi business and achieve growth amidst the stiff competition. You can use all of the ways and get more customers on board.
1 Online Presence and Promotion
The very first thing to do is to get yourself a nice, responsive, and aesthetically pleasing website. 80% of the online population has bought something online, and 71% believe they are going to get a good deal online.
So if you don’t have a website with booking feature, you are losing out big time on exposure. Your website will create brand awareness, make you visible to a wider population of customers and get you more ride requests in the end.
2 Social Media Presence
The total number of social media users across the globe is going to increase from 2.46 billion in 2017 to 2.77 billion in 2019. You can imagine the potential of social media in creating a huge customer base as 71% of internet users are social media users too!
Get yourself a business account in popular social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube and anything that you can lay your hands upon. Regularly update your taxi business page with relevant content like articles, videos, images and other media.
You can create unique stories featuring your passengers and drivers to engage your customers at a higher level. Also, respond to the queries posted by customers and reply to their feedback regularly.
3 Reach Out through PR and Media
Businesses like Uber also depend on traditional media and PR tactics to expand their customer base and get new ones. You can publish interesting stories in the local media and even create content for television and radio. If you don’t have in-house talent, you can go for a PR firm who will take care of things on your behalf.
Effective PR will create brand awareness, brand loyalty, and leave a positive impression about your business on the mind of the customers. You can also convert your audience to customers via PR strategies.
4 Targeted Advertising
You have higher chances of conversion when you target a person who has shown interest in your ride-hailing service. The same applies in advertising!
Through the use of algorithms, and customer behavior and preferences, you can zero in on your target customer group on various platforms. Then you expose them to your advertisement, and they are more likely to opt for your service.
You can go for targeted advertising through Pay per Click (PPC) campaigns. Your ads show up on web pages and search engine results when someone searches something related to taxi-hailing service. You have to pay for each click viewer makes on your link.
Social media can also be a great platform to publish targeted advertisements. For instance, Facebook has a special program for marketers where they can choose their target customers and send them their advertisements. Such social media campaigns will also work to bring in new customers.
5 Fleet Branding
You must have seen the brand logo of Uber or Ola on the vehicle that comes to pick you up. This strategy of placing your logo or wrapping your fleet vehicles in your company’s branding is a great way to reach out to more customers-
A car with company branding and graphics is seen by more than 3,000 people in a busy area. 91% of other drivers notice advertisements on vehicles and 35% study them with close attention.
Branding your cars need only minimal expense but give you greater returns. Fleet branding is an effective and common method to boost your taxi business.
6 Driver Recruitment
You will need to recruit drivers to run your taxi business. Businesses like Uber sign up drivers who have their own vehicles as this reduces the cost of creating and maintaining a fleet.
Your drivers are not only the backbone of your business, but they can act as ideal PR agents and do wonders for your company. Drivers generally communicate with the passengers and will be able to tell them about your company for free!
You can ask 100 drivers to sign up and test your app, and soon they will get more drivers on board through referrals. Your fleet will also increase with the number of drivers, and your business will achieve the growth you have been looking forward to.
7 Offers and Promotions
Discount coupons and promotional offers are tried and tested methods to attract new customers and retain the old ones. 79.8% of consumers use coupons with regularity while another 80% are looking out for promotions. 91% of customers who redeemed a coupon will become a repeat customer to a business.
You can offer discounts to customers directly through your taxi dispatch software or send a text or message. The promotions can also be published online on social media accounts or your websites.
Also, you can distribute leaflets, flyers, and coupons near areas with heavy footfall like multiplexes, shopping malls, pubs, in concerts and other events. It can give you a significant business as companies expect around 18% of future business to come from the customers who availed a discount or promotion.
8 Referral Marketing
People are more likely to trust the recommendations of their friends and family. The same approach is used in referral marketing where a customer refers a product or service to their friends in return for a discount or other incentive.
You can integrate the system in your taxi booking apps where the customers can share a promo code with their contacts. The new contact then tries out your app like Uber and refers it to their friends and family. This way your business is always growing as you keep getting new customers through referrals.
9 Customer Feedback
Passengers can rate the drivers and leave real-time feedback and reviews in the taxi booking app after the ride is completed. The rating system gives you perfect opportunity to track the drivers with low ratings and take corrective measures.
You should also attend to any complaints or feedback instantly and resolve the matter whether it is big or small. Heeding customer feedback ultimately increases customer satisfaction, creates brand loyalty and enhances customer engagement-recipes for growing taxi business.
Conclusion
Everyone owns a smartphone today, and as a result, taxi hailing apps are becoming more common than ever. The fact that you could do so much more with a taxi hailing app, and improve brand image and customer loyalty makes it a great business bet.
Additionally, you can boost your taxi business by adding alternative payment methods to your taxi booking app, collaborate with transportation agencies and hotels and use promotional campaigns. You could even send out promotional codes for your users to improve customer engagement, or integrate your services with other business centers to get more users.
Of course, you are first going to need a quality taxi dispatch software which is the main framework of your taxi business- then you can use the above-mentioned ways to grow and expand your business.
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