How to attract clients in a taxi. How to attract taxi clients Something interesting for taxi clients

However, you may not have saved taxi phone numbers at hand. So what should we do then? Here comes the solution - find the contacts of a taxi service on the Internet. You can immediately say that there will be the widest possible targeting here, since it is very difficult to identify people who may need your service. In modern realities, the most advanced taxi delivery systems use mobile applications, with which you can easily and simply place an order, so the presence of this functionality can facilitate further work on promoting your company.

Useful channels

Due to the fact that this service is very simple (from the point of view of the speed of decision-making), the main role in attracting clients is assigned to the keywords by which you can be found on the Internet. This means that the main role will be played by SEO promotion and contextual advertising. Moreover, at the initial stage, the lion's share of the budget will go to context, because displaying in a visible place before organic results is a priority, given the high competition in this business segment. However, with the growing popularity of social networks, this search can be done by groups and communities.

Is there anything else?

It is worth noting that the mechanism for behavioral advertising, which is most often used on YAN, does not work well here. Since a person needs a taxi right now, and not in a day or week, behavioral targeting can be safely excluded. But if you still have an unpromoted application, then it’s time to get started with it. And mobile advertising can close this gap. It is not necessary to advertise only in the Google and Yandex systems, you can connect all social networks, however, it costs much smaller budgets to invest here due to too broad targeting by interests.

We develop the entire network

Following the growth of the taxi fleet, costs for all other expense items usually increase. And marketing is no exception to these rules. After you have established high-quality work to attract clients, you need to look for hitherto unknown tools. In addition to increasing the budget evenly across all channels, we can launch advertising based on the principle of mass reach, in which we will attract an audience at a minimal price. The results may be disappointing at first, but this will eventually increase your customer base. The most important thing is to remember to constantly optimize this process.

Imagine that new customers contact a taxi service without advertising. You don’t put ads in the newspaper, don’t post leaflets on poles, don’t play commercials on the radio. But they still call you. How is this possible? In order to increase their profits, taxi services are introducing a referral system - this is a tool for attracting new customers without constant cash costs. The system works like word of mouth. Clients recommend the taxi service to friends and receive bonuses for this.

Get new clients

See how the referral system brings new clients to the taxi service:

The client used your taxi.
At the end of the trip, the client receives a notification in the mobile application that looks something like this:

“Thank you for the trip!
Share the code with your friends,
and for their first trip
we will give them 25 bonuses,
and you - 5 bonuses for each friend.
Your code: M111."

Friends order a taxi and also receive a notification in the mobile application with a referral code.
Everyone brings new clients and receives pleasant bonuses.

See, it's very simple. Everyone loves to save money, so they will willingly take advantage of the opportunity to receive bonuses and ride a taxi cheaper.

Use referral codes

The referral system works using referral codes - these are codes of numbers and Latin letters. For example, T88M. Codes are generated automatically or manually.


Reward clients with bonuses New and old clients receive bonuses for referral codes. Bonuses do not accumulate, but are written off entirely after completing the order in which the code was used.	Bring only new clients Several people will not be able to bring the same new client. And a new client will not receive a bonus for ordering a taxi with the code more than once.	Track your performance Instantly evaluate the profit from the referral system. See statistics on codes: how many new clients came, to whom and how many bonuses were awarded.

Attract many clients from social networks

Modern clients of taxi services are city residents aged 20 to 45 years. And 80% of them have pages on social networks: Vkontakte, Facebook, Instagram, Odnoklassniki. People are used to communicating here. They add work colleagues, classmates, gym acquaintances, and even those they don’t know personally as friends.

Social networks are an effective platform for distributing referral codes. A taxi service client just needs to publish the code on his page in order to interest the maximum number of friends and acquaintances.

Vasily is 24 years old and constantly uses a smartphone. Reads the news, likes friends' photos, and texts his girlfriend. If you need to go somewhere, you order a taxi through the app - it’s fast and convenient, especially if you’re relaxing in a nightclub with loud music.

One day Vasily called a taxi through the application and at the end of the trip received a notification in the mobile application:

Now everyone who is Vasily’s friend has seen the message. And colleague Maria even reposted it on her page so as not to lose the code and save on taxis in the future.

