Innovation in the Radio Taxi Services in India

Cabs and Taxi services always existed in Mumbai. One could hire a private cab or avail the services of our popular black and yellow taxi, however; one fine day an entrepreneur sensed an opportunity in providing private cab services that delivers a new experience to the consumers. Started with Meru Cabs and the market is now stormed with radio taxis.

Objective of this article is to analyze opportunities for the radio taxis by uncovering the existing potential in the consumer base through segmenting.

Black & Yellow Taxi’s are not easily available for a door to door pick up nor are they (fiats) as convenient as radio taxis, plus we don’t trust the driver. 

On the other hand, radio taxis have managed to garner an imagery of comfort, convenience, trust and availability through phone.

Having said that, lets take and e.g. of Meru Cabs and lets see how we can innovate in-terms of the offerings they can have in the market.

What has Meru done to the consumers?

They have managed to establish trust in the minds of the consumer w.r.t their service and the kind of drivers they have. People are ready to pay a premium because they trust Meru and their drivers.

If we notice, a lot of parents do a car pool or taxi pool to send their children to school or sometimes they don’t have the car to send their children to certain places and they won’t send the child alone. How about Meru4Kids? An offering that caters to the kids, an experience design to take care of the kids and obviously Meru leverages trust through the drivers they hire and train.

Pushing it further, Meru4Emergency and Meru4Weddings/ Parties – Service is customized as per the offering. So the experience is inline with the need of the customer.

A lot of Business Professionals hop between one meetings to another, so we could have Meru4Businesss. Cab is equipped with all the things that a business professional might require e.g. a charging point, business magazines, etc.,

Lastly, this is not directly related with what Meru is offerings but is more to do with leveraging the TRUST that people put on Meru cab drivers/cab….. What if Meru offers driver on demand and driver on contract for personal cars.. These are trained drivers and are certified by Meru.

There are many possibilities when it comes to offerings, so i would request people to share their point of view on this topic.

- by Anuj Chaudhary

Disclaimer: Views expressed are solely from the perspective of stimulating a discussion on how Radio Taxi's can service the needs of different segments of their TG. It is not on behalf of any of the brands mentioned above.