With family businesses equating to over 80% of the private business sector, those with the pleasure of being a part of the 4.8 million family businesses in the UK understand that business ownership comes with unique challenges and advantages, especially if it’s a family-run taxi firm.
Typically, family-run taxi firms are viable since they are created out of the same vision for success, shared values, family tradition, and aesthetics; however, this is no longer enough to survive and compete in today’s transportation landscape.
Nowadays, family-run taxi businesses must rise and adapt to the transformative changes sweeping the industry (mainly technology!) to stand out against competitors, attract/retain customers, enhance brand visibility, and grow a profitable family-run taxi business.
You’re in the right place if you’ve been searching for ways to grow your family-run taxi business. This article details several top strategies to use in your family-run taxi business to promote growth and longevity.
From taking advantage of digital marketing and new technologies to improving your customer experience and making careful considerations when looking at taxis for sale, we outline several actionable strategies to help you propel your family-run taxi business forward below.
Encourage Repeat Business
One of the easiest ways to increase your bottom line and promote growth within your family-run taxi firm is to encourage repeat business. Ultimately it is much easier to persuade someone who has already used your services to use them again than to convert new leads into customers, so what can you do to ensure they keep coming back and don’t go to your competitors?
One of the best ways taxi businesses retain customers is by implementing a loyalty or referral scheme to offer them rewards for continued use. You can do this by producing your own mobile application, which will send discounts/promotions to customers’ emails as and when they can be redeemed or by providing them with a physical loyalty/referral card after their first trip with you.
You could offer a discount on their next trip after they’ve used you a specific number of times or a small percentage off their friend’s first trip if a word-of-mouth referral has convinced them to use your services. By offering promotions/discounts/loyalty schemes, you create happy customers, the best advertisements for your business, and tools for growth!
Choose Your Fleet With Care
Like all businesses, choosing the right equipment for your family-run taxi firm is imperative. Since your firm operates in the transportation sector, one of the most significant (and most costly!) pieces of equipment will be your fleet, so you’ll need to take extra care when perusing taxis for sale to ensure you make the most intelligent and most lucrative decisions for your taxi firm.
To ensure you make the best decisions when looking at any taxis for sale, you must consider different aspects, including fuel efficiency, boot space, passenger capacity, accessibility and price. The better the vehicle performs against these considerations, the better value you’re getting for your money and the more customers you’ll be able to cater for, ultimately benefiting your bottom line.
You could be more considerate about your fleet choices by allowing family members to use their own vehicles, lease your taxi fleet, or buy them new/used from retailers like Cab Direct. Consider making better fleet choices today by visiting their website and browsing their range of used/brand-new taxis for sale or contacting them directly to learn how they could help you grow your family-run taxi firm.
Utilise The Latest Technology
Long gone are when people would hail a taxi out on the street; nowadays, passengers don’t even need to leave their houses or carry cash in their wallets to book a trip. Using recent and not-so-recent technologies, travellers can communicate with taxi drivers to schedule trips, pay upfront and book on behalf of others, making technological integration vital for any business looking to grow.
One of the best technological features to implement in your family-run taxi business is on-demand taxi applications which take the hassle out of getting bookings and deliver them straight into your drivers’ hands. Using your driver’s location, on-demand taxi apps match them to potential clients, depending on the time it would take to reach them.
Integrating this technology means drivers can benefit from reduced fuel consumption driving to and from jobs and making the most of one area before moving on to another or heading back to headquarters. Some of the best on-demand taxi applications for family-run taxi businesses to join include Uber, Bolt, Ola, Wheely, and much more.
Target The Most Popular Routes
As a driver, you’ll probably expect customers to request some routes, such as popular tourist attractions, airports or train stations, so why not pre-empt these journeys by targeting them, which can effectively grow your business? For example, if your best custom comes from airport transfers, why not offer an airport shuttle service to free up your fleet for other popular routes?
Or if you know that you get many bookings via the train stations, why not have several of your fleet parole the stations daily so you can pick up these bookings more easily? Enabling your drivers to have more control over their day and promoting growth simultaneously.