Tips for Careem to beat Uber
Tips for Careem to beat Uber.
Careem stay true to your heart and dont follow the cold hearted Uber step for step. More dirvers and more riders will be attracted to you if you can implement the following 10 steps and Uber will not have a chance against you because they are not going to remodel their strategy for a tiny market like Doha.
Doha Metro is nearing completion and FIFA is just round the corner Careem should concentrate more on Doha than on any other country because what works in Doha will work in ANY other country not vice-versa and Doha is the best laboratory to test out your algorithm.
There are 10 serious issues in the Uber/Careem business that urgently needs to be addressed. These are the 10 elephants in the room that Uber seems to ignore or is unaware of.
There are 9 serious issues in the Uber/Careem business that urgently needs to be addressed. This can be addressed either by Careem, the Government of Qatar or by any new software startups out of the many colleges in Qatar:
1. Increasing Fleet size:
Careem & Uber both do not take cars older than 5yrs (2011). This is the most stupidest assumption. What if my car is just 3 yrs old but has run 300,000kms without much service & maintenance - is it safe or good car for driving? Absolutely not.
Unlike in other countries most of the cars attached with Uber & Careem are used and driven by their owners and not their drivers except for a few limousine companies so they cars are mostly in good condition to run as cab.
Unlike Saudi Arabia which is a very huge country and where cars have driven very long distances on their odometer and regularly drive over 200kmph. In Doha due to the small size of the city cars have low numbers on their odometer and drive around 80kmph inside Doha. All Saudis know this and come to buy cars from Qatar.
The point being they cannot use Saudi yardstick to measure the quality of mileage, service & maintenance of Doha Cars. They should allow up to 10-15yr cars also into the fleet AFTER visual inspection of the car. Presently neither Careem nor Uber does any visual inspection of the cars in their fleet!
Many professional drivers with taxies have left Uber after max 6 months stint because they have felt cheated/used by uber. You can fool some people for a long time or fool all people for some time but you cannot fool all people for all the time.
2. Pricing
The pricing of both Uber & Careem has a lot of if and buts which confuses both the rider and the driver which sometimes leads to arguments between them. Careem could keep it simple either by pricing at QR 1 per minute of ride or QR 2 per km. Drivers in Doha find driving below QR1.5 per km a LOSS!!!
Although riders might find QR2 per km slightly expensive than local Karwa Taxi it is so because it is an exclusive service that Karwa does not deliver. If Karwa did its work properly there would have been no Uber in the first place.
3. No Surge pricing
Being in Transportation business it is against character or even against human empathy to do surge price. It would be hugely impressive if Careem could stress that they WILL NEVER surge price their customers. Its so opportunistic to be fair no matter how Uber plays with their words.
Careem could even say unlike Uber Careem prices uses only one parameter and do not take into account multiple parameters. If priced on QR1 per minute it would be fair for the customer, the driver and also for the company unlike surge which keeps increasing upto 3 times!
Drivers are always looking for more business... just inform us where there is business... with a heat-map and we will be there in no time especially if it is near where we are! Guranteed!
At the same time nobody is going to drive from Doha to Wakrah if the heatmap shows 3x price in Wakrah because driving 30kms to 40kms to pickup a QR30 ride makes little sense!
4. Rider feedback should be specific
Just 5stars rating is very vague. The feed back should include a list of check box something like Ooredo asks after a visit to its customer service centre:
1. Was the driver rude/misbehave?
2. Was A/C ok
3. Was the interior of car clean?
4. Did the inside of car smell bad?
5. Any comments you would want to add which the driver will NOT see?:
6. Any good comments which our driver can see?
5. Trust your driver to bring you business
The drivers from time to time will try to take the longer riders directly at a discount without sharing the profits with the company.Uber tries to catch such riders by checking their call logs & the rider's call logs etc. But if the company percentage is as low as 5% flat the drivers will never cheat because the difference is so low that it doesn't make any sense eg 5% on 60 km will be Qr3 no driver or rider is going to bother with a Qr3 difference much.
