Running a minicab company

Anyone can offer a minicab service. You have to get an operators licence from Transport for London but after that you are on your own. How hard can it be? You find an office, pick up a memorable telephone number, employ a few drivers and wait for the phone to ring. When it does ring, you take a few details and then send a car on time and the driver drives the customer from A to B. Easy!!!

Except of course it isn't so straightforward. The operators licence is not easy to come by. It costs over £3000 for a start. For Interline to operate in Harrow the owners of the company had to have a CRB check and a check was made on their previous business dealings. Then they confirm your building complys with any number of health and safety criteria. You have to carry Public Liability insurance with £10,000,000 worth of cover.

The telephone number? Well ok that is easy. But you do want to get the right number. Something that still comes into peoples minds when they have had a few drinks. It needs to roll off the tongue, be easy to remember but not have too many digits the same. 711 1111 for example looks ok to begin with but then people aren't sure if they have dialled 5 1's or 7. That's why I like our number 020 8864 7888 Just the right mix.

Then how do you advertise. I have talked about this on previous blogs. Putting your card through peoples doors is the most popular. How do you know if it has been done properly unless you do it yourself. A website? We are pleased with ours http://www.interlineonline.com/ and it gets lots of hits but you are never sure how much of that transfers into bookings. When we first created our site my boss and I concluded that 25% of our hits were either he or I checking to see if the site was still there!!

When you recruit drivers firstly you must check their legality. As many are from overseas you have to make sure they have permission to work in the UK. You then have to ensure all their paperwork is correct. They are licensed, so is their car, they have to have a specific insurance and you must have on file all their documentation.

In truth all of that is formalities, procedures that have to be adhered to. Getting your company in the publics mind.The real battle, and please excuse the management speak here, is to have everyone singing from the same song sheet. Drivers and office staff understanding how you want the business to operate.

Interline operates with the policy, leave someone with no taste rather than a bad taste, in other words if someone wants a car within 10 minutes and you know your car will take fifteen minutes then don't take the booking. That way you are not remembered as the company that screwed up. We spend a lot of time checking our drivers are dressed properly, that their cars are clean and tidy. We work hard to ensure they charge the right price and know where they are going. We also try to make staff realise that we may be playing a significant part in someones day. Ok the bulk of the time you are getting a lift into Pinner to do some shopping or a minicab to Watford or the West End for a night out so a couple of minutes either way is not the end of the world. There are other times however when being punctual and professional is all important. The Eurostar from St Pancras won't wait for you because your minicab driver was late. Check in queues at Heathrow and Gatwick get longer the nearer you get to flight time so you can not be delayed. We also provide a courier service and companies are given deadlines for tenders which cannot be extended because the courier didn't know the quickest way to Soho or Canary Wharf.

What I am trying to say is yes anyone can set up a cab firm. Fill in a few forms, pay your money and of you go. Doing it properly, well that's another thing altogether.

Obviously I am going to tell you that Interline gets it right. I can only suggest you try us to see if I am correct.

If you do try us and think we are getting it right then please let me know. Equally if you think we are getting it wrong then let me know also.

Kind Regards

Chris

Not just Harrow!

Working, as I do, in our offices on a Friday and Saturday night, I am always surprised by the amount of people who talk about being bored with Harrow. As if to suggest there is nowhere else to go!!! I have lived in Harrow since I was 5 years old so from the age of 18 Harrow was one of the places I came to at night. Back then there were only two or three pubs. Where Golds Gym is now used to be a cinema and it had a bar upstairs. The Royal Oak was where it has always been, The Junction pub was a Beefeater restaurant and where Burger King used to be was a pub the name of which I can't remember. Then in the late Eighties a wine bar (wine and cocktail bars were very big in the Eighties) called Mirrarbeaus opened just next to the Post Office in College Road. Mirrarbeaus was very popular and gradually a pattern formed. Back then there were no late licences available and pubs and bars closed at 11pm so it was Mirrabeaus until 11 and then jump in a mini cab and go to Middlesex and Harts Country Club which was in Old Redding Harrow Weald. But, and here is my point, that was only one night,usually the Friday and on the Saturday night we would go further afield. Having failed with all the woman in Harrow, I spread my wings and managed to fail with all the women within the M25. I used to like Richmond and Kingston. A friend of mine always wanted to go to Skindles in Maidenhead and another friend always wanted to go into town. Covent Garden was a favourite place. In particular a cocktail bar called Rumours, there was also a restaurant bar in Cavendish Square I think called the Telephone Exchange. Each of the tables had a telephone and if you fancied someone on table 6 you could dial table 6 and try to chat them up. My phone was always broken or at least I think it was!! Back then getting home from London was not easy. Mobile phones had just been intoduced but they were the size of a brick and none of us could have afforded one, so you had to find a phone box that worked and then find a minicab company that was open. What we used to do was walk down to Marble Arch and try and get a black cab. Sometimes you would wait an hour before one of them took pity on you. Other times you would start walking down the Bayswater Road hoping to find a cab at one of the green huts that the black cab guys used to use. If you had no luck then keeping walking to Shepherds Bush because a few black cabs who hang around near the BBC. Very often by the the time you got to Shepherds Bush you had got your second wind. Grab a coffee and a bacon roll from the all night burger van and just carry on walking back to Pinner. And you trying telling the young people of today that and they won't believe you, they won't believe you. Nowadays of course it is very different. Interline is open 24/7 and have cars in and out of London all night. Book a car in advance and we will be waiting outside when it is time to come home. You don't even need to be that far afield. Ring us from Uxbridge, Watford or Ealing. Of course it would be best to prearrange your minicab and better still if we arrange to take you into London then you can agree a meeting point with your driver and you know who to look for when you come out. Give us a call when you are in town and we can usually be with you in 45 minutes or less. Same with Richmond and Kingston. Put our number 020 8864 7888 in your mobile and give us a call wherever you are. We will always give an honest response time and a price we will stick too. If there is a crowd of you we can send an MPV or 2/3 cars. Definitely something I would have appreciated back in the day stood in the pouring rain, 3 in the morning at Marble Arch.