Taxi tipping

Taxis are one of the major forms of transport in big cities and London is no exception, where the hackney cab was originally horse drawn. Taxi drivers live on their wits and a smarter cabbie can get better tips than other drivers. London black cab drivers need to be smart as London is a huge and irregular sprawl and to get their licence the cabbies have to pass 'the knowledge' test, which requires them to memorise pretty much the entire map of London! This has an interesting secondary effect that cabbies are often quite smart.

Which all brings me to this morning when a cabbie handed me his newspaper as I got in the cab -- 'here, sir, would you like to read a paper?' What a great example of setting up an exchange dynamic! I get to read a paper for a few minutes and he gets a bigger tip -- making it quite an expensive newspaper rental service.

Cabbies are often chatty and friendly as they know this helps tips too. And I guess taxi-driving is not a great career for the introverted. They will often give good advice about what's happening. They also know there is a brand associated with taxis, black cabs and cabbies, which they enhance or damage with each interaction.

All in all, they are a pretty good role model for changing minds.

Your comments

Quite interesting to know the exchange dynamic of cabbies in London. I am in Bangalore city where new international airport was inaugurated recently .Interested to study exchange dynamics of our cabbies operating arround airport

I will take this information to my class when i address my students on marketing of services

-- chandran

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Taxi tipping

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