I'm utterly bewildered by the positive reviews available on this site.
I grew up in New York City, and have lived in Atlanta, Minneapolis, and
Pittsburgh, among other major U.S. cities, and I have to say that my
experience with Yellow Cab in San Francisco is the most negative I have
ever had in my 47 years of life. I attempted to call a Yellow Cab from the
Exploratorium in San Francisco. The initial dispatcher was curt and
difficult to understand, but told me that the cab was on the way. I waited
about 25 minutes to no avail. I then called back and received a different
dispatcher who said she had no record of my call. She (without apologizing)
said that another cab would be on the way, in 5-15 minutes. I waited
another 25 minutes to no avail. I called back again and the dispatcher
again said he had no record of my phone call (even though I had left
both my name and number with the second dispatcher). He was remarkably rude,
entirely unsympathetic, and did not apologize. When I asked him,
without raising my voice at all, what was wrong and why he didn't
bother to apologize, he launched into a 30 second tirade, yelling at me
and telling me that the only thing he should apologize for is taking the
time to talk to me. He even said that all cabs were dispatched entirely
"on request" (his quotation) and that there was of course no commitment
on the company's part to send any cab as promised. He then hung on me even though I had neither yelled
nor used any rudeness or profanity. I finally managed to catch a taxi
from a friendly driver from the De Soto taxi company. When I told him of
my experience, he said that he once worked for the Yellow Cab company but quit
because the people there were so rude.
I do not know who is charge of this company, but whomever is
needs some remedial education in how to run a company and train employees.
All one has to do whenvsuch things happen is to tell all customers "Oh,
we're very sorry about that. We'll send another cab right away...thanks so
much for your patience with us." Folks, it really isn't that hard. All one
has to do is to send one e-mail to all of your dispatchers and explain
to them how to handle such situations.
As it stands, I would strongly urge anyone looking for a taxi in
the San Francisco area to avoid this shameful and poorly run company
with a 10 foot pole.
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