We were lucky to catch up with Ka-bee Smith recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Ka-bee thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you tell us about a time where you or your team really helped a customer get an amazing result?

Wow i have quite a few of these but one that sticks out the most. I stated my Turo business about 3 months before Covid hit and had to quickly figure out what i could do to stay afloat. This caused me to pivot my business to a whole another market. I saw a opportunity that presented itself due to a lack of cars being available in a specific area of Houston. I had to come up with a solution and this caused me to birth what I call the pull up experience. This is a service where I would delivery the car to the renter as they where exiting of the plane curbside to the terminal they flew into. This a life saver when it comes to time and convenience. On this particular day the Turo app was having some issues and I was having a hard time uploading my pre-trip photos. I quickly noticed this and made sure to get the renters cell phone number from the app so I would be able to communicate with him if the app totally crashed. Well it did just that crashed. I then sent a text message to his phone and gave him directions on how to get from the plane to where me and the car where located. Good thing I did this because we had contact but only via our phones and not the app. Once he came out to where me and the car was located I told him Houston we have a problem. For those of you who have never used Turo to rent a car understand that everything is done via the app. Because the app crashed I was not able to check the car in and he was not able to as well. I at this point had only a few trips under my belt and did not know what to do so I told him lets drive around for a few minutes and see if the app gets back online. Well of course this did not happen and I had to figure it out. I could not even get a hold of Customer support so I had to make a judgment call. See the main problem was I could not give him the car because no one could check it in, meaning if he got into a accident etc the car would not be covered on my end and I would have to pay for anything that happened. The next problem was the person he flew into to see did not have a car and would not be able to come pick him up. I then came up with a plan that I would drive him to the location he would be staying at which was all the way on the south side of Houston near Reliant Stadium. I told him once the app was up and running again I would drive the car to him and we do our check in’s and he would be able to use the car. He agreed and we started to head to the south side of Houston. Due to this I myself had to miss some work to insure this all went well, meaning I also lost money in the process. The funny part is once we got close to the location he noticed that the app was back up and running. I then made another decision because I did not have a way back home because at the time there were no Uber’s or Lyft’s, that I would drive to location that would work for me and him in the heights and do the exchange. Well this nightmare turned out to work out in the end and I made a customer happy by going above and beyond for them.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My name is Brandon Smith aka KA-bee and I am a native born and raised in the great state of Texas in the great city of Houston. I am a Entrepreneur who is also a entertainer. I have a Turo rental car business that I started on the tale end of 2019 right before Covid changed the world as we know it today. I am also a actor, producer, singer, rapper and content creator. My Turo business is what I am talking about in this article. The market I target is mainly Bush Intercontinental Airport. What we provide is Awesome airport experience that is big on information about Turo that renters need to know and convenience. We want our customers to be educated on the Turo platform and how it works so that they are not in a situation that turns a vacation into a nightmare. We also provide options for customers to have the convenience of access to the car quickly for a fee when they fly into the airport. Our goal is for you to fly into Houston and have a great time in this great city by giving you tools to do so when you fly in and fly out.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

I think the best illustration of this is that even thought Covid came right after I started I am still up and running. I feel this in itself is a sign of resilience so any one who is still up and running despite all that is going on represents this powerful word. As i stated in the previous question I had to pivot many times and make adjustments and so have many others,

Do you have any stories of times when you almost missed payroll or any other near death experiences for your business?

This is a teachable moment that can happen when you are on Turo. You must never forget to take all your pre- trip photos. I had a last minute renter who rented one of my vehicles and she needed the car the ASAP and to meet the deadline had to rush to clean it and get the car ready, Well in doing so i took all my pictures and though all was well. Boy was I wrong but I would lose a nice size amount of money because of this. At the time I felt all my pictures where clear and you could see them clearly. Well on the day she was suppose to bring the car back she was late. I quickly messaged her via messenger in the Turo app letting her know that after a certain time period I would have to contact Turo support and report the car being late. She told me she was only a few minutes away. Well come to find out she was in another state and she was some hours away. She ended up being 3 hours late which is good for me because I would make money of this due to Turo and there late fee. But as I was checking out the car i noticed she had went way over the miles. I thing at that time you would get like 1 dollar or 75 cent per mile once you go over. So although I was mad and said okay I will get paid for these extra miles. Well guess what when i took the pictures I did not get the total miles on the car before she rented car out clear enough they were to blurry. That being said I lost about 700-1000 dollars with this mistake.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://soundcloud.com/brandonkbsmith
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kabeesmith/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brandonkbsmith
• Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/4KG6q6qz8kK2EBacq5kRXH?si=uSAGYF9GQXOtFM_kCE5PQQ&nd=1