You will hear part of a talk given by a member of staff at a car rental company. First, you have some time to look at questions 11 to 16. Now, listen carefully and answer questions 11 to 16.
Good morning, listeners, and welcome back to Star Radio. Today on the show, we have a visitor from Yazoo Car Rental, who is going to give us an insight into his company and into the public transport system. Welcome, Jonathan.
Thank you for having me. Yes, I would like to start by introducing my company, Yazoo Car Rental. We are the cheapest and most reliable rental company in the city and have won multiple awards for the quality of our services.
This success did not come easily, however, and it proved important that we stay fresh and are always thinking of ways to attract new customers. Our first attempt to do this was to offer a free gift with every car rental, which we were confident the customers would be very interested in. The offer of a free hoover with each rental, however, did not attract any new customers, so we quite quickly stopped offering it.
In 2002, a new taxi company opened next door to us, and we started losing a lot of business to them, so we introduced an offer that we hoped might compete with their service. We offered a new package where you could rent a car with a driver for a small extra fee. By introducing this offer, we found that all of our customers preferred to drive the cars themselves, so again, this offer was unsuccessful in attracting more customers.
Learning from these mistakes, we decided to offer a package service where the customer no longer had to come to our offices to pick up the rental car. Instead, we could drop off and pick up the car anywhere in the city to make the customer's experience a lot more stress-free. This offer was very popular and increased our profits by 30%.
In order to attract a younger demographic, we updated the models of cars that we offered for rental. We began offering more trendy cars such as minis and smart cars that we thought might appeal to the younger crowd, and we also purchased them in more fun colours like reds and greens. This offer attracted some new customers of a younger age group, however, not as many as we hoped.
Next, I decided to offer our services at a discounted price on our website where it could be seen by thousands of people. I thought that this could be a great way to attract a number of new customers who would never have heard of us before, and it worked fantastically well. Following the success of the discount offer, we had so many customers that it became necessary to open a new branch of the company in the centre of the city.
The cost of renting offices in the city centre was very high, so we hoped that our profits would justify this expensive decision. We made enough profit to keep our city centre offices open, but we had hoped for a greater increase in customer numbers. Before you hear the rest of the talk, you have some time to look at questions 17 to 20.
Now listen and answer questions 17 to 20. Now for the second part of my talk, which is on the topic of public transport. There are many benefits to public transport.
For example, the recent introduction of bus lanes has meant that buses are now unaffected by traffic jams and are able to stay on schedule. Unfortunately, as fewer and fewer people are taking the bus nowadays, the service has become quite inefficient. This reduction in passengers may be due to the stories in the newspaper about the dangers posed to pedestrian safety by the buses.
However, this is largely untrue, as buses are responsible for far less pedestrian-related accidents than cars. I use the bus service often, as car petrol is so expensive nowadays that the bus is far more affordable. However, if I am in a rush, I prefer to take a taxi, as they tend to get you to your destination very quickly, so you can remain punctual for your appointments.
I also very much enjoy flying to my destinations, as the service is incredibly fast and the airports are always very easy to find. Personally, my favourite mode of transportation is the bus. Due to the lack of people using the service, I have found that the buses are never overcrowded, so there is always a seat available.
They are also never dirty, as they get cleaned regularly. However, I have found that sometimes the bus can be over a half hour behind schedule, which can be very frustrating. There has been a lot of fluctuation in the price of bus tickets in the last couple of years.
In the past, £1.80 for a ticket was enough to sustain the bus companies. However, as the price of fuel increased, so did the ticket prices. Now the ticket prices are declining, as the bus companies try to encourage more people to use their service again.
Well, that's all from me today. Thank you for listening.