Charlie’s Angels Dial-a-Driver has six drivers – up to 15 during the festive season – providing dial-a-driver services for more than 300 clients ranging from businesses to private individuals.

Owner and operator Charlie Tobin has replaced radio telephones (RTs) for his drivers with Telecom handsets and Push 2 Talk, and is cutting costs while getting great coverage.

Push 2 Talk is a walkie-talkie style T3G mobile service that enables subscribers to quickly speak with up to five other Telecom Push 2 Talk users at the same time, anywhere within the 027 network.

“It used to cost me $800 a month to rent the RTs but now it only costs me $10 a month to use Push 2 Talk for each phone – that’s a hell of a saving for the business,” says Charlie.

“The coverage is really good as well. Before, if we were out of transmission range we sometimes had to drive up to five kilometres to get back into reception - that’s not a problem now.”

Charlie uses Push 2 Talk anywhere in Telecom 027 coverage and on occasions when a car is in a pocket without coverage the driver usually only has to drive about 100 metres to be back in range.

“If a car is out of range we always know where it is going and they can contact us as soon they are back,” says Charlie.

The mobiles are small and easy to handle and because he can choose whether he talks to a group or just one-to-one, Charlie can be discreet when he’s passing information to drivers.

“You might have a customer that has asked for a particular driver or a driver may need help with directions – with Push 2 Talk I don’t have to broadcast what’s going on to all the drivers and their passengers.

“If I want to talk to a group of drivers then I can do that as well.”

Charlie’s business has been built up over eight years mainly through word-of-mouth and referrals and he says good communication – both knowing how to manage passengers and keeping in touch with drivers - is vital.

Client and driver numbers are stored within his handset and he will occasionally add ring tones to identify different types of callers, so he can prioritise important calls.

Charlie takes client calls and dispatches his drivers who can quickly notify him that they are available for a job and again when they have cleared a particular job.

“When I know they have cleared an area I can check if there is a pick-up nearby – it saves time and means we make the best use of our cars.”

“I started using Push 2 Talk soon after it was launched and now that I am thinking about expanding the business to other centres it will be part of that growth.”

December 2006