Soon Masha urgently needed to go to work. She called the taxi service and told the operator the code MP44. I didn't get to work for 125 rubles. as usual, but for 100 rubles, because 25 bonuses were deducted from the cost of the trip.

At the same time, on the other side of the city, Vasily received a notification that he had been awarded 10 bonuses for Masha’s trip.

Find out how many new clients you will get

Let's calculate how many clients a taxi service will attract using a referral system. Let's look at the example of a city with a population of 600,000 inhabitants.

VKontakte users from a small Russian city have an average of 300 friends. If a taxi service client publishes a referral code on his page, approximately 100 people will see it. (According to the social network VKontakte, about 30% of users visit the site daily).

The final number of attracted clients largely depends on the taxi service itself. The final numbers will be affected by the size of your customer base, the number of bonuses offered for using referral codes, and even the number of residents in the city. For example, the larger the city, the more popular social networks are in it and the more new clients you can attract.

Benefits of a taxi service from a referral system

	Get new clients with minimal effort.
	Don't waste money on advertising. Clients themselves tell everyone about your service.
	Increase your profits through repeat orders. Customers have a reason to come to you again - to spend the bonuses they receive and ride a taxi cheaper.
	Stay one step ahead of the competition with best practices from major online services and online aggregators.

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Developers, car dealerships and other companies whose clients must come to their office to make a purchase or receive a service find it difficult to attract an audience - many postpone the visit due to the need to get somewhere. To motivate the client to still come to the office, Muscovite Sergei Alumov came up with a free taxi service CallToVisit..

27 years old, entrepreneur from Moscow, co-founder and author of the idea of a free taxi service to attract customers to the end points of sales. He graduated from MADI with a degree in construction of roads and airfields. He worked as a leading engineer in the highway diagnostics department at ROSDORNII, after which he changed his field of activity - he went to the Weborama data agency. In 2017, together with his partners, he founded the B2B service CallToVisit. The initial investment amounted to about 1 million rubles.

Create a business while on vacation

The idea for the CallToVisit service came to Sergei Alumov during the New Year holidays in January 2017. Before the holidays, he took a two-week vacation from work - at the Weborama data agency - and began to study various tools for attracting clients. By that time, Sergey had already worked in the field of digital marketing for 2 years and understood that each of these tools has its own conversion into sales - some solutions turn out to be more productive, others not so much.

“At Weborama, we worked with large brands, developers, and clinics. I knew the needs of customers and understood how the digital marketing market works, who interacts with whom, how much a client costs and how much companies are willing to pay for it,” recalls Sergey.

Having collected information on the effectiveness of various tools for attracting customers, he decided to offer a new one - a free taxi for potential buyers to their final points of sale.

“It’s easier to motivate a person to visit the company’s office if you provide him with a free taxi. People make decisions about travel faster because they don’t have to think about how they will get to their destination or the time spent on the road. Thanks to this tool, the number of clients increases significantly,” explains Sergey Alumov.

He decided to look for partners for his idea among taxi aggregators: Gett, Yandex.Taxi, Whelly. Yandex found the project interesting. Having agreed on cooperation with this company, Sergei involved his school friend and colleague from Weborama Dmitry Egorov in the project. Together they decided to join forces and invest in the development of an MVP (Minimal Viable Product - minimum viable product, editor's note).

Step by step

Having hired outsourced developers, Sergey and Dmitry simultaneously held meetings with potential clients.

“When we started doing this, I realized that it was impossible to combine meetings with potential clients and partners with current work. I also realized that I strongly believe in this product. And I decided to take a risk, devoting all my time to its development,” says Alumov.

He left his job and invested his existing savings - about 1 million rubles - into the business. Then he rented an office, registered the CallToVisit project and, together with Dmitry Egorov, began looking for clients.

On the day of the test launch of the project, not a single trip was made. Plus, as Sergei recalls, the site worked “at random.” That is why the only visitor who wanted to take advantage of a free taxi ride was unable to obtain it. This became clear after the creators of the project called him back on the phone number he left. After which we began to work on errors and improve the site.

The first client of CallToVisit was the strip club Burlesque. His marketers, who knew Sergei from working at the Weborama agency, agreed to test the service he offered. This is how the “Free Taxi” button appeared on the club’s website.

