The Customer is Number 1 at Premier Cabs

Situation
Premier Cabs is Sydney's second largest cab company and are dedicated to providing modern taxi services. They take pride in delivering outstanding customer service, through their state-of the art call centre and job dispatch solution, the provision of specialist vehicles such as multi-functional Maxi-Cabs and limousine style Prestige Taxis and ensuring that the Premier fleet are the cleanest and best-maintained taxis in town.
Premier means number one, so it's no surprise that they were the first in Sydney to introduce a fully computerised job dispatch system that uses the Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites to locate cars. They were also the first in Sydney to introduce uniforms for taxi drivers, setting the standard for excellent customer service. Today Premier Cabs is a very stable company that consistently makes good profits and their drivers always get noticed as the best presented in town.
In the mid 1990's it became apparent that some improvements needed to be made. Driver safety was a primary issue and legislation had been put in place to make sure that taxi companies could track drivers.

The radio room environment was open to a lot of unfounded criticism from drivers, who perceived favouritism amongst the fleet. So, Premier decided that "enough was enough". It was time to move from voice dispatch to a computerised dispatch solution. They investigated all the options available within Australia and across Asia and selected the Raywood computerised GPS dispatch solution.

Solution
Raywood Communications is a pioneer in computerised, GPS dispatch technology for the taxi industry. Their sophisticated dispatch solution uses GPS satellites to track the location of vehicles and locate the closest vehicle to the customer, and complex algorithms to dispatch jobs efficiently over a private radio network. This innovative solution increases call centre efficiency, driver income, customer satisfaction and ultimately increases income for the company.

Raywood offers a variety of dispatch solutions, including simple plotting systems, a combination of plotting and GPS dispatch and full GPS. In a full GPS dispatch solution, the system automatically selects the taxi for the job using GPS co-ordinates to determine the closest car to the customer. Other conditions can also be taken into account, including the amount of time that the car has been vacant, and the conditions required by the customer for example, a station wagon or Maxi-cab. Raywood's full GPS dispatch algorithms find a balance between fairness to drivers in quiet periods of the day and true optimization of the fleet during the busy periods.

Premier chose to go with a full GPS solution, for a number of reasons. They saw that the GPS technology was a more productive use of resources, for the taxi operator as well as the driver. It cut down on dead mileage, meaning that the driver could cover more jobs in a day and make more money and for the owner, the vehicle was more productive without adding unnecessary mileage and wear and tear.

Premier could also see faults with a plotting system. The main issue they saw with a plotting solution is that drivers could plot wherever they liked. This often meant that drivers would accept a job that was over the other side of town. This was incredibly inefficient as the driver spent too much time getting to the job and meant the customer had to wait.

"That's the reason we went for a full GPS solution. At Premiers, we believe the customer shouldn't have to wait." said Mr Peter Hyer, Managing Director of Premier Cabs.

Using GPS dispatch, only drivers who are close to the job are even considered for it. The drivers can't see work that is too far away, they can only see jobs that are close to them.

"That's the beauty of a GPS system. There's a benefit to the customer and benefit to the driver too. The customer doesn't have to wait and the driver doesn't have to run across town to pick up a customer" said Ms Rhonda Chesterton, General Manager of Premier Cabs.

The system went live in September 1996, making Premier Cabs one of the first companies in the world to deploy a job dispatch solution that utilised the GPS satellites.

It was a great change for the company to go through, and like any change did not happen without some inconvenience. Paul Kelly, Communications Manager for Premier Cabs was there throughout. "The biggest difficulty was going directly from a voice dispatch system, with adjudication and radio operators and drivers with 2-way radios, to a totally silent environment. This created a few teething problems in the first couple of months" said Mr Kelly.

"We also did a lot of changes to the system in the first few months. Every time we got a complaint from a driver we changed things. In the end Raywood suggested that we have a truce for three months, not change anything and let everything settle down. This bred a bit of familiarity with the system and was the best thing we did" said Mr Kelly.

