Many people think DrivenByQ is my first attempt at a private hire company.
In fact it is my second. My first effort was two years previous with the UK's
first Internet licenced private hire company. It was aimed at passengers outside
Great Britain travelling in to the UK.
Ten years ago if you built a web site, it was fairly easy to rank high on
the search results in Google. The bookings received from the web site I built
were fantastic! I met a string of celebrities, VIPs and businessmen.
It didn't last long though because Google was unpredictable.
The algorithm Google used for ranking web sites changed regularly. One day a
web page could be #1 and the next #101. To make anything of such an erratic
business it would need supporting by something more stable: One business for
bread and butter income and the other as icing on the cake.
That was where the idea for DrivenByQ came from: A local businesses
marketing offline with the intention of volume bookings from smaller numbers of
customers. After eight years of growth and slowly establishing a reputable
business, I think it is now time to revisit the original idea.
Saturday 7 December 2013
Sunday 1 December 2013
If I Was An Executive Assistant – Part One
Sometimes I cringe when I see a driver representing a
£multi-million business and they don’t have the first clue on etiquette or I
know their car is not correctly insured. I ask myself who made the booking and
do they realise how bad a job someone is doing? I often wonder if the person
responsible for hiring the driver just didn't know what questions to ask?
If I was investigating a new (or existing) chauffeur supplier, the very first question I would ask is if they have an operators licence and if so, how many vehicles does it cover? The reason for this is that some smaller (one-man-band) operators will sub work to other drivers but if their licence doesn’t permit this, those drivers are not insured and neither is your passenger!
I would then ask the operator if they are registered under the Data Protection Act. If so, how do they manage their information – is it secure or do they leave it in a diary in a car with all the names, home addresses, telephone numbers and away dates of your key staff? Also, do they have a disaster management plan? What if the diary (or records) is lost, stolen, destroyed or even eaten by the dog? Will they still turn up on time? And what if the operator is taken ill or goes on holiday?
After the basic questions, I would then go on to ask about safety. How does the operator regulate the drivers hours and how much time off do their drivers take? Legally in the UK, there is nothing to stop a private hire driver completing a straight 36-hour shift. I know of people who will do it, especially if their prices are so low other drivers will not work for them. After all, how can you be sure a driver is not full of caffeine with the reaction speeds of a tortoise?
If I was investigating a new (or existing) chauffeur supplier, the very first question I would ask is if they have an operators licence and if so, how many vehicles does it cover? The reason for this is that some smaller (one-man-band) operators will sub work to other drivers but if their licence doesn’t permit this, those drivers are not insured and neither is your passenger!
I would then ask the operator if they are registered under the Data Protection Act. If so, how do they manage their information – is it secure or do they leave it in a diary in a car with all the names, home addresses, telephone numbers and away dates of your key staff? Also, do they have a disaster management plan? What if the diary (or records) is lost, stolen, destroyed or even eaten by the dog? Will they still turn up on time? And what if the operator is taken ill or goes on holiday?
After the basic questions, I would then go on to ask about safety. How does the operator regulate the drivers hours and how much time off do their drivers take? Legally in the UK, there is nothing to stop a private hire driver completing a straight 36-hour shift. I know of people who will do it, especially if their prices are so low other drivers will not work for them. After all, how can you be sure a driver is not full of caffeine with the reaction speeds of a tortoise?
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