As the South African National Taxi Council (Santaco) joins the growing number of private and public entities offering free WiFi through its Wi-Taxi initiative, it may have stumbled on a way to quicken its route to a more efficient taxi industry.
At the recent launch of the Wi-Taxi initiative to roll-out connectivity across SA's minibus taxis over the next few years, the council was at pains to highlight its commitment to improving services and reliability for the country's millions of daily commuters relying on the industry.
Speaking at the launch, Santaco CEO Nkululeko Buthelezi said WiFi is but one of the ways the taxi industry hopes to lure more commuters towards SA's biggest public transport service and help change the way people see it.
I'll be the first to admit, I was surprised when I heard the free data was set at a monthly cap of 50MB for commuters, but officials emphasised the initiative is intended to be a catalyst for bridging the Internet access gap rather than create a new pool of high data consumers.
It's about enabling commuters to send e-mails and briefly surf the Web as opposed to fostering a massive pool of mobile streaming folks, they said.
But, as Santaco aims to genuinely transform negative perceptions that taxis are unsafe and their drivers unruly, why not make the WiFi central to those plans?
The taxi industry transports around 15 million commuters daily, and brands will be urged to capitalise on all those eyeballs by advertising on the new service. If Santaco and Wi-Taxi can push advertising to commuters, why not prioritise interactivity as part of plans to improve their customer experience?
Just start talking
While setting up a live chat portal between commuters and Santaco officials is probably impractical considering journey times, which often might not be long, using the WiFi to allow passengers to interact with Santaco might not be a bad idea.
As a taxi commuter, I've sat in many a minibus where we grumble at the occasional reckless driver or sit stony-faced as congested ranks condemn many of us to run behind schedule.
Santaco has taken the first step towards improving communication through this initial connectivity effort, so why not bring customer experience suggestions to the fingertips of the passengers they serve?
Perhaps a "how is my driving" feedback element would be pushing it a bit.
Taxis have been fairly quick to capitalise on relevant and lucrative routes across SA's provinces, but the new platform could enable passengers to add relevant and viable route suggestions. Fare increases and service announcements could also be sent to individuals' mobiles as soon as they board, should Santaco embrace interactivity.
Although bombarding us with long surveys might be irritating, using connectivity to occasionally glean insights directly from passengers is a handy way to add to your improvement objectives. Perhaps a "how is my driving" feedback element would be pushing it a bit.
Granted, the interactive element presents its own administrative challenges in setting up a back-end and monitoring communications, but it would boost Santaco's ambitions of creating lasting employment opportunities out of the initiative.
Growing goldmine
Smartphone sales could see the largest growth in the African market, according to a recent Gartner report, and SA is no exception to mobility's expansion. While vendors increasingly tap into the market using low-cost smartphones, World World Worx expects 18.1 million devices to be in use by the end of this year.
This is compared to 16.3 million smartphones in 2013. Many Africans still rely on mobility as a primary source of Internet access, and Santaco knows this - so too does Telkom, which is facilitating connectivity.
Surely, then, WiFi should not just be a "nice-to-have" or an add-on, but can steer Santaco along a quicker route to boosting customer experience, all while remaining true to the aim of taking steps towards keeping people connected and trying to bridge SA's Internet access gap.
Oh, and could we perhaps increase the cap to way more than 50MB while we're at it?
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