A STUDY OF CUSTOMER SATISFACTION LEVEL OF OLA AND UBER PAID TAXI SERVICES WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO PUNE CITY

A STUDY OF CUSTOMER SATISFACTION LEVEL OF OLA AND UBER PAID TAXI SERVICES WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO PUNE CITY

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Abstract: Every other day in India, there is a new start up offering efficient cab service to the citizens operating in urban and rural lifestyles. This raises a question that is India going through a possible 'Taxi Revolution'? In this paper an attempt has been made to study the customer satisfaction level of the people who are using OLA and UBER cabs in Pune city. In the paper it shows who is leading the paid taxi market in Pune city, reasons for choosing OLA/UBER over other Auto/Bus services. It has also been seen that almost 100% respondents are using paid taxi services in Pune city i.e. OLA/UBER. This article seeks to understand the dynamics of Pune’s taxi market by studying various factors like the pricing, market share, revenue models, app convenience, etc. The paper is qualitative in nature and based on primary data collected from different age group individuals by filling a questionnaire and interviews.

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INTRODUCTION *******************************************************************.

Indian taxi market The taxi market scenario in India is hugely fragmented. The taxi market in India is divided into two major segments which are the organized and unorganized markets. The unorganized market has a market value of $8.5 billion and the organized market holds a market value of almost $500 million. The Indian taxi market is forecast to grow at a CAGR of 13.7% during 2017-2022. The organized sector is the recently emerged segment in the market scenario. It is further classified into owners, affiliators and aggregators. The owned vehicle segment is inclusive of the pure car rentall companies like Meru. The affliators are accomplished with multiple car rental agencies and they are known to provide different tour packages or deals. Whereas the aggregator are the newest phenomenon which are driven by start ups like OLA cabs and also by Uber Technologies Inc. which is an American worldwide online transportation network company. “Aggregator means a person, who owns and manages a Web-based software application, and by means of the application and a communication device, enables a potential customer to connect with persons providing service of a particular kind under the brand name or trade name of the aggregator;”. The sector has in the past few years seen tremendous growth with nearly 10 fairly large companies operating in various models. But even in this clutter, three companies stand out in their product uniqueness, customer service responsiveness, driver behaviour and timely arrivals – OLA cabs, TaxiForSure and the global sharing economy pioneer, UBER. Other companies that are operating include Meru, Easy Cabs, Savaari and BookMyCab. The market made a transition from owned fleet to a fleet aggregator model where anyone could own a car and become an entrepreneur – in fact, Ola Cabs conducted a Driver Mela in Pune and Bangalore to get vehicles at a discount to potential drivers

OLA Cabs:

Ola initially started off as Olatrip.com a small website venture that offered weekend trip packages. It was started as a startup business by two IIT Mumbai graduates Bhavish Aggarwal and Ankit Bhati. Due to a bad experience during a car rental situation they decided to mend the system of car rental and this became the basis for the initiation of olacabs. Olacabs are now referred as Ola. Ola is a Spanish term which means hello! This indicates that hiring a cab at Ola as well as the services provided are easy and friendly as conveying hello. Until the year 2014, the company had expanded to a widely distributed network which comprised of 200,000 cars across 85 cities. These 85 cities include all the metropolitan cities. Until September 2015 Ola was valued at around $5 billion market. Taxi for sure as acquired by Ola in March 2015 for $200 million. The company averages a total of about 150,000 bookings per day and has the highest market share in India of 60%. The company owned by ANI Technologies clocked a turnover of Rs 1,286 crore in FY17 compared with Rs 758 crore in the previous financial year. Ola’s profit and loss for FY17 was not available. The company made a consolidated loss of Rs 2,313 crore in FY16. The turnover includes revenue from subsidiaries Ola Fleet Technologies, Ola Electric Mobility, Ola Skilling and Zipcash Card services. Ola had acquired a majority stake in wallet company Zipcash, which now powers Ola money. *******************************************************************.

