BUFFALO (WBEN - Brendan Keany) - Former Erie County Executive Joel Giambra was recently named Liberty Cab's COO by company founder and president Bill Yuhnke, and he says he's ready to be creative and innovative in what has become a competitive industry.
"Obviously, the industry is going through a transformation; the traditional for-hire taxi industry has been challenged by these technologies, but it's a challenge, quite frankly, that we welcome," said Giambra on Thursday morning. "It has allowed us to rethink our business model; it's allowed us to adapt to the changing times, and we're going to be doing some very exciting things here in the Buffalo/New York State market over the summer."
While Giambra didn't specifically say what changes may be coming, he alluded to customer service, safety and enhancing the experience for drivers as being paramount to the business model moving forward.
"We're going to be spending a whole lot of time recruiting new entrepreneurs," he said. "We need to get back to the image and customer satisfaction issues that deal with ground transportation."
When ride sharing companies such as Uber and Lyft were finally introduced to the Western New York market about two years ago, many believed the old and perhaps antiquated ways of the cab industry would die off. Giambra acknowledged that it has happened in some capacity, but Liberty Cab is here for the long haul.
"The cab industry for years became complacent, and obviously they had, if you will, somewhat of a monopoly when it came to ground transportation. Then, Uber, Lyft and the technology companies have forced us to re-examine our business model," said Giambra. "Obviously, the technologies were able to access the market here, across the country and the world by using technology and changing the game plan. Now that it has changed, it's up to us to find a way to do it better and smarter than the way that they're doing it."
And he says Liberty Cab is up to the challenge.
"A lot of people thought that Liberty Cab and other cab companies would fall by the wayside...some of the smaller companies have, and they couldn't compete," he said. "We are at a point where we're anxious to compete with the technology companies because we believe we can do it better and smarter than they can."