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To address complaints, Grab gives reward points for cancelled rides, ‘spot bonus’ to drivers

SINGAPORE — Faced with growing criticisms from riders and drivers, ride-hailing firm Grab is taking steps to bridge the gaps with these two groups.

Grab is running a campaign to reward all GrabCar and GrabTaxi drivers who clock at least 10 rides that have five-star ratings — given by riders on a scale of one to five stars — and who do not cancel any rides from Oct 15 to 21. The drivers will split a “grand jackpot” of at least S$25,000.

Grab is running a campaign to reward all GrabCar and GrabTaxi drivers who clock at least 10 rides that have five-star ratings — given by riders on a scale of one to five stars — and who do not cancel any rides from Oct 15 to 21. The drivers will split a “grand jackpot” of at least S$25,000.

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SINGAPORE — Faced with growing criticisms from riders and drivers, ride-hailing firm Grab is taking steps to bridge the gaps with these two groups.

To improve customer experience, it is giving 100 points to passengers whose rides are cancelled. The points, which come under its GrabRewards programme, allow users to redeem discounts on rides or deals at its partner merchants, among other things. Users who have 2,200 points may redeem S$5 off a Grab ride, for example.

This takes effect from Monday (Oct 8) and is available to all its riders in Singapore until Dec 31 across all its services, except the GrabHitch carpooling service.

Grab Singapore head Lim Kell Jay told TODAY that this is an extra layer of service it offers for cancelled rides, apart from an automatic re-booking feature launched in July, which finds riders a new driver after the previous one cancels on them.

Mr Lim said Grab has received feedback that one of the most common reasons why drivers cancel trips is that the pick-up points are too far away.

To tackle this, the firm recently began offering a S$3 “spot bonus” to drivers who travel more than 3km to pick up a rider.

“The spot bonus, along with other initiatives, has already seen cancellation rates go down by 20 per cent since we launched (it) a month ago,” he said.

The company is also running a campaign to reward all GrabCar and GrabTaxi drivers who clock at least 10 rides that have five-star ratings — given by riders on a scale of one to five stars — and who do not cancel any rides from Oct 15 to 21. The drivers will split a “grand jackpot” of at least S$25,000.

Grab has not disclosed how many drivers it has in Singapore, but in South-east Asia, it has a network of more than 8 million drivers, agents and delivery partners.

On the riders’ end, Grab has begun a test to let some of its riders change their drop-off location in its mobile application even after their journeys have started.

Under the move, which stems from riders’ and drivers’ feedback, prices will be updated based on the new drop-off point. Drivers will be told of the new price and location immediately.

“We will be gathering feedback from drivers and passengers before deciding how we can further improve the product for everyone,” Mr Lim said.

“We acknowledge there is a lot more we can do and are making every effort to improve our services and customer experience, and drivers and passengers can expect more initiatives and improvements in the next few months.”

Grab has been under scrutiny after its takeover of Uber’s regional operations in March left riders and drivers up in arms over price hikes and lower incentives.

Last week, a report by market research firm Forrester said Grab’s rapid descent in the minds of riders and drivers pointed to the pitfalls of “weak” customer experience, and it could learn “the hard way” if it does not change its ways.

“The stunning pace with which Grab fell from its unquestioned position as a local digital hero should remind all e-business leaders that their customers are in charge," the report said.

Last month, the Competition and Consumer Commission of Singapore imposed more than S$13 million in penalties on Grab and Uber, ruling that their merger was “anti-competitive”.

The competition watchdog also spelt out remedies, including dismantling Grab's exclusivity arrangements with taxi fleets, and maintaining Grab's pricing algorithms and drivers' commission rates before the merger.

REWARDS ‘MEAGRE’

Grab users told TODAY that making up for cancelled rides with 100 GrabRewards points was inadequate.

Postgraduate student Eva Tan, 24, said that it was “not really attractive, as 100 points is meagre”.

Copywriter Emilia Tan, 23, said that the reward “doesn’t make any difference”, because there have been changes to the GrabRewards  programme and users now need more points than before to redeem certain perks.

She suggested that instead of offering points, Grab could placate its users by offering discounts on rides via promotional codes.

As for the move to allow changes to their drop-off points when trips are in progress, commuters welcomed it, saying this is especially so when detours have to be made to attend to family emergencies.

“That's a good new feature, but more of a formality,” Ms Tan, the postgraduate student, said. “I have keyed in a wrong address for GrabShare before, spoke to the driver about it, and he coolly agreed to drop me off where I wanted.”

Grab driver Vanessa Tiffany, 43, said that while any bonus is attractive to drivers travelling further to pick up a rider, an extra S$3 would not go far to cover drivers’ costs, especially when they are caught in traffic snarls.

She decided against accepting a ride nine to 11 minutes away last month because of a traffic jam. “There’s no point going all the way just because of S$3,” she added.

To get drivers to accept fares that are some distance away, Ms Tiffany suggested that better drivers’ incentives would help.

Since Uber’s retreat earlier this year, drivers have bemoaned the cut-back on incentives.

For instance, drivers now receive S$150 from the ride-hailing company for completing 100 trips a week, after taking into account factors such as a good trip-acceptance rate. This is unlike last year, when they could receive up to S$600 a week for the same number of trips, Ms Tiffany recalled.

“Only the incentives will give (drivers) peace of mind,” she said.

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