The Brief
Addison Lee is London’s largest minicab firm. Founded in 1975, they now carry over 10 million passengers a year, and courier more than 40,000 deliveries every month, which is rather a lot. They have grown particularly rapidly over the past few years, largely due to their desire to embrace the most up-to-date technology.
In 2011, Addison Lee’s iPhone app took over a million bookings, with a total value of over £21m. Following this massive success, they asked us to create a new native app for Windows Phone so that they could reach even more people with this new, growing mobile platform.
The Challenges
Our app needed to enable users to both make bookings, and track their existing bookings from one simple interface. Windows Phone apps are centred around a panorama homescreen, which gives an overview of the app by swiping through panels left and right. We incorporated all the key actions a user would need into this one screen. As well as making and keeping track of bookings, users are also able to cancel and amend their bookings directly from the app.
Addison Lee’s dynamic scheduling software is award-winning, and is able to quickly locate the closest appropriate cab to the customer. Our app seamlessly integrates with their system, meaning that users can easily make a booking whilst giving them control over the journey, including the addresses (pick-up, via, and destination), the date and time, the vehicle size needed, and the payment method.
The Process
To make it super easy to choose the address, users can do it in three ways, either using a quick search, by selecting an address from their contacts, or by picking somewhere in the local area using the phone GPRS. The app then shows them an estimated journey time and cost, so that they are fully informed about the journey before they complete the booking.
Once the booking is made, the journey details can be looked at any time in the app, and a booking status is shown alongside them, like the driver is on the way. Users can also view an interactive map. This shows the start and end addresses, the probable route, and the actual position of your cab, and it updates along the journey so you can always see where you are.
To make bookings accessible straight away, individual bookings get pinned to the Windows Phone start menu. This means that the booking can be viewed with a single click rather than having to navigate to it from the app home screen. The tile itself also displays the booking details and the live map so these can be checked at a glance.
The Results
Addison Lee were really impressed with our results, and following the success of the Windows Phone app, they asked us to create a new version for Windows 8, adapting our own designs to the new OS. This new app still allows users to make and track bookings, this time from their PC or tablet. The full functionality of the app is available in the snap screen view as well as full screen, which makes it perfect for multi-tasking. These two apps together now mean that users are able to easily book a cab from home, the office, or anywhere on the go.