Taxi and Courier Booking and
Parcel Tracking Systems
The Swift TeleBooking System is an automatic telephone booking
service specifically designed to make it easy and fast for
regular users to make a booking with a Taxi or Courier Group.
Additional capabilities might also include the ability to
add Track&Trace for international shipments. These services
allow callers with a touchtone (DTMF) telephone to place a
booking or query directly into the dispatch computer - avoiding
the normal telephone queues.
For bookings, the Swift teleBook system
can be set up to use Caller ID (where this is available) to
identify the caller and simplify the system's use. Alternatively,
the caller can respond to the system's greeting prompt by
entering a personal pre-assigned VIP number.
In most instances the service is kept
simple and fast by minimising the amount of information a
caller has to enter, relying on the caller’s pickup
address details being stored in the company's dispatch system.
Techniques are available to extend
the service to cater for situations when additional information
about the requested service is needed. This might include
passenger or parcel destinations, service level, time required,
cancellation of previous bookings and so on. In some instances
voice recognition technology may be used to enhance the service.
Using Caller ID
The typical system installed will act as an auto-attendant,
answering all calls to the company's booking number. Callers
will be given the option of using the automatic Booking service
or being transferred directly to one of your staff depending
upon whether their Caller ID is received and whether their
details are available in the dispatch system database.
As such, callers to the service will
be given different greeting messages depending upon the circumstances.
In the simplest case a caller might only hear a prompt such
as:
"Welcome to City Cabs. Thank
you for calling. We have your pickup address details recorded.
If you are ready to travel, and have no more than 4 passengers,
please press 1 now. For all other bookings and enquiries
please hold the line"
If a caller presses 1 the teleBook
IVR system will immediately retrieve the caller’s address
details and place a standard booking into the dispatch computer
system, confirm the booking to the caller, perhaps issue a
receipt number and then hang up.
For callers who do nothing at the
initial greeting the IVR system will queue the call for the
call-centre telephonists.
If Caller ID was available for the
call, and the caller's pickup address details are on file,
it is possible through CTI to pop-up a booking screen with
the caller’s details completed - speeding manual handling
of bookings and queries.
Using pre-issued VIP Numbers
When a call is received the teleBook system will greet the
caller and ask them to enter their personal VIP number, which
can be used to identify both their current pickup location
and the type of service required.
You can issue the VIP number to a
customer when their address details are recorded on your dispatch
computer system. It will be unique with a check digit appended
to ensure that the user correctly enters this on subsequent
calls.
A handy feature of this type of service
is that the caller can pre-program their telephone memory
dialler to automatically dial the company's service number
and the VIP number when activated rather than manually respond
to the IVR system’s voice prompts. This may be all that
is required of most callers. In this case the computer will
record the booking details, indicate to the caller that the
booking has been accepted and then thank them before hanging
up.
Rules and Options for use
Obviously to take advantage of this type of system you have
to establish a few simple rules to govern the system's use
so that the Taxi and Courier drivers can provide the appropriate
level of service. Typically these might include the following:
For Taxis:
- There must be a maximum of 4 passengers
- They must be ready to travel immediately
- Parcels should be fully addressed.
For Couriers:
- The parcels must be ready for immediate
pickup
- The parcels should weigh no more
than 25Kgs
- Parcels should be fully addressed.
Not all Courier or Taxi services can
take advantage of this service but in operations where a high
proportion of the bookings comprise customers using standard
services the Swift teleBook system is able to make significant
savings in the costs of handling telephone bookings, and save
callers' time.
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