How to Attract and Retain Drivers at a Taxi Company: Strategies for Kazakhstan

Hello! One of the biggest challenges for small taxi companies in district centers, small towns and villages across Kazakhstan is finding and keeping good drivers. When your fleet is 30–70 cars, every driver who leaves hits the business hard. In this article, we look at proven strategies for recruiting taxi drivers in Kazakhstan and ways of retaining drivers at a taxi company that work especially well for regional operators. We will also show how Tonotel's cloud software helps automate these processes and makes your company attractive to professionals.

Why do drivers leave small taxi companies?

In the regions, drivers often move to the big aggregators (Yandex Go, inDrive) or to neighboring taxi companies because of:

• An unstable number of orders
• Low earnings on short trips
• No bonuses or rewards
• Complicated settlements and delayed payouts

The solution is to create conditions where drivers earn steadily and feel valued. This is achievable even for a small company.

1. Effective ways to recruit drivers in Kazakhstan's regions

Advertising channels that work in small towns and villages:

• Local visual advertising — stickers on drivers' cars, notices on boards at bus stations, markets and gas stations, banners at the entrance to town.
• Word of mouth — your best drivers bring in people they know. Encourage this with a small bonus (5–10 thousand tenge for each colleague referred).
• Posts in local Telegram and WhatsApp groups — district center chats, job boards, driver groups.
• Partnerships with driving schools and car repair shops — place information where potential drivers spend time.

What should the job ad say?
Emphasize the advantages of a small company in particular:
- Steady orders in your own area
- No high aggregator commission
- Flexible schedule
- Fast payouts
- Bonuses for good work

2. How to retain drivers: a system of rewards and motivation

The most important thing is to make drivers feel that they earn more by working specifically with you.

Proven retention mechanisms:

• Surcharges for short and unprofitable orders — automatically add 500–1000 tenge to trips shorter than 3 km.
• Bonuses for the number of completed orders — for example, +2000 tenge for every 50 trips per week.
• Priority in order dispatch — the best drivers get the most lucrative and convenient routes first.
• Driver rating — the higher the rating, the sooner a driver sees new orders and the more privileges they get.
• Bonuses for a clean car interior and high customer ratings — check car photos and passenger reviews.

Tonotel has all these tools out of the box: - A flexible driver rating system that automatically awards and deducts points - Automatic rewards and penalties — surcharges, bonuses, priority - Rules tailored to your company in just a few clicks

3. More orders = more earnings = loyal drivers

The strongest motivator is a steady flow of orders. In small towns, this is achieved through:

• The free order exchange within Tonotel
  All taxi companies running on our software automatically exchange orders with no commission. If you don't have a car available in a remote village, the order goes to a partner on Tonotel, and you receive their orders in your area. This brings an extra 20–40% of trips with no advertising costs and lets drivers work without downtime.

• Integration with aggregators
  Tonotel supports connecting to Yandex Go, inDrive and others — drivers receive orders both from aggregators and from your dispatch center.

More orders → higher earnings → drivers stay.

4. Extra perks that drivers in the regions appreciate

• Weekly payouts with no delays (Tonotel calculates and transfers them automatically)
• The ability to top up their balance through banking apps (no trip to the office)
• 24/7 technical support — if there is a problem with the app, we fix it immediately
• Transparent earnings statistics in the driver's mobile app

Conclusion: a small company can be the best employer

In the small towns and villages of Kazakhstan, drivers value stability, fairness and care more than in big cities. By building the right motivation system and ensuring a steady flow of orders, you can easily assemble and keep a team of 40–70 reliable drivers.

Tonotel cloud software is designed specifically for companies like yours: easy bonus setup, automatic ratings, a free order exchange between partners and much more — all of which helps you become an attractive employer without extra costs.

Want to see how it works in practice? Sign up at tonotel.com — we will give you a free demo and help configure the system for your company.