“We realized that it works. At that time, we did not yet have targeting, and we could not determine whether the client was ordering a free taxi for the first time or not. There was also no way to set the range of the offer. Much was unclear, so Burlesque was unable to assess the effectiveness of the service. But we are convinced that there is a demand for such a service among clients,” states Sergei.

After this, we managed to attract eight clients and place the “Free Taxi” widget on their websites. The service really turned out to be in demand.

It became clear that the project needed scaling. This required investment: the million rubles invested at the initial stage was clearly not enough. The project found two investors - Nikolai Shestakov, former top manager of Yandex and founder of the performance agency Adventum, and Vitaly Groznov, co-owner of the Air marketing group. They invested 10 million rubles in CallToVisit in exchange for a 40% share in the project.

Investments allowed us to increase the company's staff, form a sales department and continue to develop the product itself.

An offer of interest to everyone

Sergey Alumov notes that the idea of a free taxi for customers is a unique marketing tool, which has no analogues in the world. Currently only CallToVisit offers this service.

It all works as follows. A “Free Taxi” widget appears on the client’s website. In order for the car to come for the client, he needs to leave his phone number, car delivery address and a convenient time for the trip in a special form on the website. At the request of the customer, you can inform about additional options: the presence of a child seat, the need to transport an animal, and so on. Information about the destination (sales office address) is configured automatically when installing the widget.

After filling out the application, the company receives notification of the upcoming trip and can calculate the client’s arrival time at its office. The client receives standard messages about the time of delivery of the car and the driver’s contacts.

Most often, developers, medical centers and auto centers place a button for ordering a free taxi on their websites. As a rule, car dealerships and sales offices of developers are located far from metro stations, in residential areas. Therefore, many potential clients postpone visits to them due to complex logistics. The free taxi service allows the client to get to their destination in comfort.

Sergey Alumov is confident that everyone benefits by using his service for marketing purposes:

A company that gets the right clients;

A client who is offered comfortable conditions to get to the sales office;

CallToVisit service, which receives fees from client companies.

There is a second option for using the same service - smart integration. CallToVisit clients are not always interested in their audience being able to immediately order a free taxi through a form on the website. For example, medical centers must know in advance about a client’s visit - the specialist he needs may be busy if a person arrives without an appointment or call. Sometimes a company wants to offer a free taxi not to all customers, but only to those in which it is most interested. For example, a bank sends a car to a client who has been approved for a loan. In this case, he receives a link to the order form; it is not posted publicly on the company’s website.

Currently, CallToVisit clients order a total of 3,000 trips per month for their audience. About half of them are done spontaneously - the client goes to the company’s website and immediately orders a taxi. In April it is planned to increase the number of complete trips to 5 thousand. And then grow monthly by 25-30%.

Monetization of the project

Today, CallToVisit is monetized through offers for different types and volumes of business.

The service has a professional tariff aimed at large market players with an average bill of 30 thousand rubles. The cost of connecting to this tariff is 15 thousand rubles per month for one point of sale, for each additional point the client pays an additional 3 thousand rubles. Along with installing the widget on his website, the customer receives a personal manager who helps him figure everything out. Taxi services in this case are paid separately.

For small and medium-sized businesses, the company has developed a special product Self service without a monthly payment, but with a commission of 30% of each trip made. Connecting the CallToVisit widget in this package is free. To use the service, the client deposits a certain amount into the account in his personal account. After completing each trip, the cost of the trip plus a commission of 30% from each payment is deducted from him.

Companies that have purchased a license to use the widget independently, without the help of a personal manager, register in their personal account, add a description of the activity, select the class of taxi cars, the radius and frequency of trips, the time of visiting points of sale, and configure the display of the “Free Taxi” button on the website.

The client is automatically invoiced upon request, after which he can receive all the necessary closing documents. He also has access to the statistics that the widget collects. Managers at points of sale receive notifications about new orders and completed trips via SMS, email or Telegram messages. In this case, CallToVisit earns only on commission.

“We integrate with CRM: we say which channel brought each client, we provide a reporting map - where trips are most often made from. This will help the client understand where to place their advertising, for example, in a certain shopping or business center. Thanks to our analytics, the client has more data that helps him optimize advertising costs and increase its effectiveness,” notes Sergey Alumov.

The service plans to cooperate with large clients who will order a large number of trips. They are expected to pay CallToVisit a 10% commission on each trip. So far the project does not have such clients.

