As we suggested in our previous article, Uber’s apparent domination of the global taxi booking and ridesharing apps market can also stimulate the emergence of similar apps locally. Applications like Lyft, Ola, Grab, and others got their own considerable market share, and Shark Taxi, the mobile program we developed and now is supporting at Agilie, felt the rise of popularity even after UberX had launched in our country.
In our article, we'd like to take a closer look at the issue. To be more specific, we’re going to make an overview of the benefits of taxi booking apps and provide a few useful development tips.
#1. Automate and boost the speed of your services
A mobile app for the taxi business allows you to streamline the booking stage and remove the dispatcher from your service’s workflow. Therefore, all participants in the process would be satisfied:
-
You, as the app owner, are going to get your source of profit;
-
Passengers would be happy to simplify the taxi booking process: they’ll no longer need to waste time on dispatcher calls (or stand in the street trying to catch a car).
-
Drivers, in their turn, get a chance to answer the call faster, since the app would deal with logistics and process the order in seconds.
-
A taxi booking process as it works in the Shark Taxi app
Other benefits of taxi booking mobile apps
These benefits are provided by mapping technologies like Google Maps, which allow the following:
-
Passengers can be up to date on their car’s location both while they’re waiting and when they’re on the move.
-
Passengers and drivers are able to find the addresses they need faster and choose the quickest route to the destination point.
#2. Get a larger user base of retaining passengers and drivers
Hundreds of millions of people are used to taking advantage of applications of all sorts on a regular basis, these programs have become a habitual part of life. And extending your services to mobile gives you access to a wide audience of such people. Using a mobile booking app, passengers will get a chance to make orders in a few taps and drivers won’t need to roam about in search of clients.
But to keep the app users engaged, you have to do your best to implement functionalities able to encourage passengers to choose your services and offer drivers beneficial conditions persuading them to partner with your business.
#3. Take care of unique features a mobile app
These are some of the features a mobile app, add them to your service:
-
Ride Review. The feature helps build confidence between passengers and drivers by encouraging the former to use your program and the latter - to provide their services better. Also, gathering instant feedback will show you the best way to improve your business.
-
In-app interaction feature, which allows drivers and passengers to communicate with each other through calls and messages. It’s aimed at minimizing delays and miscommunication issues.
-
Access to booking history and favorite routes. The feature simplifies the re-ordering process and speeds up customer service. The approach is clearly not available in the case of traditional dispatcher-led services.
-
Loyalty programs, it’s an effective way to retain users of taxi booking mobile apps. And by the way, make sure to provide loyalty programs to both groups of users (passengers and drivers). It may require additional spending and is not a must-have feature at the launch, but you may consider it in the future.
The full feature scope of your app, of course, must be refined according to your business goals and budget. Either way, there is a lot of new possibilities worth considering.
Shark Taxi app by Agilie
#4. Offer different payment options
Everybody is talking about the convenience of mobile payment systems. However, not all taxi services, drivers, and passengers welcome this new technology. It means you should consider the needs of the target audience in your market and provide it with what it expects and wants to get in order to get maximum user reach.
It’s quite possible that your customers would like to have access to different payment options including online payments, plastic cards, and cash. Fortunately, you can implement these features in one application by using modern technology.
#5. Partner with other taxi services and drivers
You don’t have to run a car fleet in order to launch a taxi booking app. You can offer your mobile solution for the traditional taxi services that exist in a certain area, and who work in an old-fashioned way (meaning, they don’t have a personal cab booking application yet). Or you can make a ridesharing app by partnering with freelance drivers with private cars (it’s a so-called peer-to-peer model). In this case, your concern is only maintaining the app’s client-side and databases on the server.
By the by, if you're the owner of a traditional taxi service, just admit it: you’re in a nice pickle. Your main problem, even the threat, is various taxi booking mobile apps like Uber (and others). It’s hard to compete in such conditions!
The logical solution is to take advantage of the same tools to win your share of the audience. So maybe it's high time to design and develop a taxi mobile app to improve your market position.
#6. Approach the Ride Sharing App Development competently
The question "How does a taxi app work?" is answered. Also, you now know how to interest users, where to look for drivers to hire... However, this isn't enough to succeed! So we'd like to give you some more tips to consider:
-
Market research, which includes:
-
analysis of competitors (Uber is by no means your only rival);
-
study of the needs of users (both future passengers and potential drivers);
-
research of current trends in the ridesharing apps market.
-
-
The choice of interaction model. We've described your main options in #5. Think about which one suits you best.
-
Competent UI/UX. In addition to working well and reliably, your mobile booking app should have a modern, visually appealing interface design (it's about the UI). Also, it has to be easy to use (it's about the UX or User Experience).
-
Marketing. Even the most top-notch cab booking app won't be able to win a place in the market if you don't make an effort to promote it.
-
Finding a worthy development team. Unfortunately, you're unlikely to cope with all the difficulties of development yourself.
We've listed the main advantages of building a taxi booking app and gave helpful tips on attracting the maximum number of users. Of course, we’ve provided you with the very basics, but without the basics, it’s impossible to ensure the future success of your service. So if you have an app idea on taxi app development, you can safely proceed with its implementation, you know where to start!
