Case Study_______________________________________________

CASE IDEA (Sai Rishik)

Program: MBA, Term II

Subject: Service Operations

Theory Topic: Service delivery failure

Company: Ola

Problems: Cab drivers cancelling booking requests due to complex pick-up locations and
destinations.

Timeline: Recent (Incident happened 9 months back)

Learning Objectives:

1. Understanding importance of customer satisfaction.

2. Ways to improve service effectiveness.
3. How to identify problems of customer through feedback.
4. Identifying problems faced by employers in service delivery
5. Solution based thinking approach
Case Study_______________________________________________

OLA Cab Service delivery failure

Rishi is a 21 year old college student from Hyderabad. He had an important doctor’s
appointment booked for his father, Mr.Balaji who recently underwent a surgical treatment.
It was crucial to meet the doctor on time as Mr.Balaji complained of uneasiness and
displayed signs of weakness early in the morning. The hospital they have been visiting was
12Km away from their residence and would take about 30-40 minutes to reach by car. Rishi
decided to book a taxi online on “Ola Cabs” to the hospital.

The area where Rishi’s Apartment stood was about 2 km uphill from the main road which
was fairly distant from the main city. The availability of cabs were very few in that location
which created problems for Rishi to book a ride. When the first ride was booked, the driver
cancelled the ride after 5 minutes of booking without informing. Rishi immediately
attempted to book another ride.

Ten minutes passed until a new ride was booked followed by incoming call from the driver.
The driver asked Rishi where his destination was as they are unaware of the location until
the booking OTP is provided to them after the customer boards the cab. The new ride
booked was 15 minutes away from our pickup location and took up a lot of time to navigate
through the GPS system. The driver stopped picking up calls after a few minutes and
stopped giving the updates. Eventually the delay led to cancellation of the booking from our
end.

We tried booking a cab for the third time and a new ride was booked within 2 minutes. The
driver called to ask the destination. Rishi was reluctant at first because it is their duty to
serve the customer and drop them wherever they want to go. However on hearing the
location the ride was cancelled again.

Rishi was frustrated with the utterly unprofessional and irresponsible attitude from the cab
drivers. He made a final try and in the fourth attempt he managed to get a cab to the
hospital, however the price of the ride increased than what it was previously set. Rishi had a
very poor experience from the cab service which wasted a lot of their time especially during
an emergency situation.

Problems surrounding the delivery service

1. Difficulty in navigating customer’s pickup location.

2. Improper communication between driver and customer.
3. Drivers cancelling bookings due to distant drop location.
4. Lower cab availability in the area of focus.