Factors determining customer satisfaction in Taxi-Aggregator Industry

I still remember the day when my uncle booked Uber for the first time. It was a nice sunny day and I with my uncle were going out for the lunch at one of his friend’s house. Back then we did not own a car. My uncle was tying his shoelaces when I said “Hurry up uncle, the cab is here”. On which he replied, “When did you go out to get the cab”. I said, “I booked an Uber”. He had no idea what an Uber was. We went downstairs, got into the cab and the ride started. As soon as he got into the car he asked, “What is an Uber?”. I took out my phone from my pocket, opened the Uber application and showed him that it’s a mobile application where you can book a cab that will come directly to your doorstep. He was surprised that the technology has gone so far that you can book a ride and even track its live location on your phone.

He has been using a smartphone for quite some time and was comfortable with it. So, I installed the application on his phone and taught him how to book a cab during the ride. Approximately after 30 minutes, we were at his friend’s place. We met his friend, had a heavy Punjabi style lunch at their home and just before leaving, my uncle said that he wants to book the cab and this is how my uncle booked his first cab. This incident happened back in the year 2015. He found the application so convenient and easy that now wherever he travels he just takes an Uber.

A quote by Nelson Boswell perfectly fits in here: “Always give people more than what they expect to get.”. This is the reason why my uncle is with Uber for the past 6-7 years and he is a proud “HAPPY SATISFIED CUSTOMER” of Uber.

In the past few weeks, I participated in a handful number of discussions with the industry experts apart from that, I along with my MBA batchmates also conducted a survey of 150 people to understand their perception and expectations from the taxi-aggregator services. In this article, I’ll try to summarize everything I learnt about this industry in the past 4 weeks.??

In today’s scenario, I certainly feel that there are 3 factors that directly contribute to customer satisfaction. These factors are:

1.????Security features for the passengers

2.????Privacy of customers

3.????Protection from Covid

Covid and Taxi-aggregator Industry

During these hard times, almost every single business was impacted. But the mobility sector was one of the worst-hit due to Covid-19. The major players of this industry, Ola and Uber lost revenue. The number of monthly active users fell 25.2% during the 2nd lockdown (March to May 2021), which was far better than the figures during March-April 2020. During March – April 2020 the number of MAUs dropped 44%. The cab services were suspended for 1.5 months and were only allowed for essential services which dragged down the number of bookings.

Things got back on track a little after the 2nd wave of covid was over. But this was the time where taxi-aggregators had to ensure the safety of passengers as well as the riders. This was crucial because to make sure customers are satisfied, old parameters were not sufficient a completely new parameter came into existence and this was precautions taken by these companies to ensure their safety. Let’s see what steps these taxi-aggregators took to fulfil this objective.

Uber Vs Covid-19

Uber was committed to helping. Uber declared 10 mn free rides and food deliveries for the covid warriors, seniors and people who were in need around the world. Uber came up with the heart-warming idea of providing free transportation for frontline healthcare workers. Uber helped them get to and from the patient’s homes, as well as between healthcare facilities.

To spread awareness about the Covid-19 and make sure the people who are travelling with Uber are safe company brought a few campaigns to the market. Uber started a campaign called #SaferForEachOther to ensure the safety of riders and drivers from Covid-19. They installed safety in almost 81,000 Autos across 20 cities in India. They also managed to create high-quality safety partitions in 42,000 cars across 7 cities of India. This was a big achievement for Uber.?

Uber also launched the #MoveWhatMatters campaign. Uber decided to boycott their own product and focus on society and those who were impacted by the virus. Uber shifted their motto from ‘maximizing the number of travellers’ to ‘thanks for not riding with us’. Uber insisted people stay home and assured them that Uber will help to make sure necessary items are delivered to them.

When the frontline workers were working day and night to save people Uber took a step ahead in helping them with their work. Uber launched UberMedic, reliable service for the corona warriors. They offered free rides to corona warriors in 29 different cities all across India. Uber became a partner with National Health Authority to make sure that these frontline workers are safe.

