As a business owner interested in enlarging your customer base, you might have been thinking or probably have been advised about starting your taxi booking app. Well, that’s a piece of great advice or initiative if it came from your reasoning but, do you know what a taxi booking app is? Do you know how to start a taxi booking app? In this article, we will take you on an informative journey as we go through a quick view of what you should know before starting to develop a taxi booking app. Without further ado, let’s get right into it.
What is a Taxi booking app?
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The taxi booking app is exactly as it sounds, an app that allows you to book a taxi to pick you up wherever you are and take you wherever you want to go. It has become a huge trend nowadays, with several businesses developing their version and more people quitting the conventional wave down a taxi to that which you can book one right on your mobile phone to pick you up at any day and time. While this seems like a great idea for you to work on as a business owner and develop your taxi booking app, developing a taxi booking app with zero knowledge could lead to failure and a total waste of time. Hence, why we have compiled a list of what to know and consider before starting to develop a taxi booking app.
Now, before we launch right into what you need to know before developing a taxi booking app, Let’s note that to develop a well-performing app, you would need the right resources, technologies, and marketing strategies to make it a success
Examine your competition
One of the best business strategies is never to jump right into a market. For every market, you have to observe first. See what others are doing wrong that you can tap into, find out what they are doing right that you can do better. There’s just so much you can gain from watching and examining first before making a move.
Now, for the taxi booking app. Watch and understand the market before making any move, try to source for areas where there aren’t a lot of functioning taxi booking service but needs the service. Figure out if the area you planned to work within really needs a taxi booking app business. Try to figure all this out before finally, starting with a great market strategy and lapses your business is planning to cover.
Do you have the right resources?
Resources when talking about this business would most likely mean cars and yes, that is what we are talking about. You can’t have buses and say you have the right resources for a taxi booking app business because you don’t.
It shouldn’t take too long, do quick in-depth research on the right cars to use, what people’s reviews are and how you can do something better, I.e if you can get better cars that can still work as taxis. If you can, get them but ensure that you are not going past your budget or allocated fees for the cars because there is still a lot to spend on later.
Now that we have the right cars and know a rough sketch of the areas we would be working at, let’s let talk about the app itself.
Customization
When it comes to customization, we would be talking about interface and features.
- Interface: How well you want users to make use of your app depends on your user interface. Your passengers and potential customers are everyday people and not IT genius. Most probably suck at anything technical so, ensure that your interface is clean and easy enough to use for an average teenager. Make sure your app does not come off as intimidating, confusing, or hard. Having a lot of features doesn’t mean your interface has to be jumbled up, all you have to do is find a good developer to work with you.
- Features: We have talked about the interface, now let’s talk about features. We advise that you write down the list of features you’d be interested in adding to your taxi booking apps before starting out and below we will be adding a list of basic features that must be included in your taxi booking app features before we move on.
Usually, when developing your taxi booking app, you have two main parts and each part has its features.
- Driver App
- Passenger App
Drivers App
It is the side of the driver where he can receive booking requests and go ahead to pick the passenger from his location.
Basic features in the driver’s app
- Driver profile tab: This is a sign-in section for drivers, they are expected to fill in their information’s into this section alongside their driving license number for verification purposes.
- Notification feature: This feature Is as simple as it sounds, it is to alert a driver when a passenger requesting a ride is in the area.
- GPS, Routes, and Maps: This feature is to provide direction to a driver, avoid a driver from getting lost if it is on an unfamiliar route, and also, help the driver reach its destination at the minimum time possible.
- Fare calculator feature: This is to help a driver calculate the estimated amount for a trip based on distance. It is also helpful to avoid arguments on fare and extortion on the driver’s part.
- Income Report tab: This is for drivers to be able to track down their earning and know how much they have earned.
Passenger App
This is the app side of the rider where he can book a taxi, pay the fare with different payment getaways, etc.
Basic features in the passenger’s App
- Registration Tab: Just like the driver, every passenger or user needs a form of identification too and to also register their verified mode of payment to avoid payment disputes.
- Booking tab: This feature is for a passenger to book a taxi and drop their current destination and where they are headed.
- Estimate Fare calculator: This feature is essential to give a passenger a rough estimate of the transport fare before booking the ride.
- Payment Tab: Of course, this is also very essential, this is the tab that displays the payment options a passenger can pay in and where they can input their coupon code after a ride.
- Communication and Support: This can be different tabs or one tab, it depends on how you would like your app to be but ensure that there is a tab that allows for proper communication between your apps support team and passengers for complaints, help, and build a great customer service relationship.
- Review and rating tab: There should also be a rating and review tab where passengers can drop reviews after a ride. This is a great feature because not only does it let your passengers express their thoughts, it will also help you to figure out what you are doing wrong or right.
- Tracking tool: This tool is essential for passengers to track a taxi and know how far away from them their ride is after booking one.
- Cab selection tabs: For some Taxi booking app, there are several cars for several levels of comfortability, and having a car selection tab is the perfect feature to showcase the different cars available and their payment options.
Note that there are still doesn’t by any chance covers all the features you can input into your taxi booking app but they are some of the basic ones.
- Do something different: There are tons of taxi booking apps out there. You are not the first and you won’t be the last but what is that one thing that you can do to make your brand different. Go back to the first point and evaluate it again, doing something different from what others do or being the first to do something others haven’t will make your brand stand out but remember, do not be redundant. You have to keep maintaining, updating, and bringing up new different ideas.
- Be considerate of your drivers: Ensure that your drivers’ interface is as clean as that of your user’s too. Not every single one of them would have technical knowledge so it is so much better to put this in mind when designing the interface.
- Choose your technology partner and launch: While planning on the right technology partner to choose, ensure to research to know which is best and which isn’t. You can rely on the RR tip for this. Research and Review. Ensure you do good research and check out their experience, testimonials, then, read reviews and what people are saying about your shortlisted technology partners before making a choice.
Once you have chosen your technology partner, you can develop your taxi booking app, make promotional plans, and launch.
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