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PostPosted: Fri Jul 29, 2005 3:43 am 
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Joined: Sat Sep 25, 2004 4:31 pm
Posts: 1409
Location: Grim North, Carrot Crunchers and Codhead Country, North of Watford Gap
mattyboy wrote:
As we agreed before - there's more to compare than just price, and people don't always go for the cheapest. If you do a search on a Hotel website, you don't automatically choose the cheapest, you look at the details of the hotel before you make your choice. That's the beauty of airportbytaxi.com - when you click on a taxi firm, we show as much information as the taxi firm wants us to display, including details of the actual cars available for example.!


I think you are flogging a dead horse [my thoughts]

In our area the airport job is stitched up, as a Hack I could not do them at the price some of the PH do them, but suppose it keeps wheels turning

I will give you an instance of a job a fellow hack driver did from an internet booking,

booking for 5 to the airport, vehicle new Merc Vito hack, this bloke has overheads, so top wack price, booking taken, payed up front, on returning home he had email from said customers who emailed him from holiday spot
Not very happy, very uncomfortable journey to airport, we wish to cancel return journey due to your vehicle being uncomfortable to travel in, we require refund for return plus a large % for uncomfortable journey, we will not require you to pick us up on the return, we will find alternative transport.


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PostPosted: Fri Jul 29, 2005 9:16 am 
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Joined: Sat Mar 12, 2005 5:14 pm
Posts: 15
highwayman - you've proved my point exactly. airportbytaxi.com is not an internet booking service precisely for that reason, mistakes happen when you're not dealing direct with the taxi firm and there's a 3rd party in the way.

We give taxi firm phone numbers so the customer can call them directly. All we're doing is saving people the bother of calling round multiple firms. This way, they can make one call in their lunch hour and they're sorted!

Steveo - I can see where you're coming from but i'm not sure that'd work for the reasons above. There are already internet taxi booking 'agents' on the web, and not dealing direct increases the chance of mistakes being made. I also think it'd be an admin nightmare co-ordinating this, and a uphill battle to get different firms to commit to an 'average' price.

We need to get feedback from subscribers to see how much business they're getting before we change our philosophy quite yet. There's more people looking at the site than you may think!


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PostPosted: Fri Jul 29, 2005 6:29 pm 
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Joined: Wed Oct 20, 2004 9:51 pm
Posts: 5795
Location: The Internet
mattyboy wrote:
That's certainly a very comprehensive reply, and i'm certainly flattered that you're interested enough in airportbytaxi.com to spend so much time looking at the site! (Though sadly not interested enough to part with £10 for a subscription)


Well I'm an independent driver who works the ranks and doesn't normally do pre-booked work, so why would I be interested in paying you a subscription fee #-o

Part of the rationale for this site is to critique sites like your own, hence my interest, particularly as you've used this site for a bit of free advertising.

Quote:
I genuinely do see your points, but you must remember that although we aim to give as much information, and as accurate prices as possible, the prices and information are indeed open to clarification at the time of booking - hence the reason this is an 'open' service that gives direct phone numbers, and not one that insists on online booking etc.


Yes, I do see some merit in your site, particularly from the consumer perspective, but you now seem to be disclaiming some of the information on your site to an extent, thus perhaps adding some weight to my criticisms.

Quote:
My point about people traditionally phoning round was simply to say that, in the past, people would phone around taxi firms to get a quote. In the future that will be done on airportbytaxi.com. The same rules about pricing and competitiveness still apply - it's just a quicker tool to get the same job done, and a very good job it does of it too.


But didn't you say that firms that don't use your service will still face competition from people phoning round. Since you presumably won't be cornering the whole market in the near future then my point is that the same rules about competitiveness and pricing don't apply, because dear firms won't get the work. You can't say that your service is just a quicker tool to do the same job if the aim of your site is to make pricing comparisons easier, because this makes pricing more transparent, which might be good for consumers, but not for business.

Quote:
We're hoping to clarify vehicle types for our subscribers and hopefully introducing photographs where possible following your feedback, which is most appreciated (as are the new subscribers we have gained from the exposure this forum has given us!)


Only happy to help mattyboy, in fact given if your exposure on this site has been so good, I'm surprised you're not offering us a free six months subscription :wink:

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