Uber also launched Uber last-mile delivery, the intention behind this step was to make sure that the vital supply chains continue to run so that crores of families in Indian homes stat connected. Uber became a partner with several eCommerce websites like Flipkart, Big Basket to ensure that essentials are delivered to the Indians.

Uber didn’t stop there. Uber started Uber connect to make sure that the things which matter to people are delivered while encouraging them to?stay at home during this tough time.

Ola Vs Covid-19

Ola also took some big steps in ensuring that the drivers and the passengers are safe. For the drivers, several new rules came into the picture. Ola decided to shut down their operations in the red zone which were identified by the government. They also introduced one new feature of Selfie-authentication of drivers. Drivers were required to upload a picture with their masks on before starting the ride. The riders were also provided with the hygiene kits from the Ola. This kit included masks, sanitisers and disinfectants. To ensure that all their driver-partners are having this kit, Ola made these kits available at all walk-in centres across the cities.

Ola made sure that their passengers are getting a safe and sanitized car for the ride. The driver-partners were instructed to clean the common surfaces like the seat, handles, seatbelts before starting the ride and in case if the passenger is not satisfied with the precautions taken by the driver, flexible cancellations were also given to them.

Safety is just not in the hands of ola drivers, but the passengers are equally responsible and hence Ola established a few ground rules for the passengers as well. Ola made masks compulsory for the passengers. Ola restricted a maximum of 2 passengers per ride and during the ride, AC won’t be used in order to avoid re-circulation of the air. To make sure that the social distancing is maintained Ola urged their passengers to load and unload the luggage on their own.

All these precautionary measures taken by the taxi-aggregators sowed the seed of trust and a sense of protection against the virus in the minds of the passengers. Earlier, this factor did not impact customer satisfaction, but with the rise in the number of covid cases and death rate, this factor became prominent for the users.

One more important factor contributing to customer satisfaction is safety protocols implemented by the company. Let’s see what steps these companies have taken to ensure the safety of the passengers.

Safety & Security

We conducted a survey on the LinkedIn page to understand the most important factor a passenger considers while booking the ride, and obviously, it was Safety. Approximately 50% of the respondents put Safety and Security at the top of the list of important factors while choosing an online cab service. Safety is something on which a cannot compromise. A handful number of incidents related to passengers’ safety and people will stop trusting the applications. Let’s see what Uber & Ola are doing to ensure the safety of their users.

Safety at Uber

One of the primary expectations of any passenger is to have a driver who is safe to ride with. To make sure that the pool of driver-partners is safe to ride with, uber does Driver Screening. It’s a process where every driver is screened before his/ her first trip. Uber does recurrent screening and uses technology to identify any issues. The screening process also checks the background of the driver. The background check is done to identify any driving violations, impaired driving or involvement in any crime.

Uber processes are a perfect blend of technologies that enables Uber to go one extra mile in ensuring customer safety. The technology at Uber continuously fetches data regarding criminal offences from numerous authorized sources. Uber use this data to determine any criminal complaints against the drivers and decide whether they are still eligible to drive with Uber.

Uber let the people you love know where you are. Uber allows you to make a list of trusted contacts in the app and share your trip details with them.

Uber understands the importance of transparency and hence tells you about your driver before the trip starts. The Uber application shows the rating, number of trips they have completed, how long they have been driving and any compliments received from the past passengers.

Since uber cabs are running 24 X 7, they had to make sure that their customer support system is at its place. The application is equipped with a feature where the passenger can report an incident or ask a quick question from their support team. The team is active 24 X 7 throughout the year.

Uber took the safety of the passenger to next level when they implemented Speed limit alerts and Real-time ID checks. The speed limit alerts give visual reminders to help drivers stay within the safe speed limit. On the other hand, Real-time ID checks ensure that the right person is behind the wheels. This feature matches the selfie clicked by the driver during the trip with the official photo registered with the application to make sure no outsider is behind the wheels.

