Taxi Driver Online

The mind boggles!

It certainly does!

Been having arguments with my other half and a driver over the phone system.

They think that I should not upgrade system as it wont bring in work, but I reckon it will little by little especially over the weekend.

Currently one phone is busy that phone line is busy and sometimes the person has not hung up so phone stays on and we cant disconnect. The new system would end that.

What do others think? Will extra phone and switchboard bring in more work?

When things are busy, a, do you have enough capacity to handle the extra work? b, do you have the staff available to man the extra phones?
In my opinion unless you have the staff for both you would be wasting your money at this stage. There is no point having the extra phone if you still can't answer it.

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Grandad,

Perhaps you should listen to your wife because she's dead right. Paying money good money (which you say is in short supply) to have your lines converted to ISDN won't bring in any more work or solve any of the problems that you outlined at the start. ISDN comes in pairs by the way so you'd only be able to run two lines that way and you'll have to keep your third line as analogue if you want Internet access at the office. And no, ISDN doesn't give you free texts.

I've just got bask from doing a local installation at a company with 35 cars and they just have two standard phones plugged into wall sockets. We discussed the possibility of using a small PBX but they are quite happy with what they have. I mentioned to them what you said about preferring to let the customer hear a ringing rather than an engaged tone and their reply was spot on in that an engaged tone indicates your busy while and unanswered call indicates nobodies at the office.

As for call popping, there are low cost units that will do the job very well, (that's what I've just fitted today) but again they won't work on ISDN lines. Question is that if you don't want to use a computerised system as previously offered then why not just read the number from the display on the phone? Why do you need a computer to show you what's already on your phone?

Thats damn good advice.

Some phone companies out there are dodgier than wife beating edinburgh cab drivers.

CC

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Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
George Carlin

There you have it Wrexham.

Thanks for the answer bill it was quite informative.

In answer:

I was not sure about if I could get free texts with ISDN so now I know you dont thats one issue cleared up for me.

I was thinking that if I had say two or three phones attached to each line then when we are on the phone to a customer then if someone else rang we would not lose the job etc.

Call popping was mentioned and I thought you could only get it free with ISDN. Currently when someone calls there number does not show up and to register with BT to get number recognition costs around £5 per month (cant remember the exact price). It seems alot just to show number.

Can you also tell me about low cost units for call popping, how much are they and are they any good?

It all boils down to trying to increase the phone work we have that why I am looking into inproving the office etc.

The office I took over was once one of the biggest but due to bad management over the years when I took over the office was down to one diver and only open fri, sat and sun night for a few hours. Also, there is another taxi office that is in the same street which gets the majority of the walk in trade simply because of the way the office was run people still dont know we exist! Drivers are very hard to recruit as they think there is no work and due to a number of idiot drivers coming to work for me, ripping me off and the leaving then spreading bad rumours about me and the office drivers are not easy to find. In a nutshell I want to focus on phone work as the walk in will grow on its own and I always believe if you get the phone ringing you will make more money with link ups etc. I am just trying to think of the best way to progress and get the phone ringing as much as possible and a switchboard system seems like the best way forward coupled with a leaflet drop.

I hope you dont mind the long winded reply but perhaps you can see where I am coming from and where I want to go.

I am still working 7 days a week and have not had a day off since I started due to not finding drivers and its driving me slowly round the twist lol

Well when you get round the final twist, you’ll probably see a bloke with grey hair that’s already been there for some time!

What you need to do is to give me a call rather than spending an age posting here. Can’t guarantee to solve all your problems but I can give you the benefits of my experiences with companies in the same boat.

I’ve pm’d my mobile to you, it’s on 24/7 so call me any resonable time.

Hi Wrexhamdriver,

We have been through the same thing and went for the NEC XN120 phone system http://www.tmilimited.co.uk/nec_xn120.htm which can handle 3 analogue lines and you can see which line is being called in the telephone display and it displays caller number. Be aware of some other PBX systems because you need to buy cards on top of the advertised price to make it work. With the NEC it can handle 3 lines & 8 extensions straight out of the box.

With regards to ISDN lines and DDI's, check out http://www.o2.co.uk/assets2/business/O2PricingInformationFixedVoiceFeb10-4.pdf

Felix2426
Only the good die young