For some drivers it was too traumatic and they left the fleet. However for Premier, it was not just about educating the fleet, but a whole change management process. "It's not that there's anything wrong with the system, it's just a different way of working. The drivers have persevered and learned a different way of working" said Ms Chesterton.

"To their credit, Raywood stood shoulder to shoulder with us all the way. They put a lot of effort into it" said Mr Kelly.

Outcome
Premier now has a fleet of 850 cabs. They've grown by 77% from their low point of 450 cabs. "Going with Raywood was the right decision. It created competition in the market and we have grown steadily since" said Mr Hyer.

Premier Cabs now runs a fleet of standard taxis, Prestige and Maxi Taxis. Both the Maxi Taxis and the Prestige fleets have grown quite substantially, in the last two years.

"The advanced booking feature that is used for the Maxi and Prestige fleet is excellent. Particularly with the Maxi taxi work, we've actually enticed members across from other fleets. I think there's an underlying tone there - go to Premier and you'll get a lot more work" said Ms Chesterton.

The advanced booking system enables drivers to plan their workload in advance. "They can fill their books with a day's work and know what they're doing. They're more in control" said Ms Chesterton.

"We don't often get a lot of positive feedback from the drivers, but I can see when a taxi is in a fairly quiet area suddenly gets sent a $100 fare. That's great for him, but he wouldn't call up and say "thanks", but I know the system is doing its job well" said Mr Kelly.

In their 24x7 call centre, Premier Cabs are now handling approximately 300,000 jobs per month. "The telephonists were terrified of changing to a new system. But, within 3 months they couldn't remember how they used to do it" said Mr Kelly. "The acceptance is good. New people pick it up easily. It's a very easy and user friendly system" said Mr Kelly.

"The beauty of the system is it gives the telephonist an opportunity to concentrate on customer service and actually speak to customers in a conversational way rather than following a set script" said Ms Chesterton.

Raywood's unique "scratch pad" method of data entry doesn't require telephonists to focus on the data entry, or force the telephonists to ask questions in a set order. Caller's phone numbers can be automatically identified and the addresses are automatically popped up in front of them.

"The telephonists now usually take 80-100 calls an hour" said Mr Kelly. "When we integrated in Caller Line Identification (CLI) into the Raywood solution it reduced average call length by about 12 seconds" said Mr Kelly. The CLI templates automatically pre-populate the booking with the customer's information, meaning that Premiers can provide more services, such as call on approaches.

Now that the telephonists have got booking jobs down pat, their roles are evolving into more of a customer service role. Customers are doing more than just booking a cab, they are asking for more information on pricing, rules for toll roads, and lost property. Each telephonist has to handle these sorts of inquiries as well. "In the future we hope the Raywood solution will help us automate more of these customer service features" said Ms Chesterton.

Raywood's commitment to customer support is plainly evident at Premier Cabs. After having the system in for six years, there has only been one major outage. "If you have a problem, we are confident that Raywood will have people working on it and rectifying the problem quickly" said Ms Chesterton.

Premier has more trouble with land lines than with the Raywood system. Their biggest issue is that something goes wrong between the base and the aerial site, rather than something wrong with the software.

"If someone came along and asked would you install a Raywood system again, of course the answer would be yes, we're very satisfied with it" said Mr Hyer.

"I was asked by the board the other day, if we thought we'd have to replace the Raywood system. I told them that it's a solution that we can build-on. I don't believe that we'll have to throw it out and start again, there is new technology being played with out in the market place, such as Interactive Voice Response (IVR), but when it suits us we add it on to the core Raywood solution" said Ms Chesterton.

Raywood continually keeps up with new technology, so that customers don't have to. Raywood intends to make sure that their customers' investment in a solution lasts a lifetime and the product continues to evolve to address both customer requirements and the ever-changing nature of technology.

For more information
For more information about Raywood computerised GPS job dispatch solutions visit www.raywoodcomms.com.au. For more information on Premier Cabs visit www.premiercabs.com.au or to book a taxi, call 13 10 17.

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