How does it feel to know that Elektritakso booked the 100,000,000th TaxiCaller trip?

We were happy and surprised. It was a low probability that it would be us that would make the 100-millionth trip. Now we comprehend how big of a system Taxicaller really is. You've made a great impact on the world around you!

Can you tell us about your business and how it got started?

Elektritakso (translated literally as Electric Taxi) started in 2012 when the founder, Ermo Kontson, was looking for a place to put electric cars to use. He was convinced that electric cars are the future and saw that the taxi service would be an ideal place to start the revolution.

Fast forward to 8 years later, we have driven over 17-million electric kilometers (10.5-million miles) with 91 electric cars servicing over 2,000,000 clients and people still love us.

We are focusing wholly on the quality of the service, so we are a lot different from some taxi companies in the industry (Especially with the rise of Uber, Bolt, etc. Most taxi companies have had trouble competing with them in Estonia, but we are still very strong).

What differentiates us:

• Electric cars – obvious, but not easy to do, actually.
• Innovative - we charge our cars from our own solar station with our own fast chargers, there's also a battery bank connected that we built from some car batteries from the older cars.
• Clean cars - washed in-house, the car always starts squeaky-clean.
• Quality drivers - we take pride in selecting who we work with and improving the service constantly.
• Satisfaction guarantee - if not happy with the service, clients can ask for a refund.
• Operative service - we are quick to reach the client (TaxiCaller helps us to do that even better).
• Flexible - we are always up for challenges, whether it's transporting something unique or helping out in other ways.

With all of that, we still offer the rides at an industry-average price.

We'd be happy to share our experience of adapting to electric cars and with our business model in general. We are currently looking for potential external investors to find synergy or to find possibilities for expansion. If anybody's interested, feel free to contact me!

We are really happy with the choice of Taxicaller. We can now direct our funds and focus toward our main activities: quality taxi service and conquering new markets, not the IT system part.

Why did you choose TaxiCaller as your dispatch software supplier? What did you use prior to TaxiCaller?

We were searching for the best solution for quite a while. For the first 6 years, we worked on our system and developed all the IT in-house--from dispatching software to driver's software to the client app. It was revolutionary back then and helped us move up in our efficiency big time, compared to others. At some scale, however, we saw that maintaining the in-house system is a real pain and would require more and more IT hours. TaxiCaller was the closest thing to what we already had built, with some extra options and different perspectives. We are really happy with the choice of Taxicaller. We can now direct our funds and focus toward our main activities: quality taxi service and conquering new markets, not the IT system part.

How has the use of TaxiCaller made a difference for your company, drivers, and dispatchers?

On the company level, the main aspect is helping us reduce the IT-friction, both money and time-wise. With drivers and dispatchers, the system has helped us to be more effective when distributing the order load, and this, in turn, increases the average hourly salary of drivers and more efficient € earned per kilometer earned (which is an efficiency KPI for us).

Dispatchers have a great overview of what's going on at any moment and can manage the workforce with ease.

What features of the system are most essential to Elektritakso?

The dispatcher system and driver's app is the most essential to us. With an effective system for distributing the incoming orders (similar to our previous in-house system), we can be sure that we provide a quality - not quantity - service to our clients.

We love the fact that we can set Zones and Tariffs, which lead to better efficiency.

The reports are really helpful for our analysis (we do a LOT of it), so we can better meet our supply with the demand.

The time right now is perfect to partner up with investors or by acquisition to 'power through' and move forward with the expansion that is in our short-term goals.

How are you affected by the COVID -19 situation?

It hit us hard at first, but a bit less than the rest of the taxi sector. On average, the taxi services dropped 90% in revenue when the Covid and lockdowns first came into effect - our revenue dropped approximately 75%. One of the key factors in that is that we have always focused on the local client rather than the tourists. The other factor is that we saw Covid coming already at the beginning of February when everyone else thought it's still just the flu. We had masks ready and as soon as the numbers started to come in, all of our drivers (without exception) had their masks on. It's hard for most taxi companies to make sure everybody follows this, but not us. We have different processes and the taxi driver starts each of their shifts from our home base. This way we can do quality control of the mask and overall look. We also care for the cars ourselves between each shift in our in-house carwash, so we got to disinfect them, etc.

All of this lead to a lot of media attention (because nobody believed Covid was even coming) and I think that helped us as well.

Now, as Covid has been around for a while, we are at around 2/3 of our usual revenue of around 2M€ ARR, as there are many restrictions in place for nightlife and that affects us too.

The time right now is perfect to partner up with investors or by acquisition to 'power through' and move forward with the expansion that is in our short-term goals.

What actions have you taken to cope with the change in demand for passenger trips?

We have further used this time to make ourselves more efficient in every way. We have 'cut down some fat,' as in looked very critically at every cost we have and made a lot of changes to cope with the change. One of the key factors throughout the whole company is our devotion to reaching the optimum KPI of €/km (€ earned per kilometer driven) because this is one of the keys for surviving situations like these. This means that the supply must meet the demand as close as possible and we do analyses daily to make sure we do.

There are, of course, some extra activities to increase revenue as well, that we've started, like home deliveries of food, groceries, etc.

When we moved our whole system to Taxicaller, it improved our business A LOT. I'd call it more of a Taxicaller ECOSYSTEM, as it has so many different pieces built together. We love it.

What recommendation would you give to those who are considering the TaxiCaller system?

Consider this: we spent 6 years building and perfecting our in-house system for exactly these purposes. And we did well. Yet still, when we moved our whole system to Taxicaller, it improved our business A LOT. I'd call it more of a Taxicaller ECOSYSTEM, as it has so many different pieces built together. We love it.

Learn more about Elektritasko on the web at: http://fb.com/elektritakso, www.instagram.com/elektritakso/, and www.elektritakso.ee.