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I'm not surprised. They were sending out free credit emails every weekend for £45 (£15 off three separate trips); no minimum spend, no qualification criteria,

I'm not surprised. They were sending out free credit emails every weekend for £45 (£15 off three separate trips); no minimum spend, no qualification criteria, just free trips. That's well over £150 of free credit some months! Even with the free credit though, I still used Uber because Karhoo was a terrible experience: * The time estimates were never correct, no matter which car provider you selected. You were always waiting longer than 15 minutes for a car. * Dial-A-Cab always said there was a car 7 minutes away but that was a lie. You then joined a queue to be assigned a taxi, and that car could be any distance away (I never received a Dial-A-Cab taxi in under 25 minutes). * There was no continuity in the rules between providers. For example, cancellation fees were apparently on a provider-by-provider basis. * The prices were often far in excess of Uber, but for the same cars that UberX uses.

iamben 10y ago
This exactly. I used the free credits, paid for maybe 3 rides. Cars were never the promised wait away. Compared to Uber you got some really ratty cabs. The app itself had a bunch of UX problems. Worst, ages ago I tried to cancel a ride. It must have actually cancelled the ride, but the app still said "requesting". When you went to cancel, it said "something has gone wrong". So it was permanently requesting. I emailed tech support. Sent screenshots as asked. Weeks passed. As of a few days ago, it's still broken. If I can't do the fundamental thing the service is meant to do - what chance does it have? Long and short, if you're going to take on Uber, hella slick is the _starting point_.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
adwhit 10y ago
Karhoo were trying to do far more than Uber. They were partnering with hundreds of minicab firms around London. Each firm was supposed to report their taxi's locations and availabilities back to Karhoo at regular intervals. Karhoo then aimed to co-ordinate all this information along with real-time pricing for each, and present the user a range of options. And then dispatch a taxi, that actually arrives when they say it will. Without controlling the actual cars. Most minicab firms in London do not have a server, they have a person sat at a desk with a phone and an Excel spreadsheet. Can you imagine trying to herd them all into use your platform correctly? Karhoo never had a chance. For a while Karhoo became know as the "Free taxi app!" because of all their giveaways. But no-way would you use it if it wasn't free, because it was so unreliable.
- friendly_chap 10y ago
  That sounds incredibly stupid. Why didnt they distribute an GPS coordinate sending app to said drivers?
  - nigeljyng 10y ago
    They couldn't do that. The cab companies they work with would be worried they're going direct to driver, which is what Uber's doing.
  - pessimizer 10y ago
    Or something nice to replace the spreadsheet?
gnipgnip 10y ago
This sounds spookishly similar to the strategy adopted by Ola and Uber in India.

iamben 10y ago

This exactly. I used the free credits, paid for maybe 3 rides. Cars were never the promised wait away. Compared to Uber you got some really ratty cabs. The app itself had a bunch of UX problems. Worst, ages ago I tried to cancel a ride. It must have actually cancelled the ride, but the app still said "requesting". When you went to cancel, it said "something has gone wrong". So it was permanently requesting. I emailed tech support. Sent screenshots as asked. Weeks passed. As of a few days ago, it's still broken. If I can't do the fundamental thing the service is meant to do - what chance does it have? Long and short, if you're going to take on Uber, hella slick is the _starting point_.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

adwhit 10y ago

Karhoo were trying to do far more than Uber. They were partnering with hundreds of minicab firms around London. Each firm was supposed to report their taxi's locations and availabilities back to Karhoo at regular intervals. Karhoo then aimed to co-ordinate all this information along with real-time pricing for each, and present the user a range of options. And then dispatch a taxi, that actually arrives when they say it will. Without controlling the actual cars. Most minicab firms in London do not have a server, they have a person sat at a desk with a phone and an Excel spreadsheet. Can you imagine trying to herd them all into use your platform correctly? Karhoo never had a chance. For a while Karhoo became know as the "Free taxi app!" because of all their giveaways. But no-way would you use it if it wasn't free, because it was so unreliable.

friendly_chap 10y ago
That sounds incredibly stupid. Why didnt they distribute an GPS coordinate sending app to said drivers?
- nigeljyng 10y ago
  They couldn't do that. The cab companies they work with would be worried they're going direct to driver, which is what Uber's doing.
- pessimizer 10y ago
  Or something nice to replace the spreadsheet?

gnipgnip 10y ago

This sounds spookishly similar to the strategy adopted by Ola and Uber in India.