Book a taxi for a client without them having the app

## How do guest bookings actually work from start to finish? A booking coordinator on your team — usually an EA, office manager, concierge or travel booker — logs in to your Cabson corporate portal at business.cabson.uk. They click 'Book a ride' and switch the passenger type to 'Guest'. Instead of selecting a named traveller from your staff list, they type the guest's full name and UK mobile number. They enter the pickup postcode or address, the destination, the pickup time (now, or scheduled up to 90 days ahead), select the vehicle type (standard, executive, MPV or WAV), and add any notes for the driver such as 'meeting at the Ivy Club, ask reception for Mr Al-Farsi'. They confirm. Our dispatch system assigns the nearest suitable driver. Within a minute or two, the passenger receives an SMS that reads something like: "Your Cabson taxi is confirmed. Driver: David Osei. Vehicle: Silver Volkswagen Passat, registration LG24 XPZ. Track live: cbsn.uk/t/8j2q. Support: 0203 XXX XXXX." The tracking link opens in any browser — no app store detour. As the driver approaches, a second SMS goes out. When they arrive at the pickup point, a third. The passenger gets in, is driven to the destination, and steps out. There is no fare screen, no card tap, no tip prompt. Payment is entirely on your corporate account. ## What does the passenger see and hear if they do not have the app? They see three SMS messages by default: dispatch confirmation, driver approaching, driver arrived. If they click the tracking link, a mobile-optimised web map opens with the car icon moving in real time, the driver's name and photo, the car's registration, and an ETA that updates every few seconds. They can call the driver directly from the tracking page through a masked number that protects both parties' privacy. There is no branding pressure, no upsell, no 'download the app for better experience' banner. The whole experience is neutral, professional and disappears the moment the ride ends. Ninety percent of our guest passengers close the tracking link and never think about CabsOn again — which is exactly what you want when the point is to look after a client, not evangelise a supplier. ## Who is this feature actually for? We designed guest bookings for five recurring buyer personas we hear from most often. Hotel concierges booking transport for a guest checking out — the guest is not going to install an app for one ride to Heathrow. Corporate travel bookers arranging cars for visiting clients or executives from a partner office. Recruitment consultants sending candidates to interviews across London, particularly for financial services and legal roles where the firm wants to make a good impression on the arriving talent. Law firms booking transport for opposing counsel, expert witnesses or clients travelling to a deposition. Event and PR agencies moving speakers, journalists or VIPs between venues on the day of an event. If your role involves booking a car for someone who is not on your payroll, guest bookings are the workflow. ## How is the ride paid for and how does it appear on our invoice? Every guest ride is billed to your corporate account and appears as a line item on your consolidated monthly invoice, which we issue on the 1st of each month covering the previous calendar month's activity. Each line shows the date and time, pickup and dropoff, passenger name (marked as 'guest' in the passenger_type column), booking coordinator name, department or cost centre, vehicle type, net fare, VAT at 20 percent, and gross total. The invoice is a single PDF and a CSV/XLSX export is available for import into Xero, QuickBooks, Sage or SAP. Your finance lead can also set the invoice to arrive by email at a shared accounts payable inbox on the 1st, or they can pull it manually from the portal on demand. ## Can we recharge a guest ride to the client we booked it for? Yes, and this is one of the most-used features by law firms, consultancies and PR agencies. When creating the booking, the coordinator attaches a purchase order number, matter reference, project code or client identifier. That reference is stored against the ride and prints on the invoice line item. Your finance team can filter the monthly CSV by that reference and produce a client-billing report showing every ride booked against, say, matter number M-4471, with dates, routes, passengers and net cost. This makes disbursement schedules straightforward — no need to reconcile a stack of paper receipts from different minicab firms. ## What if the client's plans change while they are travelling? The passenger has three ways to reach us mid-journey. They can reply to any of the SMS messages, which routes directly to our 24/7 operations desk. They can call the support number in the SMS. Or they can tap 'Message driver' or 'Call driver' inside the tracking page. The booking coordinator on your team also receives real-time email notifications for material changes — cancellation, destination change, extended waiting time, no-show. If a client decides mid-ride to divert to their hotel instead of the airport, we handle it and notify your booker. Nothing about the workflow requires the passenger to have an app. ## Does this work in Manchester, Birmingham and other UK cities, or is it London-only? Guest bookings work identically in every UK city we serve. Our coverage includes London (all zones), Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Sheffield, Liverpool, Newcastle, Nottingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Belfast, and every major regional airport including Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Luton, Manchester, Birmingham, Edinburgh and Glasgow. If your business books rides in more than one city — for example, a Manchester head office frequently booking client transport in London and Edinburgh — the same corporate account and the same booking coordinator handle all three, on one invoice, with unified reporting. ## How do we open a corporate account so we can start booking guest rides? The corporate account is free to open, has no minimum monthly spend, and no lock-in. Visit business.cabson.uk and click 'Register'. You provide your company name, VAT registration if applicable, billing address, the account admin's contact details, and a nominated finance contact for invoices. We verify the details — usually within a few working hours — and your account is live. You can then add booking coordinators (unlimited seats, no per-user fee), configure departments and cost centres, set spending limits if you want them, and book your first guest ride. Most customers are up and running within an hour of applying. ## Honestly, how does this compare to Uber for Business or Addison Lee? Uber for Business also offers guest bookings — this is not a unique feature. Where they lead: brand recognition, driver density in central London, and mature enterprise integrations if you already run Concur or SAP Concur. Where we differ: we consolidate every UK city onto one invoice with itemised 20 percent VAT and PO/matter number coding built in as standard, not as an enterprise upsell. Addison Lee is stronger than either of us on chauffeured executive service in central London and has a longer heritage with law and finance. Where we compete: national coverage on one contract, transparent pricing per city, and a corporate portal designed around the booking coordinator's job (guest bookings, approvals, reporting) rather than as an afterthought to the consumer app. We are honest about the trade-off — if you only need central London and want the most-established name, Addison Lee is a strong choice. If you need one supplier across every UK city with proper VAT-ready invoicing, we are the better fit. ## What data do you hold about our guests, and how does GDPR apply? We hold the guest's name, UK mobile number, pickup and dropoff addresses, and the fare. Under UK GDPR, our lawful basis is legitimate interest for the operational purpose of completing the ride and resolving any disputes. We retain the personal data for 90 days after the ride, then automatically purge it. The booking metadata (route, time, cost, cost centre) is retained for seven years for HMRC compliance, but without the passenger's name attached — it is anonymised for finance records. We never use guest phone numbers for marketing. Our data processing agreement covers guest passenger data as part of the standard corporate contract, so procurement teams do not need a separate DPA for this workflow.