Safety at Ola

“With great power comes the great responsibilities”, Ola is well aware of the fact that they are the dominant taxi-aggregator company with 50% of the market share. To ensure that the safety and the trust of the passengers are not compromised, Ola has implemented various safety factors. Ola does the screening of the driver-partners to ensure a stable and good person is behind the wheel. The screening process is aimed to make sure driver-partners is not having any criminal records in the past, it also ensures the involvement of the individual in any sort of road accidents or rash driving accidents.

The screening process is not enough to make sure their passengers are safe. Ola provides a feature of an emergency button, whenever a passenger hits this emergency button, Ola’s 24 X 7 Safety Response Team (SRT) gets notified. The passenger gets a call from the SRT team immediately to ensure that the passenger is safe. Also, the ride details are immediately sent to the emergency contacts along with the GPS location of the cab. But what if a passenger wants to call the police immediately? Ola provides a feature that lets passengers contact the police control room directly.

Ola took a step ahead and with the help of a perfect blend of technology and planning, Ola introduced ‘Ola Guardian’. Ola Guardian uses real-time dynamic data of the trip to identify any irregularity in the trip or any threat signs. Ola Guardian considers any unnecessary route deviations during the trip, prolonged stops to identify possible threat situations & red alerts to identify red-flagged trips. These red-flagged trips are under the observation of Ola’s 24 X 7 Safety Response Team. They immediately reach out to the passenger and the driver to confirm if they are safe.

The last most important factor responsible for customer satisfaction is data privacy. Data privacy is not an option, but it’s a necessity. If an app wants to stay in the market they have to make sure that the customer’s data is safe with them.

Privacy: It’s today's necessity

In today’s world data is the key to running a successful business and the one who possesses this key is nothing less than a King. According to Statista.com, as of January 2021, there were 4.66 billion internet users across the world and 4.2 billion social media users. Just imagine the rate at which the data is being created and transferred by these 4+ Billion people per day. Google itself caters to approximately 63,000 search queries every second. The point that I’m trying to make is that the data is being generated at a humongous rate, which contains a lot of information about the customer preferences, their likes and dislikes, their purchasing habits, their decision-making habits, what type of products do they look for, where do they go and what do they eat. The company cable of utilizing this data gets the most benefit and hence all the big companies are trying to get data about their users. They analyze this data and make business strategies accordingly.

But today people are aware and want to share only the necessary data with the applications and websites. They want to avail services without sharing much of their data and want to be assured that the information about them is safe and is not being shared with any other organizations and people.

Anonymity is something that is very a basic feature implemented by both Uber & Ola. Anonymity features hide the contact number of the passenger and the drivers.

Recently, Ola came up with another Account Safety feature that detects any unauthorized login attempts and notifies the customer about the same. This is how this system works:

1. Once the Ola detects any attempt for unauthorized login it sends a text SMS to the user.
2. After that, passengers can logout after all the devices if he/they did not login by identifying themselves by providing a registered mobile number
3. The passengers can reset the password after doing the above steps.

If the applications are not able to contain the data and protect them from any breach then they are losing customers. Data privacy and security is not an option but a necessity today which directly impacts customer satisfaction.

Electric cabs and customer satisfaction

Apart from these 3 factors, there is one factor which might be not very significant in today’s world but it would become important in the coming few years. This is the presence of an electric fleet of cabs.

The world is changing and with the rise in pollution levels and deteriorating air quality in several cities, several businesses are opting for e-solutions. Several companies in the taxi-aggregator businesses are also on the same path. An Indian startup by the name of BluSmart is on a mission to make “build mobility solutions smarter, safer and cleaner & more sustainable for a better future”. The major advantage of e-vehicles is that they are cost-efficient and affordable. Most of the Indian customers are sensitive towards the price and people will start using these cab services if they are available in their cities.

Customer satisfaction is about measuring how happy customers are with the services of the company. In the taxi-aggregator industry, there are several other factors that impact customer satisfaction, like the employee commitment towards resolving passengers’ queries, on-time services, accurate services in the first go and so. In this article, I specifically discussed only 3 factors but other factors do exist.

So tell me, what aspects do you look for while booking a cab?