UBER Headquartered in San Francisco, California, Uber Technologies Inc. is an American worldwide online transportation network company. As of August 2016, Uber provided its cab services in over 66 countries and 545 cities worldwide. The Uber application automatically calculates the fare and transfers the payment to the driver. Since its launch, many other companies have replicated Uber’s business model, a trend that has come to be referred as "Uberification. The company received $200,000 in seed funding in 2009. In additional funding, Uber raised $1.25 million in 2010. Following a beta launch in summer of 2010, Uber's services and mobile application officially launched in San Francisco in the year 2011. Initially, Ryan Graves was appointed as CEO, however, Kalanick replaced him in the role later that year and Graves stepped down to become the company's COO. By the end of 2011, Uber had raised $44.5 million in funding and in the same year, the company changed its name from UberCab to *******************************************************************. Uber Uber’s revenue in India in FY 2014-15 was Rs 690 Million and in FY 2015-16 company’s revenue streams increased five-fold to around 3.7 billion Indian rupees. *******************************************************************.
OBJECTIVES: *******************************************************************.
1. To study the overall customer satisfaction level of people using OLA and UBER cabs in Pune city. 2. To study the customer satisfaction against the government travelling services in Pune city. 3. To study the satisfaction level of respondents for Comfort level and Waiting period after booking OLA/ UBER cab. 4. To study the overall analysis of OLA/UBER services and what exactly people think about OLA/UBER in Pune city. 5. To study the Motivational factors which drive people to use OLA/UBER cab services in Pune city. 6. To collect the complaints and suggestions customers have from OLA/UBER cabs in Pune city.

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RESEARCH METHODOLOGY:. *******************************************************************.

• The research methodology means the way in which we would complete our prospected task. Before undertaking any task it becomes very essential for anyone to determine the problem of study. • Time and date of data collection: 1st July 2018 – 1st August 2018 • Data Collected: Primary and Interview • To obtain the primary data from customers, I used the research instruments like questionnaire and personal interviews with the customers using OLA and UBER paid taxi service. At the time of interview the researcher made clear the nature and purpose of the study. The interviews help to elicit further detailed information. Good representation of Gender, Education, Age groups, Occupation, Demographic factors were considered during the study. *******************************************************************.

• No. of Respondents: 402.
• Sampling: Convenient sampling.
• Sample Size: 402.
• Cross sectional: At one point of time in a population.
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DATA ANALYSIS *******************************************************************
This chapter discusses the data analysis from 402 responses collected from various age group people who are using OLA/UBER paid taxi services in Pune city. This chapter solely focuses on presenting the gathered data in a meaningful way to facilitate the research that is to find out the customer satisfaction level of OLA/UBER cabs. This provides the background to the respondents by analyzing their demographic details. Tables and diagrams have been used to facilitate a simplistic reader-friendly writing. *******************************************************************.

Conclusion:. *******************************************************************.

Ola has seen a tremendous growth in the taxi market sector, market share of OLA in Pune city is 50% followed by UBER 38%. Maximum no. of respondents are satisfied with the fare/price charged by OLA/UBER. They are also satisified with the App and the comfort level provided by the paid taxi services i.e OLA and UBER. It has been seen that 68% of the respondents don’t have any complaint about OLA/UBER and the rest who have, out of which some are mentioned above. Maximum no. of respondents will surely recommend OLA/UBER to their friends. It has seen that maximum no. of respondents have rated ‘Satisfied’ for OLA/UBER in Pune and they feel it is more better and convenient compared to Auto/Buses. After booking a cab more than 50% of the respondents have to wait for 10min followed by some respondents had to wait 20min for the cab to arrive. Maximum respondents prefer “Safety” as the most important factor while choosing OLA/UBER. Almost 86% respondents are satisfied with the payment options provided by the OLA/UBER cab services. From the above study the most important conclusion is that 54% respondents ‘Agree’ and 23% respondents ‘Strongly Agree’ that they feel OLA/UBER is secure and safe for women. *******************************************************************.

Suggestions:. *******************************************************************.

As we can see that half of the respondents say that they don’t get any kind of discount offers from OLA/UBER, in order to increase the market share in Pune city OLA/UBER must work on this factor. UBER should improve their payment systems, they should not fluctuate their prices specially when it rains, they should keep their cabs clean, reduce the waiting period after booking a cab and use market penetration strategies in order to increase their customer satisfaction level and indirectly their market share in Pune city. OLA is already leading the market share in Pune city but still should work on absurd rates charged at peak hours, availability of cabs in industrial areas, rural areas like Chakan and Bhosari, frequency of cabs should be increased, and driver’s attitude is a major concern which should be improved. As OLA/UBER both are safe for women however there is always a scope of improvement for the safety and security of women.

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