The five things leadership should take away
The shape of the sample
Business type
605 respondents
How drivers get fares
Fleet dispatch systems in use
Among fleet/operator drivers
How easy was Lopay to get started with?
1 = hard, 5 = very easy
Fees, payouts, and a quiet army of advocates
Original reasons for switching
Multi-select; any-mention counts
Have you recommended Lopay to another driver?
90% of drivers have already recommended Lopay - but only a small share know about the referral programme. We're leaving organic growth on the table by under-promoting referrals to a base that's already evangelising for us.
How much of card volume flows through Lopay
% of card payments going through Lopay
Why some payments don't go through Lopay
150 drivers (25%) currently process less than a quarter of their card volume through Lopay. The dominant blocker is the operator/fleet handling those payments - making fleet integrations (iCabbi, Autocab, Cordic) the single largest unlock for share-of-wallet.
Card reader & Tap to Pay experience
How drivers take payments today
Biggest frustration with the card reader
Among 415 card reader users
Biggest frustration with Tap to Pay
Among 174 Tap to Pay users
Importance of printed receipts
An under-used revenue lever
Tipping usage with Lopay
Why tipping isn't happening
- 44% never use it - customers rarely tip taxis is the dominant story.
- 14% didn't even know Lopay supports tipping.
- Customers don't notice the prompt is the #2 cited reason (67 mentions) - a UX problem we can fix.
- Black cab drivers (208) skew far more positive on tipping than private hire - worth segmenting.
The Visa Expense & Rewards Card has an awareness problem
Card usage today
What this tells us
- 73% are dormant on the card - 272 never activated, 167 don't know enough.
- Of those who use it, fuel is the #1 use case (68) - directly mapping to drivers' #1 financial challenge.
- "Don't understand the benefits" is the top reason for low usage (138) - we have a messaging gap, not a product gap.
Cash Advance: huge demand signal, tiny adoption
Have you ever used Lopay funding?
Why drivers haven't used funding
The biggest challenges drivers actually face
Top operational & financial challenges
Fuel is the dominant pain (259 mentions). Combined with quiet periods (137) and vehicle repairs (76), this paints a clear picture: cash-flow smoothing products - funding, the expense card, fuel rewards - directly address what's keeping drivers awake at night.
Phone support is a deal-breaker for a meaningful minority
Preferred support channel
How important is phone support?
If Lopay removed phone support…
Email narrowly leads as the preferred channel, but 31% of drivers (185) actively prefer phone, and removing it would have a major negative impact for 27%. Phone support is not the most-used channel, but it is the most-valued safety net.
What 605 drivers told us in free text
Three open questions at the end of the survey - what's most valuable, what's most frustrating, and what one thing Lopay should improve. Responses below are themed from all 605 verbatim answers.
Most valuable thing Lopay helps with
Themes from 605 free-text answers
Biggest frustration or limitation
247 said 'none / no issue'; themes shown for the rest
One thing to improve for taxi drivers
168 said 'none / unsure'; themes shown for the rest
"Being able to take payment quick and easy as a lot is cashless these days."
"Rarely connection issues and having to restart app and reader."
"Fast connection, easy payments."
The free text echoes the structured data almost perfectly: ease of use, fast payouts and low fees are what drivers value, connectivity and hardware are the dominant frustrations, and lower fees plus a better reader top the wish-list.
Seven priority recommendations
Treat connectivity as a P0 product investment
Evidence: 220 reader users (53%) and 109 Tap to Pay users (63%) name signal/connectivity as their #1 frustration. It is the single biggest dissatisfier in the dataset.
Action: Ship reader firmware with stronger BT/4G failover, offer an offline payment queue with auto-settle, and publish a 'connectivity SLA' to drivers.
Win share-of-wallet via deeper fleet integrations
Evidence: 129 drivers say their operator handles payments and 161 use iCabbi/Autocab/Cordic. That's the single biggest reason for sub-25% Lopay share.
Action: Prioritise direct integrations with iCabbi (96), Autocab (48) and Cordic (17) so dispatched fares settle through Lopay automatically.
Launch a 'Drivers Refer Drivers' programme - properly
Evidence: 90% have recommended Lopay, yet drivers cite not knowing about the referral programme as a top reason they haven't formally referred.
Action: In-app referral hub, cash bounty, leaderboard, SMS nudges. Drivers are already selling Lopay - pay them for it.
Re-launch the Visa Expense Card with a fuel-led message
Evidence: 73% are dormant; fuel is the #1 actual use case and the #1 driver financial pain. The product fits - the story doesn't land.
Action: Reposition the card as 'Lopay Fuel' with fuel cashback, in-app activation flow, and a one-tap activation push to the 272 never-activated drivers.
Make Cash Advance discoverable
Evidence: 68% of funding users score the experience 5/5 - but 15% of non-users don't know it exists and another 6% don't understand it.
Action: Pre-qualified offers shown in-app based on processing volume, plus a plain-English explainer. The product is loved; it just needs a shop window.
Fix the tipping UX, then re-introduce it
Evidence: 14% of drivers didn't know tipping existed; the #2 cited blocker is 'customers don't notice the prompt'.
Action: A/B test a clearer, larger tip prompt on reader & Tap to Pay; auto-enable tipping for new black cab drivers; send awareness in-app.
Keep phone support - but route it smarter
Evidence: Phone is the #2 channel and removing it is a major negative for 27% of drivers, yet Email and In-app chat together dominate volume.
Action: Keep phone as the published safety net, but route in-app/email first with clear escalation. Frame it as 'always reachable' in marketing.
How to read this report
605 Lopay taxi merchants surveyed in June 2026. Private hire (55%), black cab (34%), fleet drivers and operators (8%).
For questions allowing multiple answers (e.g. switch reasons), any-mention counts are shown - so totals can exceed 605.
Open-text fields confirm the patterns above; "connectivity" and "lower fees" dominate both positive and negative comments.