Do you know the Korean version of MK Taxi?

“Kindness is basic. But what’s more important is to be familiar with a passenger. After getting familiar with each other, passengers become generous about driver’s small mistakes such as taking the wrong way.”

Last Saturday, this reporter called for a taxi in Incheon to go to Apgujeong-dong in Seoul. The taxi arrived where I was only in three minutes after the request. As soon as I got in the back seat, the driver cheerfully said with a bright smile, “How are you doing? Where would you like to go?”

He is Jeong Gi-won, a 58-year-old businessman turned taxi driver with three-year experience of taxi driving. Before working for Seven Call, an Incheon-based taxi company known for its kindness to passengers, he worked in the export industry for over 30 years. Because he is good at English, Chinese and Japanese, he mostly receives “calls” from foreign tourists. He said, “I usually drive foreign passengers visiting multinational companies in Daegu from the Incheon International Airport to the KTX Gwangmyeong Station.” Foreign investors in Songdo International City and airline employees are his regular customers.

In accordance with the company policy, Jeong works in a company uniform consisting of a shirt, tie and black vest with a logo that says “premium call.” Seven Call has been doing business exchange with Japan’s MK Taxi over the past 10 years. All of its new drivers receive an employee training, and all drivers have a customer service education on a regular basis between Wednesday and Friday in every second week of each month.

The Korean government decided to integrate the phone numbers for a call taxi service into 1333 from July in next year. This new system will be tested in Incheon and Daejeon next year and expanded to the whole nation from 2015.