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How Livery Businesses Can Differentiate from Uber and Lyft

Despite industry giants Uber and Lyft dominating the on-demand transportation industry, there’s still plenty of room for your business to stand out. Use these marketing tips and points of differentiation to create a competitive advantage from your competitors.

Focus on Customer Experience

Technology has given consumers the power of choice like never before. They have access to a plethora of information around the world anywhere, anytime. The result is higher expectations for value, speed, and efficiency, which affects how and why they choose to purchase products and services.Your website and mobile app needs to be well designed and easy to navigate. If your content does not easily and quickly provide customers with the information they’re looking for, they may move on to your competitors. Mobile experience is different than the desktop experience, make sure the designs and functionality are designed to optimize both experiences.Making sure your customer base is happy is a huge priority. It costs five times as much to attract a new customer than to keep an existing one. Rating systems, feedback surveys, rewards and loyalty programs, and engaging with customers through social media are all ways to obtain feedback.Customers interact with businesses through multiple channels including email, phone, chat rooms, social media, and websites. Making sure these channels are unified and consistent will provide your customers with a better experience with your business.Finding ways to go above and beyond strengths ties with your customers and satisfied customers are the best source of brand advocacy.

Blogging

Hosting a blog on your company’s website will increase search engine traffic. When you add more pages to your site, more pages from your domain become indexed in search engines like Google and Bing.Churn this content into social media content: sharing blog content across social media platforms is a way to direct leads to your website. This, in turn, will extend the life of your content by creating more buzz about your company across social media channels.Topics are important. Generating content related to trending news and connecting it to your brand will get your blog and business noticed. The key to beating out competitors on the search engine results page is having fresh, consistent and click-worthy content.Blogging gives your business an opportunity to bring your brand to life and give it a unified voice which builds likeability and trust. It also allows you to connect with your customers more intimately and opens an avenue for communication. These interactions provide insight into customer’s needs which will allow you to refine marketing initiatives.Become a thought leader in your field through blogging. Other industry leaders may even quote or reference your company in their blogs which will also increase exposure.

Social Responsibility Programs

Demonstrating social responsibility and getting involved with the community is a must for smaller businesses. Having a strong connection with the community is an advantage smaller business have over larger corporations. Building trust and creating familiarity will strengthen your brand’s reputation. In fact, companies that give back will enjoy a more loyal customer base than those who do not.Connect with charities, non-profit organizations, local schools, or sustainability programs with philosophies that align with your company.Turn those efforts into some good and talk up your programs and efforts! Share your experiences through social media, company’s website, press releases, and blog content. The more you get involved and put your business out there, the more spotlights you will create.

Highlight Your Differences

Once you determine the key points that differentiates your business from your competitors, make sure that is communicated efficiently through marketing and advertising. Your brand voice should be strong and consistent throughout all social media platforms and on your website.Capitalize off your unique fleet! Highlight the specialized services, transportation capabilities, or special rates that your competitors do not have.Your customer base may require a bigger passenger count, have special medical needs, or need reliable transportation for a corporate event.

Competitive Technical Advantages

In credit to Dashride’s dispatch technology, our clients have critical technical advantages. Customers have the ability to “favorite” and “reject” specific drivers. This is incredibility favorable for auto-dispatchers using these personal preferences.These saved profiles can also enhance the custom-made experience. With saved customer profiles, on-demand companies can note important personal preferences. These can include anything from beverage specifications to desired reading materials.In addition to customized client profiles, fleets are also able to have a technical advantage when it comes to the deeper reporting and insightful analytics. With the breadth and depth of reporting that is given, fleets are able to provide to their corporate customers are far above what TNC companies provide. Customized client reports, automated invoicing, detailed billing data, and visualized driver safety analytics such as speed and breaking can all be immensely important to a wide range of corporate travel buys as they move to follow internal policies and limit liabilities.Standing out in a crowd of competitors can be challenging. Once you find your chosen strategies to differentiate your business, stick with it, a strong voice and consistency are key.Do you have any strategies that worked for your business? Tweet us at @dashride!

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