Our roadmap back to normality......finally.
As a young boy I used to love riding my bike but the one thing I loved more was travelling in the family's Austin 1100 at weekends when we'd go to the seaside or visit relatives. The 60's and 70's were simple. I remember I would sit in the middle of the rear velour bench seat looking ahead desperately wanting to drive but having to settle for navigating for my dad with a well thumbed and dog eared Ordnance Survey map. Over 50 years on my father, who taught me to drive, and who got me through my test first time would not be surprised in the slightest that I now run a successful and growing chauffeuring business.
It's been a long cold second lockdown and I have 'really' missed serving you all. We went from around 3-4 jobs a day before Covid, (and on occasions 12) to 3-4 a month which was a real shock to the system! However yesterday Boris informed us of our roadmap out of Covid so I think it's a good time to update you again of our news and plans as we carefully emerge from this crippling pandemic.
Previous blogs explained how we have been developing our booking system so that we can be at the forefront of the private hire industry in Huntingdon, Cambridge and Milton Keynes when work returns. Since then I have configured so many more useful features to make your experience even better. See www.drivearrive.co.uk/booking-system for more details.
We have all become so used to 'click and collect' and the fast and simple Amazon model of buying with minimum clicks so I have been busy building and configuring that efficiency with simplicity into our systems here for you.
I fully understand and accept chauffeuring is a very personal service where our customers correspond and book us in a variety of ways they prefer. Many email us their travel requirements and flight times, some text us, others call us, some WhatsApp us and one even scribbles his next booking on the back of an envelope! While airport transfers have historically been our bread and butter recently private hospital transport and sadly funeral bookings have overtaken them. I'm sure as we emerge from Covid the business transfers, restaurant and London wait and returns, sporting events, shopping trips, weddings, cruise terminals and music gigs etc will rapidly return.
Client Portals: These are secure pricing, booking and management gateways straight from your device into our cloud booking system which are now freely available and set up in seconds. The use of these represents a saving to us in admin time so its only right and proper clients using them benefit from an automatic 2% discount applied to your bookings. Clients who reach certain spending milestones can claim further 5% and 10% discounts. At any time anyone can get a quote and books cars here www.drivearrive.co.uk/get-quote
The media today are reporting a tremendous surge in flight and holiday bookings after yesterdays announcement so I really think 'now' is a fantastic time to let us set you up with a booking portal so you can book directly without delay. If you would like one please let me know, admin@drivearrive.co.uk or +44 (0)7774 419757
Passenger app: All passengers on our system can easily download an app to their device. Like any other modern app this also conveniently and speedily enables the booking and management of hires, gives immediate status updates from their driver as the hire progresses and they can even see the drivers real time location on an e map underneath their photo, a photo of their car and their contact details. Again, please let me know if this is something you would like.
New driver: Leanne, our first female driver joins Peter and I sharing our Audi A8 and Mercedes E Class and upholds our advanced driver USP and Covid compliance. Leanne was in the Australian Army as a Batman to a high ranking officer. Read her full bio here www.drivearrive.co.uk/drivers
Google Reviews: I've been working hard with my son Rob on our Google presence to grow the business. There seems to be a movement for the supporting of small local businesses who have been particularly affected and one brilliant way of doing that is with a Google review. The global search engine ranks a business higher in search results the more reviews it has so if you can spare a few moments to leave us one I'd be extremely grateful. Simply click here and scroll to find the review button.
Social media: email contact and blogs like these are ok at keeping you up to date with our latest news and offers but following us on social media where I regularly post is far better. It'd be lovely to see you there, our links are:
Thank you for your time, stay safe and we hope to be driving you somewhere for something very nice soon.
Colin Bennett.
