According to the National Household Travel Survey in 2013, 69% of people in South Africa use taxis to get to work, with the majority of this statistic residing in Gauteng (source).
With Commuters who use taxis making up the bulk of the South African work and consumer force, it seems only logical to initiate research and get insights into this captive audience.
However, until now, there has been little to no viable means to tap into this market and uncover their opinions on brands, products, advertising and marketing.
Tapping into Taxis
For this reason, Interact RDT has developed Taxi Insights, the first-to-market research solution that truly caters to businesses operating in South Africa.
Head Researcher at Interact RDT, Pieter van der Merwe, added that, “This method is a definite opportunity for companies operating in South Africa to uncover key strategic insights into a previously difficult to reach audience that is relevant to their market and their brand, at a fraction of the cost of more traditional methodologies”.
We have access to over 22 000 Taxis across South Africa, with routes covering the major city centers of all nine provinces. We are also able to deploy our researchers on routes and in areas according to our clients’ specifications.
This means that organisations have the ability to not only conduct far reaching research, but also to research specific billboards and street pole ads along taxi routes. We are able to offer survey packages ranging anywhere from 100 to 1000 responses making it a suitable methodology for projects of any size
The process is simple. We place our qualified field agents in taxis to ride along for the entirety of the route, for a day. During this time, people boarding the taxi at each stop are asked to complete a quick survey on anything from consumer behaviour to product testing (our researchers can keep and hand out free samples safely).
Because of the professional capturing process that our field agents use, as well as concise survey design, we are able to capture the responses of commuters, even if they are only travelling on the taxis for a short distance.
As mentioned earlier, the audience is captive and therefore able to focus and give their responses in more detail while in the taxis, with facilitation and guidance from the researcher who can help to explain questions that may present difficulty.
What’s in it for me?
The methodology definitely has the potential the improve the research arsenal of any organisation currently operating in the South African Market, and it has been designed to allow for flexibility in terms of the number of responses and the design of the questions themselves.
So contact us at hello@interactrdt.com to enquire about the taxis, routes and a Taxi Insights package most tailored to your research needs.