Search for clients

Nowadays, the most effective sales channel is cold calling. Some clients come after learning about CallToVisit from media publications.

“We don't sell a product that already exists (like a car). We offer a product that people don't know about yet. And the most adequate way to convey information about yourself is through publications, videos, and seminars,” says Sergey Alumov.

Another good way to attract new clients is to post cases from existing customers. This information is provided on the CallToVisit website. For example, for the PIK group of companies, the number of primary clients increased by 80% over several months of using the service. Every third of them booked an apartment in a new building, and every sixth made a purchase. “We can say that the tool has an excellent effect on both the customer satisfaction index and purchase conversions,” concludes Roman Adbullin, head of the advertising department of PIK Group.

Sometimes it is quite difficult to arrange a meeting with representatives of the client company. When it is not possible to reach managers, negotiations are conducted with the marketing or development departments. As a rule, Sergei Alumov goes to meetings with top officials. In 80-85% they end with the conclusion of a deal.

In the near future, the company plans to expand the list of clients - adding banks and representatives of the retail industry to auto centers, clinics and development companies. The founders of the project are already thinking about entering international markets. They recently held a meeting in Dubai with representatives of the UAE Ministry of Transport, who were interested in the CallToVisit service. Whether this will result in cooperation is not yet clear.

According to the calculations of the co-founder of the CallToVisit service, there are about 20 thousand business projects in Russia that are ready to fully pay for a taxi trip to their clients. For example, medical centers can order a taxi for those who come for an MRI. But there are other businesses that are ready to partially compensate for travel. CallToVisit plans to make an interesting offer to them, primarily to retail.

“Retail has a task to increase the average check. For making a purchase for a certain amount, stores could provide customers living within a radius of, for example, 5 kilometers, a free taxi home. To do this, you can indicate a promotional code in the receipt, using which the buyer will order a free trip at our counter,” Sergey gives an example.

But he considers even such cooperation with retail an intermediate step. CallToVisit plans to launch a mobile application. Its users - ordinary people - will receive points or cashback for purchases made in stores, cafes, and restaurants. Accumulated points can be exchanged for free trips by taxi, metro or any other form of transport by scanning the QR code from the receipt.

“We understand that moving around the city is becoming more accessible in terms of price and transport. And we want brands to fund people's trips. The more ordinary people move around the city, the more purchases they will make. This is good for both individual stores and the economy as a whole,” explains Sergei Alumov.

Now the developers are drawing up technical specifications for the development of such a mobile application and are negotiating with potential partners.

The services of taxi drivers are always in demand, but, unfortunately, there are many competitors in this service. Even ordinary car enthusiasts strive to make extra money, pick up at the side of the road passengers who are on their way or those who are late and are ready to pay any money for timely delivery to the right place. There are different ways to attract taxi customers, but it is better to develop an advertising campaign plan.

First of all, you need to choose an easy phone number that consists of repeating numbers or a combination of them that is easy to remember;
Give your taxi service a name that will resonate with everyone. Those who use only a phone number to attract customers are wrong. You can paint the cars one color and name the service to commemorate that color (for example, “Yellow Taxi”), or put special symbols on the sides of the cars so that passers-by recognize the vehicle from afar;
Create a unique selling proposition that will answer the customer's question: why should they choose your service. Such proposals could be something like these:

Driver assistance when loading and unloading luggage;
Free boarding;
Possibility of calling a car with a large trunk;
Fixed prices for trips;
Minimum transport delivery time, etc.

Come up with a catchy slogan that can rhyme with the phone number where you can call a taxi. (For example, “Your own taxi” is always there, call: 7-three units-200.” Or: “Extreme taxi is in the capital! Call seven-seven-five-five-six-six”
Decide on positioning, i.e. select the target audience who will mainly use your taxi. It can be:

Taxi for students and schoolchildren;
A children's taxi, which will be equipped with a child's car seat, will have a screen with cartoons, a set of toys, etc.;
VIP taxi assumes the presence of expensive executive class transport, with a helpful driver who is ready to provide additional services. Here you need to install Wi-Fi, a minibar with drinks, light snacks, fresh newspapers and magazines. Prices here will certainly be high;
An economical taxi, designed for the middle class, for those who use a taxi in urgent cases or for the delivery of large purchases. In this case, the fleet must have large, spacious cars.

