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Cabbie uses Twitter to increase and retain business

We love to hear about unusual and interesting ways that businesses, and in particular small businesses, are using social media to improve. So we’re rather charmed with a recent story about Chicago taxi driver Rashid Temuri. Rashid uses a mix of Twitter (@ChicagoCabbie), Google Latitude and Find My Friends to attract new customers. He claims that 95% of his repeat business is through his Twitter account.

To maximise his business, Rashid uses the social networks to let people know his whereabouts, receive discounts and book him. An example of one of his tweets is:

“Good morning #Chicago!! It’s a wet wet day here. 41°. Take $5 OFF the meter from now till 2PM to any airport from anywhere. :-) #ORD #MDW”

Interestingly, Rashid didn’t actually start out using social media as a marketing tool. He explains:

“I started Twitter thinking I’ll talk to people about taxi industry of Chicago. I feel there is a gap between taxi drivers and customers and there are lots of misunderstandings. They both are in such a defensive mode. They both feel like they have to protect themselves from the other and it’s just so wrong. I joined Twitter to eliminate the gap between a taxi customer and taxi driver.”

Rashid is even tech-savvy enough to offer free wi-fi in his cab (and accepts credit card payments for those that don’t carry cash). It really is no wonder people are happy to use him time and time again.

This isn’t the first time we’ve heard about a taxi company using social media to get the competitive edge. @tweetalondoncab lets you book a taxi in London by sending a simple DM to the account. They’ll then reply straight away with a booking confirmation. Handy if you’re in a busy or loud place and don’t have time to nip out and make a call.

Source: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2012/01/old-services-meet-new-media-a-tweeting-cabbies-growing-business.ars

Would you hire a taxi through Twitter?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 1st, 2012 at 10:37 am and is filed under Social Networking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

One Response to “Cabbie uses Twitter to increase and retain business”

  1. Sukh Pabial Says:
    February 2nd, 2012 at 3:32 pm

    This is a fab article, and one I would like to share. @ChicagoCabbie is clearly doing a lot of things right. However, you don’t seem to have a sharing button linking to social networks? Wouldn’t it be fab if a ‘Social Media Insight for Global Enterprises’ company, actually made their content available on social media? Just a thought.

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