Scheduling a Ride - what needs to improve by Uber

Normally, scheduling a ride works well and in a simple way in Uber app.  But it has two concerns:

 

1.  Early arrival of the driver: sometimes the driver comes early, rather very early.  In of the cases, the driver came in early by 20 minutes.  After reaching to the pick up location, he called me, but I told him to wait as there was still time to what I had fixed.  He refused to understand my ‘schedule time’ and started the ride without me  in his app – as a waiting time.  I ended up paying ‘waiting charges’ that day.  I did escalate this matter to Uber Help, but there was hardly any response.  Does the driver not know the ‘schedule pick up time’ window in his app?  If not, then it should be provided and at least there should not be any waiting charges till the schedule time window ends.

 

 

2   2.  Another concern was fare:  When a ride is scheduled, ride fare range is shown.  However, upon completion of the ride, for some reason, in some cases, Uber applies ‘surge’ to the fare and sometimes, the ride fare is high like over 1.8 – 2.2 times.  And the rider realizes this surge fare only upon completing the trip.  Rider should be told if surge fare is applied and should be given the option to cancel the ride in case the fare is higher than the range shown to the rider while scheduling the ride.  In the present system, the rider has no option to cancel the ride except by paying cancellation fee.  It‘s a tech glitch in Uber app.

Uber needs to fix  both the glitches for delivering better customer experience.  

#uber #ride #rider #schedulinganuber #surgepriceuber

Uber check – why a driver gets the rider where he has pending tickets and unpaid fine?

Last week, in Jaipur, I booked an Uber for my wife for going to the airport.  The driver came in time and all was going well.  After about half a km ride, on a traffic light (near Birla Temple), a traffic police stopped the driver and asked for the license.  He also asked  the driver why he was not in his uniform (I assume some uniform is there for Uber drivers in Jaipur).  The driver kept on arguing and showed his license very reluctantly after almost 5 minutes.  After verifying, the traffic police informed the driver that there were few tickets pending for couple of offences in past – totaling to Rs. 2600 appx.  And the traffic police rightfully was not allowing the driver to go till he paid the pending fine.  The driver and the police kept arguing for almost 10 mints there…

Now the Uber glitch – why Uber allows the drivers with ‘unsettled tickets/fine’?  The account of such drivers should be restricted till they pay the fine.  In some way, Uber needs to get this information from the respective local transport authorities and keep their APP up-to-date.  This would be like making Uber driver compliant with the legal system and riders don’t have to face any trouble on the way.

Uber – fix the problem.

Uber Surge Price – how fair it is?

Why you don’t get an Uber cab even if the app shows so many nearby!!  

I was in an Uber cab the other day and about to reach to my destination when the Uber driver started getting next ride lead.   He checked his mobile phone screen and ignored.  Curiously, I asked him why didn’t he accept the next ride?  His answer was  – “waiting for a ride with surge price”.

What is a surge price?  An economist will tell you that the fairest price for any product is the “equilibrium price” at which consumer demand matches the product’s available supply. If supply increases, the price should go down; but if buyer demand increases, the price should rise.   A very natural law of economics.

The practice of surge pricing used by Uber is based on the same principle of fairness. The idea behind surge pricing is to adjust prices of rides to match driver supply to rider demand at any given time.     

Now, see in real life, how surge price comes in effect. Like my Uber driver didn’t accept the ride lead, the same way, other drivers won’t accept the leads.  And that suppresses the supply of cab and create a situation of ‘more demand, less supply’ artificially.  The Uber app would observe this and automatically and immediately apply the ‘surge’ price.  Now, this is UNFAIR to the consumer – why the consumer should pay more when there is an ample number of Uber cabs available in the nearby area, as seen in the app.    

This is simply ‘market or price manipulation’ by the suppliers (Uber drivers).  It is a deliberate attempt to interfere with the free and fair operations of the market and create an artificial, false or misleading demand-supply gap, impacting the price.  

Uber needs to fix this glitch immediately.  They should stop showing price status to the cab drivers –whether surge or normal, so that they can accept every ride notified to them.

https://www.uber.com/en-IN/drive/partner-app/how-surge-works/?state=mZkfhQ-7JnX-wiUAG_l38bA1DorlvwpY9iYMGh3RXZg%3D&_csid=AsOTj7oDMFGuleuN1JX5pQ#_

Re-Engineering Retail in India - Trends for 2019

 What should be the agenda for Retailers in India for 2019? 

There are two major trends for 2019 - 

1. ‘Hybrid’ retail – a network of fusion online-offline retail stores. Low-cost retail outlets – no inventory stores. Build accessible points for the population not in radar – expand the radar range. 

2. 'Customer Experience' – two categories of products – first - ‘low involvement’ category like grocery, FMCG, daily needs – here experience is secondary and speed to deliver the product is primary. The second – ‘high involvement’ category - products from fashion, lifestyle, tech, etc. where buying experience plays a key role. The Retailers need to constantly adapt technologies to deliver a better buying experience.  From Frogdesign.

 Happy Retailing 2019!!

Re-Engineer Retail in India

  

Kiraanas or Mom & Pop stores are the king of retail in India as it commands a maximum chunk (90% of the retail) of USD ~680 bn retail market in India. Modern retail and eCommerce are finding very hard to pierce into their territory. 

Big Retailers like Future Group, Reliance Retail / Jio, D-Mart should collaborate and engage, educate, empower and enable these millions of Kiraana & Mom & Pop stores and make them part of mainstream retail by providing them virtual inventory from their strong supply chain. They should build a strategy and process (adoption of technology) to collaborate these Kiraana and Mom & Pop stores and not have a strategy to compete with them. 

Extensive research for setting up the right processes - order procurement, processing, and fulfillment, has been done.  For more details about this research and data, you can drop a message to me.  Shall be happy to guide.

In future, retail will not be segregated into modern, online (e-commerce), offline (Kiraana, Mom & Pop)  but will be analyzed as to how effectively the combination of a good supply chain and customer services, be used to deliver the best shopping experience to consumers in this highly connected world.  The future of retail is where technology (internet) changes the way customer buys and benefits.

Generally, customer experience at Kiraanas, Mom & Pop stores (estimated appx. 1.50 cr in India) is unmatched – neighborhood store, relationship for years, order on phone, home delivery in few minutes at no extra cost,  running ledger/credit diary, weekly/monthly account settlement etc.  However, Kiraana stores have a very ‘weak’ supply chain.  And are looking for strong supply chain support.  They would tie-up whosoever offer them the solution, first.  

Modern Retailers’ supply chain is far stronger than any of the big online retailers (marketplaces). They should collaborate and make these Kiraana as their Retail (POS) points, with the application of efficient process and technology.  

The mantra is – create strategy to collaborate, not compete with small Kiraana and Mom & Pop retailers and leverage strengths for mutual benefit.

Happy Independence Day

Haji Ali Dargaah - Kids playing in Monsoon's first rain, Mumbai