Are you one among the irritated
customers of Ola?
MY ROLE:
I was responsible for user research, research analysis, brainstorming, ideation, new service design proposal, user flows, visual design, interaction design and prototype.
RESULT:
A service redesign for Ola with better experience, not only from the end customer’s perspective but also from the non-complaint worker’s point of view. This would also build a better relationship between the end customer, driver and the Ola.
“Can I know where you want to go?” is a common refrain we (as a customer) hear from the Ola drivers, when we call them to provide direction to our pick-up point. On many occasions, it results in cancellation if the driver does not wish to go in that general direction. Suppose the customer is particularly unlucky, this process might even repeat a few times.
The drivers causing such non-complaint behaviours are considered to be the face of the service, as they are the only one who interact with the end customer in person.
By definition, most of the time, services are designed and implemented from the end customer’s point of view. Even when designers consider ‘elements’ working backstage to ensure intended service experiences, non-complaint behaviours disturb the service & the experience for the end user.
In this project, I have explored the service & experience design not just from the end customer’s perspective but also from a non-complaint worker’s point of view. I have decoded the causality of such non-complaint behaviours and its implications on the existing service design. I have also come up with few proposals for new service design, taking care of the reasons identified, ensuring a smoother execution on the ground.
Objective:
PRIMARY
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Is to come up with the new business model or to enhance the existing service of Ola by improving the experience, not only from the end customer’s perspective but also from the non-complaint worker’s point of view
SECONDARY
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Is to build a better relationship between the end customer, driver and the Ola
TARGET AUDIENCE AND LOCATION
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This research would be focusing on the Ola cab drivers and the customers
Research Area
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Identify the aspirations of customer and driver.
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Identify if the drivers are not complying with Ola's policy?
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If yes, what are they? What occurs them to not comply with the Ola?
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If no, what kind of challenges faced by the partners of Ola?
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Are Customer of Ola facing any challenge with the platform?
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If yes, Is the problem specific to drivers? Or to the Ola?
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If it is specific to the driver, identify the reason
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If it is specific to the Ola, what is the reason?
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Research methods followed in this project
SHADOWING TECHNIQUE
This method helps us to understand the patterns of actions, interdependence and motivations of users. Observation is enhanced with information about mood, body language, pace and timing in order to give a full picture of the world from the user’s and driver’s point of view.
This methodology is used when exploring a research domain to gain a rich understanding of user/customer/employee motivation and to capture what people do and not what they say they do.
ROLE PLAY
To study the interpersonal behavior
The driver was provided with a particular scenario and asked him to act as if a set of conditions were true
and I acted as the passenger trying to book a cab.
This helped me to understand the end to end journey from both customer and driver's perspective
PERSONAL INTERVIEW
One on one interview with the users and the drivers to get deep understanding, Identify what all problem they face as an individual and together. Record the observation and the studies
We would have seen Ola's customer screens, but take a look at the partner's screens
Duty
Incentives
Performance
Heat Map
More
Partner care
Understanding the aspirations of partners and customers
PARTNER'S ASPIRATIONS
Doing personal interviews and talking with drivers to identify their aspiration, they differed from person to person. Some of the common aspirations are,
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To repay their car loan and other depts.
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Give a proper education for their kids in a good private English medium school
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Wages doesn’t keep up their expenses, they wanted to save money for their family’s future .
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Work and life balance, they have to put in 15/18 hrs of work every day where they don’t get time to spend with their family at all.
CUSTOMER’S ASPIRATIONS
Very common aspiration of the customers is to reach the destination without any riff-raff and within their budget.
Top Non-Compliant behaviours
identified from the partner's end
Ola gives workers a bonus amount for being online for a certain time (daily or weekly). Therefore, many of the drivers keep their apps turned on even when they are unavailable to respond to a request.
Ola has certain number of rides that a driver has to complete in a day to get his or her incentive. If customer has booked a ride for a distance beyond 10kms, it is quite possible that the driver might ask you to cancel the ride.
It is common for drivers to have two phones, one with the Ola-driver partner app and the other with the consumer app. The driver would book the rides and accept them immediately. The system would show that some drivers made close to 30 trips in a day.
In order to ensure that the driver gets his incentive, irrespective of he is driving or not, he would request the customer to book a cab to his home destination, by doing this, the driver would get an added incentive, and also petrol cost.
