If you’re app-y and you know it, fix your price...

N this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxis.”

Benjamin Franklin’s famous phrase, or was it Daniel Defoe?

Bonus point to you if you noticed the deliberate mistake – the one-letter change from taxes to taxis.

Anyway … if nothing else that took care of the first few sentences of this week’s diary and allows me to motor on with some spiel about the certainty customers in 2020 can enjoy when booking a taxi of the Glasgow variety.

We can only wonder what Franklin or Defoe would have made of life in 2020, in particular the way that technology has changed our lives. The pandemic has only shone a light on the importance of so many innovations when it comes to us staying connected with our loved ones during a lockdown.

From FaceTime and Zoom calls to self-service checkouts and contactless payment, many of these innovations have really played a blinder over the past four or five months. That last one, contactless payment, has been very evident for Glasgow taxi drivers like me – there’s been a big jump in the number of people not only using it, but proactively asking for it.

Now I love a cash tip as much as the next driver, but if contactless payment is the differential which means a job is – to use a Franklin/Defoe keyword – “certain” then I’m all for it. The other game-changer for us during 2020 has been the Glasgow Taxis booking app.

This was already increasing steadily in use year after year – however since March it has exploded. reckon I take more than double the amount of bookings via app than I did six months ago. Contactless payment vs cash may settle back towards normal in time but the increase in app use is here to stay, I reckon. And if it’s certainty that our customers are seeking then an app booking means:

• The hire is immediately booked on to our system.

• A guaranteed fixed price can be offered there and then, if the journey is within Glasgow.

• You can track the progress of your taxi on a live screen.

This isn’t an either or situation – our friends in the call centre do a brilliant job with all manner of account queries, advance bookings and direct contact with those who may not have the access or confidence to use the app. Voice calls remain an essential part of the mix. For the rest of you, downloading the app today would be a wise move.

And as our old friend Daniel Defoe once said: “It is never too late to be wise”. Stay safe!

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