Outdoor taxi advertising

It is very convenient and profitable to advertise taxis using 3x6 billboards installed along the routes. It is imperative to install outdoor advertising objects at large shopping centers, markets, train stations, airports, and bus stations. When arriving, people will be able to quickly see an advertisement with your phone number and call a taxi to the desired location.

On billboards, use large, bright inscriptions made on a contrasting background. This should include the name of your taxi, (maybe) the slogan you use, your phone number.

You can also use cheaper types of outdoor advertising. For example, inscriptions on asphalt, on curbs. Sometimes a taxi phone number is placed on areas at the entrances of residential buildings or significant objects where people often gather. When leaving the establishment, a person will be able to immediately call a car.

Printed taxi advertising

Leave every client and potential customer a business card with a phone number. You can publish booklets, small brochures that will list your advantages.

Connect to aggregators: Gett, Yandex.Taxi, Uber, etc.

Aggregator companies like Yandex.Taxi have truly revolutionized the taxi market over the past 3-4 years and supply a huge number of orders to various taxi companies. Some companies now exist only thanks to orders from these services. The reason for such a rapid takeover of the taxi ordering market is the absolute convenience of calling a taxi using a smartphone. The customer can watch in real time the movements of the called car, see in advance the driver’s photo, his rating, color and car number, has the opportunity to leave a rating for the driver based on the results of the trip, and of course, pay for the trip by bank transfer, even without using a bank card - data the cards are already entered into the application on the smartphone. Therefore, for most small companies it is definitely mandatory to connect to taxi aggregators.

Taxi advertising on the Internet

Be sure to create your own, albeit small, website. On the main page you can place a pre-order button, by clicking which a person can order a taxi for a specific date and time. This is important if someone plans to not miss a train or plane, meet guests from another city, or be late for an important meeting.

Create groups on social networks where you can post announcements about promotions, discounts, and new services. Use viral advertising by organizing competitions; the prize could be the right to a free trip or a car ride around the city with your company. Use hashtags that will also bring in new customers.

Exceed customer expectations

One of the most important skills for taxi drivers should be the ability to exceed expectations. For example, clients who are accustomed to receiving standard services receive a polite, helpful attitude, the driver helps to load things into the trunk, takes them as close as possible to their destination, does not smoke in the presence of passengers, and does not play music too loudly. All this is imprinted in the memory; you should not think that people do not notice such careful behavior.

Offer your customers a universal charger so they can charge their gadgets on the go. Using a Wi-Fi access point, you can also attract a special category of clients who, while on the go, will be able to conduct important negotiations, solve production problems, as well as just relax and chat with friends, play, etc.

In winter cold, you should not skimp on heating the cabin; you can even place a heating pad or other heater under the passenger seat so that the person can immediately warm up. In the summer heat, you shouldn’t make do with just open windows; it’s better to initially take care of purchasing cars with air conditioning.

During heavy rain, try not to park your car where it is convenient for you. Park so that when entering and exiting, customers do not fall into a puddle or under the splashes of passing cars. Alternatively, you can carry a large umbrella with you and carry it open over the client’s head as he walks from the entrance to the car or escorts him to the door. This, of course, is a trifle, but the passenger will gratefully remember such signs of attention, and next time he will ask this particular driver to come and tell everyone he knows about this incident.

An example would be the case of a driver who installed a DVD player in the car and showed cartoons to the kids during the trip. On the way out, he gave them inexpensive toys. His costs were small, but all parents with children preferred to call this particular taxi driver.

In Sevastopol, a taxi driver takes a ginger cat into the car, which has an affectionate, kind character and wins over every passenger.

Another driver was carrying a live squirrel in the car, which was trained to play with children and adults, entertaining them with various tricks. It is not surprising that this taxi began to carry a huge number of passengers; everyone asked only to get into this car. Please note that if there are no such surprises, and the entire trip goes on as usual, then there is nothing to tell about you. This approach will improve your reputation and gain loyal customers who will use your services for years.

Don't push the maximum amount of money

Show passengers that you provide some services for free. For example:

if there are accidentally forgotten items left in the cabin, take them to the address completely free of charge;
wait an extra five minutes without reprimanding the passenger later or demanding additional payment for it;
always give change, it is better if the person himself says that it was left as a tip;
do not gather fellow travelers into the car if the first passenger is against it.

