So I thought I better try Uber. I haven’t heard anything bad about it. I spent a couple of minutes trying to work out the app. Just as I was about to give up, young Chris visits the office for a coffee with his mum.
Perfect so Chris gets the app working and shows me how to use it. And I try my first ever Uber. It was a small car and unfortunately the driver wouldn’t have won the “cleanest armpits of Australia” prize. That was a bit disappointing but I’ve had normal cab drivers that would have made my Uber driver seem like a state of the art car deodoriser.
Anyway, the driver was very pleasant. I loved the technology that allows me to see the car arriving. I loved the technology that I didn’t have to pay as it’s all done on paypal, I loved how the invoice was emailed to me shortly afterwards.
Then I thought back to my last 2 cab trips. They were awful. Both drivers were rude. One had no idea where he was going. The other got lost. One tried to overcharge me for the tolls. When I thought about it, I decided they probably couldn’t have provided a worse service. There simply was no service. They had managed to take the “service” out of the taxi service.
I love how the cab companies hate Uber. They don’t like the technology. These same cab companies have had years to lift their game. I think they were resting on their laurels sacrificing service for profit. Best of all, they just didn’t see a threat like Uber coming along.
How does your company fare? Does everyone feel nice and comfortable that they have contingency plans in place. Did you know that most contingency plans fail? Organisations also trip themselves up with their SWOT analysis. After the SWOT, everyone leaves feeling comfortable that they’ve identified their threats and fended off these threats with their contingency plans.
Here’s an idea. Spend more time with your customers. Find out what your customers are looking for. Identify any of your unnecessary processes that frustrate your customers. Don’t be like the cab companies assuming that the customer will always be in the cab with you. There’s lots of lessons to be learned from Uber. Uber is now about 5 years old and the worth $50 Billion. The taxi companies around the world got caught napping at their wheels.
If your company needs to learn how to generate ideas and improve productivity, IDEAS GENERATING is the course for you.
