2017 – a year of progress

Hello, Amer here, minicabit’s founder and CEO. Our mission to empower you to easily book great deals with quality cab firms UK wide goes from strength to strength. Having come off a memorable 2016 (perhaps too memorable for some), here are some of our highlights from 2017.

 

January – March

minicabit enhanced its offering yet again beyond just showcasing great prices. Ensuring customers receive a great service from Cab Operators experience is crucial for us and so we launched a Summary Bar that helps you see which cab firm is the ‘Best rated’. This follows our totally new ratings system where you can feedback on detailed aspects of the service offered by the cab firm, from the driver’s punctuality to the cleanliness of the car. This generates a rating up to 5 stars that is displayed next to each quote so you can also see how other customers fared with that cab firm…whilst the cab firm can better understand which drivers deserve a pat on the back or a word in their ear.

 

April – June

As the network bringing the UK cab operator community into the digital age, we were proud to co-sponsor the annual UK cab industry event, PHTM Expo for the second year running. We were again reminded of the passion Cab Operators have for their trade, some of whom have been serving customers for decades. Their excitement in being able to showcase their competitive pricing and quality service on minicabit was great to see, as they don’t want to be left behind in the mass shift to online cab booking.

Meantime, minicabit was going to the races…well, helping our customers get to the races. As the official cab booking service for Ascot, we were thrilled to offer a chance to win free tickets to Royal Ascot and a cab ride there (Her Majesty made her own arrangements).

Elsewhere, all bets were off as the UK held yet another vote, with minicabit on hand to help the lucky (?) winner get to No. 10.

 

July – September 

With the peak summer travel season upon us, we collaborated with our partners at Heathrow Airport, presenting an exclusive offer to customers booking a return cab trip to & from the airport. After all, one instinctively books a return flight so why not a return cab trip, which is so easy to do on minicabit?

Meantime, just when the heat was dying down at the end of the summer, the heat in the London cab sector was turning up! After many years of operating with relatively little regulatory scrutiny, Uber’s Private Hire Operator license was not renewed by Transport for London. Whilst the likes of Uber have helped galvanise the shift to online cab booking, one often overlooks that they are still a minicab firm and so should be subjected to the same operating standards that the other 3,000 or so cab firms in London face. As an online platform for the licensed cab operator sector, minicabit was interviewed on TV for its thoughts on the debate, one that will run for a while yet…

 

October – December

We were thrilled to end the year with a couple of industry award nominations. Having won the previous year, we were again nominated in the ‘Best on the road’ category for the Travolution Awards, focusing on travel technology players. This was followed by a nomination for ‘Best self-booking tool’ at the Business Travel Awards, a great spotlight on our minicabit for Business service that enables businesses of all shapes and sizes to easily book their cabs around the UK. Just being nominated for an award is a testament to the minicabit team’s relentless focus on offering the best experience in a fast transforming cab space.

To coincide with the launch of our ad campaign across the London Underground and Overground during Xmas, we ended the year with the launch of our new look website which highlights our ‘Backed by minicabit’ pledge and an even slicker flow through the booking process. Look out for even more enhancements to our website and our mobile apps in 2018!

 

Of course, none of this progress would be possible without the support of my team, our suppliers, partners and above all, our Cab Operators and customers, so a huge thank you to all.

Finally, the longest single cab trip taken via minicabit in 2014 was from Newcastle to London; in 2015, it was from Snowdonia (in North Wales) to London; and in 2016, it was from Bournemouth to Leeds…and in 2017, it was from London to Edinburgh. Will the longest cab trip taken via minicabit in 2018 be yours?