Persona Creation
Based on the findings, it is important to enhance the existing service of Ola by improving the experience, not only from the end customer’s perspective but also from the non-complaint worker’s point of view by converting the deficiencies that we have identified in the research into opportunities.
TOP 5 PROBLEMS FACED BY PARTNERS
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Ola’s strategy was to gain the maximum number of cab drivers to get into their business model, and therefore used to provide heavy pay-outs to drivers in the beginning. But, now this pay has dropped down drastically.
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Ola used to charge 20–24% of each trip as a service charge. Now, all those good days for the drivers are gone. Even after the fall in driver’s pay, they still cut-off 20–24% as service charge.
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Many drivers complain that, they don’t get a clear location or route on the map. Map shows a different destination, while the customer tells a different one.
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With Ola money or card payment , the money directly goes to Ola and the Ola doesn’t reimburse the drivers quickly.
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Most of the time customers never reach the destination on time.
TOP 5 PROBLEMS FACED BY CUSTOMERS
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Denial of service. Most of the time, the driver inquires of destination. When the driver feels that it’s not in his intended way, he out rightly informs the customer to cancel the Customers booking.
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It’s almost impossible to get a cab when it’s raining as the drivers intentionally switch off the app thereby creating demand and subsequently surge pricing.
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Difficulty to guide the drivers to the pick-up point I have wasted a lot of time in this task and most of the times cancelled the cab as the drivers don’t comprehend properly.
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Drivers ask for OTP even before they reach the actual location.
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Drivers on the Ola platform ask if the ride is by ‘cash’ or ‘Ola money’. And, if you happen to say ‘Ola Money’, most of the time it ends up with ride rejection.
End to end journey of partners in the existing service of Ola
To view the customer's journey in the existing service, click
Level of control chart
Identified problems of driver, customer and Ola are plotted based on the stakeholder’s level of controls
Issues which the new design has to address
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Service personalisation
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Reframe better algorithm to reduce the non-complaint behaviours
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Value for money
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Bringing awareness to users about the existing and available features
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Secured and peaceful journey without any riff-raff
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Frictionless User interface
Ideas categorised based on the long term and short term
Based on the identified challenges from the stakeholders, I had brainstormed on the ideas for redesigning the existing service. While brainstorming on the ideas, it is important for the service to maintain a balance between the Customer, partner and Ola.
Ideation Process
Longer rides with rewards
Waiting Charge
Apply Leave
Augmented Reality
Stronger SOS
Personal requests
Redesigned service proposal
With the newly proposed idea we could enhance the existing service of Ola by improving the experience, not only from the end customer’s perspective but also from the non-complaint worker’s point of view. This would also build a better relationship between the end customer, driver and the Ola.
Top 5 changes with the new redesigned service
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When customer request for cab, the app shows up the destination along with the reward points the driver might earn. If driver is still not interested, he could cancel the request. For every ride the driver makes, he gets some reward points. Based on the distance of the rides done by the driver, the targets change for him. Additional reward points for the well performing drivers. When he deny the rides after accepting, his point drops down.
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While booking the cab, customers could request for their personal requirements and helps. If the driver agrees, they can accept with extra payment.
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Waiting charges applied for the customers who delays in boarding. If still the customer has not reached the cab, the trip gets cancelled and customer has to pay the waiting charge.
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Augment reality helping the user to identify the car location and spot the car.
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Smarter payment system to calculate the driver’s cost and pay him separately and send the rest to Ola.
Task flow for the redesigned service proposal
RIDER'S TASKFLOW
Take a look at the customer's end to end task flow
Initial UI design proposal
Sample mobile interface design was created for both of our users (Driver and Customers). These are just few model prototypes to help the readers visualize how the interface would look like. These UIs are not tested on its usability and accessibility.
Ola Customer Application
Ola Partner Application
How the new redesign proposal would help to better the issues with the current service
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Personalised the overall service experience
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Identified the Gaps with the current algorithm and solved them
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Provided value for money and effort for both customers and partners
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Interface which adapts and consider all types of users
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Work-life balance for drivers
Conclusion
In the course of the project, I have identified the problems faced by the stakeholders Ola service and helped them to overcome it.
The inherent complexities of this project are maintaining the balance between multiple stakeholders. It is always a win-win situation here, in the process of uplifting the partner’s experience we should not let the other stakeholder’s experience topple.
For this reason, several stakeholders of the system have been taken under consideration in order to understand the overall market and address the concern.