6 Avoid Cash riders
Stay away from cash. You could either take properly registered and age verified card-riders or give free rides as promotional rides up to 10km radius and the careem driver gets paid some Qr 10. But the drivers have to be picked from 3km radius max. If the drivers are not available the scheme automatically will not apply.
Use Debit or Credit card or Ooredo mobile money to pay. Because some people do not pay the right fare, then there is change problem, then there are underage children riding without their parents knowing especially during thursday, friday and saturday. Then there is cheating drivers too. So all this is avoidable hassle if the driver gets his money transfered to his account weekly exactly how Uber does it. Its the only part where Uber is flawless.
This also makes the drop of a rider at least 2 minutes quicker! If there are about a thousand drivers it means 2 thousand minutes saved! Thats a lot of ride time if you calculate annually.
7. Stick to the 5km rule
Never call in drivers for riders beyond 5kms because in traffic the riders will have to wait more than 15minutes.
If at all the rider is ok with it the ride must cost higher because the driver has to travel longer than usual. Only if the rider is ok with a longer wait time and extra QR5 to QR10 which the customer can agree or disagree to book. But if there are enough drivers available this situation will not arise.
But if at all such a scenario arises the driver coming in from outside the 5km radius should be compensated his distance and the rider will get the ride.
With this system a rider in Alkhor or Dukhan can book a cab from Doha. The driver driving 60kms is ensured that he will get QR 55 + the fare (possibly into Doha another QR60). There is no chance any driver is going to leave such an opportunity unless probably after sunset when it gets dark.
8. Option of Airport drop of Sedan or SUV
When 1 or 2 people with little luggage travel they will need sedan car. When families go for vacation they need bigger vehicle like SUV for their 4-6 people and luggage. For both this special booking request must be made which will reach all Staff who have switched on the option for the company to send them Airport bookings even when offline or semi-offline. They would need about 15 minutes to check their schedule and respond. Once accepted the customer must check at least 2hrs before if the driver is able to come. The driver must confirm with the rider at least 2 hrs before if he will be able to make it and has to reach the place of pickup at least 15minutes early than the time booked.
9. Divide fleet only into Sedans/SUV/Luxury Sedans and not like Uber
Dont make too many divisions people want cabs not impressive limousines to tour in. Subcompact cars like Alto/Celerio should never be used in Doha due to they being unsafe at higher speeds. All sedans car should be same rate. SUV cars must have different rates and if anybody wants to book luxury sedan taxies (no idea if anybody will book that) make seperate rates for that. Dont get into the UberX & UberGo kind of system where both are sedan cars the only difference being bigger engine size for UberX and why does the customer have to pay extra for bigger engine size of his driver?
10. Charge 5% flat profit
If you provide drivers with riders within 5km radius they will be very familiar with the route and you will never need to support them. If at all any support is needed it will be at the begining that too for drivers who have never used GPS in their lives. Once they get the hang of it which is very simple and the 5km radius rule the drivers will never need call centre support.
In such a situation there will be more and more drivers & riders coming in daily. All good things get advertised with word of mouth and today with social media every good business gets social-media-mouthed across the town.
Are you willing to give 95% of the earning to your driver? He deserves it because you are earning from the capital that he has put in. Moreover he has expenses like petrol, maintenance, weekly carwash, yearly Brake/Batter/Tyre replacement, Insurance. If you total all this up with car depreciation in 5yrs it is HUGE! The driver is your staff and if your staff is happy with his pay you know you have a winning business on hand!
On the other hand Uber NEVER consider the drivers as their staff. If careem follows Uber system it will also end up the same no matter what they call their driver a captian or not a captian. The drivers at Uber is consider as a slave, a cog in the wheel which can be replaced with a newbie cog until that guy get tired and worn out. This is exactly the kind of attitude of some construction contractors. This kind of environment is unsustainable and cannot continue for long.
Few years ago Nokia was the biggest company making giant strides... today nobody knows it. Nokia, Motorola, Blackberry & Windows fell from their mountain... what is UBER?