Inform customers about the car delivery time

It is very important to abandon the usual approach in which the customer is told the average waiting time. For example: “the car will arrive within 15 minutes,” especially if the dispatcher knows that all the cars are far away. It would be more correct to say the exact time, because... this will allow the client to get his bearings, he will be able to calmly wait for the stated time, going about his business, rather than standing for 30-40 minutes at the window or on the street, in the heat or cold, waiting for the taxi to arrive any minute. Do not be afraid that if the waiting time is long, the client will call competitors. He'll do it anyway if he's in a hurry. But if he has time to wait, he will appreciate your honesty and will have no reason to be disappointed in your service. In addition, he will not develop negativity during a long wait.

Some taxi services immediately after the call send the client an SMS message, which indicates the waiting time, brand, color and number of the taxi that came to him. This is very convenient, because the client does not have to run around the entire area, rushing to every car and asking if they came for him. It's little things like this that show respect.

Taking this principle into account, you can even declare it in advertising materials, declaring that your company strictly adheres to the stated deadlines for delivering cars.

Original taxi design

To attract customers, you can decorate each car with a special design. It can be used for upholstery of seats, ceilings, and for attaching convenient accessories: stands, shelves, coat hooks. In the cold season, these can be blankets, pillows, soft toys for children.

This is the original taxi design used in Mumbai.

Pre-order a taxi

To implement this function, you need to install an active online order button on your website. Here, clients themselves will be able to choose the desired time for the car to arrive, indicate the date, address, exact time, and be able to see the approximate cost of the trip. This service can also be obtained by telephone by contacting the dispatcher. Often a taxi must be taken to the airport or train station, since those arriving or departing have no one to meet or see them off. In this case, you can write a sign with the name of the passengers so that they can immediately notice the taxi driver in the crowd of people greeting them and not worry about it. Taxis can serve as a transfer, because it can be very difficult to get to the city from the airport, given that a person always carries heavy luggage with him.

Watch a short video about how a special program for ordering a taxi works:

Maintain the company's image

Always find out in advance where the client is going to go. If he has to meet important business guests, and you present him with an old, unwashed, battered car, then there will be no talk of any authority. Even if you are polite and efficient.

If you maintain a systematic system for recording incoming calls, you can easily determine whether the customer is a regular or is contacting you for the first time. For new clients, try to always send decent cars as the first impression is very important. In the words of the famous Coco Chanel, “You will never have the opportunity to create a first impression.” Let’s analyze the client’s thoughts: “I came here for the first time and they gave me a bad car, which means the entire fleet of this company is the same.” It will be impossible to make excuses later, even if you explain that all your other cars are new. The client in this case received one hundred percent negative experience, and is unlikely to want to repeat this experiment.

Train professional taxi drivers

It will be easier to teach skills to newcomers in this business than to retrain experienced taxi drivers who are accustomed to smoking in the cabin, remaining sullenly silent the whole way, being rude to clients, driving them at breakneck speed, or vice versa, trailing like a snail. Send young drivers to special training and advanced training courses, although only a few organizations, such as the Russian-American Academy of Taxi Business, do this.

It is also necessary to train dispatchers, whose politeness and friendliness largely determine the number of clients. The way a dispatcher communicates with customers is the company’s calling card, so it is better to hire stress-resistant, naturally friendly and patient people who will be able to replace each other. Give them the opportunity to rest for a sufficient amount of time, reward them with a system of bonuses, which will depend on the number of passengers who made a reservation during their shift.

Watch a video about the work of a taxi dispatcher in detail:

In a taxi service, every little detail is very important, be it the dialogue that takes place during the trip, or a thoughtful, respectful attitude towards each passenger, the ability to find contact, and not express irritation, anger, or negative emotions associated with driving along difficult roads. Working in a taxi requires a certain type of character, flexibility and the ability to find an approach to every passenger, even an inadequate one. After all, the number of clients directly depends on the impressions that passengers receive during the trip.

Taxi services should be predictable. Each client should be sure that by contacting this company, he will arrive at his destination on time, the driver will be correct and polite, and the car will be clean and comfortable.

Video on how to promote a taxi service: