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The reason why I would not consider Google to legitimately compete with Uber/Lyft at scale in this arena is because it's not part of their nature to staff custo

The reason why I would not consider Google to legitimately compete with Uber/Lyft at scale in this arena is because it's not part of their nature to staff customer support at the level required to run operationally-intensive businesses. The rate in which something goes wrong in the real world (esp where money in exchanged) is much higher than in a pure software world, and Google is going to try to take the FAQ/chatbot/no phone approach to service when it's going to need to staff entire buildings with agents if it doesn't want to completely piss off a nascent user base.

lg 9y ago
I had problems with my google home mini controlling my android tv and went to the help page for it. A chatbox appeared and for about an hour a support agent talked me through various things to try (the only thing that worked was factory data reset on the TV). Pretty sure it was not a bot, unless they've gotten really good.
- saalweachter 9y ago
  If it was a bot, would you be mad?
  - lg 9y ago
    no, I'd be pretty impressed.
mabbo 9y ago
When you put it that way, I start to think Amazon should get into this business. I'm sure everyone has one bad customer experience incident with them, yes, but overall they're one of the highest rated for customer experience. Then Amazon would say "Hey, while you're on your way there, mind taking a few packages with you?"
- fnbr 9y ago
  Yup. I've had a number of bad experiences (packages not arriving, wrong thing delivered, etc), but every time, Amazon has made it right. They consistently produce a great customer experience.
  - ethbro 9y ago
    They just figured out that cost_to_resolve_complaints < cost_of_lost_customer. Once you make that leap, and commit (via support permissions / manuals / budget) to making that happen, it's a better experience overall. Not least because then it frees you as a business to what you should be focusing on. E.g. "We paid out $x million because of damaged packages. What can we do in the warehouse side to fix this?"
    - nugi 9y ago
      My issue is usually amazon sending the wrong item, or counterfits, dispite their occasionall asinine packaging of my items. That is, assuming the seller bothers to correctly list the item. But they seem to be doing little about any of it. For instance, I recieved 2 vacuum tubes last night. (I ordered 4), and they came jammed in a huge box with no padding on 2 sides. Already scheduled for return. My return rate must be 1 in 10 these days. Is their warehouse overhead so low as to cover this long term? I honestly don't know. But I also know I would stop doing biz wih them in a heartbeat if returning things was difficult. I did so with ebay/paypal nearly a decade ago and am happier for it.
      - djrogers 9y ago
        > My return rate must be 1 in 10 these days. Is their warehouse overhead so low as to cover this long term? The flip side of this is that my wife and I have returned 4-5 packages over the past year, out of 500+...
      - michaelmrose 9y ago
        Maybe you buy from bad merchants selling stuff via amazon? Its possible your choices are leading you on average to have a bad experience. Its likely that your experience isn't even remotely typical
- Cshelton 9y ago
  Now that I think about it, Amazon would be perfect to do it. I can't remember the last Amazon package I got that wasn't on of their contract, on-demand drivers. Amazon already gives them packages and the optimal route to take and a pretty good estimate of how long that'll take the driver. They could use that and have the driver pick up/drop off people along their route and know a pretty good time frame the driver would arrive.
  - apcragg 9y ago
    Optimal route or optimized route? I was under the impression that calculating an optimal route was NP-Hard and not feasible to do at scale.
  - IncRnd 9y ago
    > I can't remember the last Amazon package I got that wasn't on of their contract, on-demand drivers. At the moment, there are 10 Amazon packages not yet delivered to my house - 4 haven't updated the computer with their shipping information, 2 UPS, 1 USPS, 2 AMZL US, and 1 from a Foreign Post. > Amazon already gives them packages and the optimal route Optimized not Optimal route.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
- deleted 9y ago
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dsmithatx 9y ago
This will probably be very cheap just to cover gas. They probably wont do customer support and tell driver/rider they are on their own. Since the rider pays up front they have their Identity and cash up front. I don't see Uber and Lyft competing against this service since the driver isn't going to make a living. On the other hand this will take a lot of rides from other ride share services.
- blang 9y ago
  It looks like it will at max be the government mileage rate to cover gas and depreciation (currently 54 cents)
skynetv2 9y ago
100% agree. I would never trust Google for any customer / retail effort.
hitekker 9y ago
I agree that Google has a customer-service problem, and would also note that it seems to extend from their consumer tech to their enterprise offerings. For example, when Gitlab decided to transition from the cloud, we saw Google Engineers jump in the discussion thread unprompted, criticizing Gitlab's decision and not-very-subtly telling Gitlab to follow up over email. Obviously, these low-level employees weren't directed to act in concert, but it seems like they came from a culture where the customer knows nothing and is always wrong.
thetwentyone 9y ago
I've contacted all of theses services independently and had positive customer support experiences: Google Wifi, Fi, Google Store (phones), and Drive. Time frame is last couple of years.
- joeblau 9y ago
  I've had the opposite experience, but this was probably further back then you. I remember trying to call Google to get info about Google maps and it was just a run around. I spent 3 hours trying to figure out who controlled the map tiles behind Apples Maps powered by Google and got nowhere. Even if you go to Google's contact page now[1] it's obscure and the first thing they try to do is shuttle you off to forums or a boilerplate FAQ. You can't run a consumer business like that. Google is great at building pure tech products like Google Search and Gmail, but not so good when it's a product where you might have to talk to a human being. [1] - https://www.google.com/contact/ https://www.google.com/contact/
  - mankyd 9y ago
    Perhaps the difference is that Wifi, Fi, and the store in general are all product you pay for, whereas maps is not?
    - joeblau 9y ago
      Yeah that's a possibility. As I mentioned, I haven't really tried to interact with Googles customer service in the past few years so maybe/hopefully it's a lot better now than it was then.
  - joshuamorton 9y ago
    Just going to point out that for pixel phones for example, you type in "pixel customer support" on google, click on the "contact us" button, and then answer a couple of (really easy) questions and are given the option to use an online chat or a phone call with support. (I work at Google, but I had the same experience before I worked there). I think the best way of putting it is that (the consumer part of) maps is a library book, and that you wouldn't expect phone support for a library book. You would expect phone support for a product you buy, and you get that. (Google's service for pretty much all of their paid products is decent, or at least it exists). Did/does Microsoft offer phone support for their free software products? I just looked for help with outlook, and got directed to...a chatbot.
cornholio 9y ago
Unlike Uber, they appear to talk about a real carsharing system, as opposed to a taxi service with a lower entry barrier. The prices will be much lower since we are talking about the marginal cost of adding another passenger to an already happening trip - and with full info on where people are going, Waze effectively has an endless supply of trips that are happening, it's just a matter of displaying a pop-up "Hey, Alex is going to the same place as you, do you want to give him a ride for 5$?". So the actual support required will be minimal to zero, it's just a software app to simplify what people already do, not a full transport service.
- pavel_lishin 9y ago
  You just described the pure software world solution. What happens when the commuter I pick up vomits in my car? Or steals something from my car? What happens if I get picked up by a person who changes their mind about where they're going? Or decide to take an unplanned detour to go to the store, or back home to grab the laptop they forgot, or to score some heroin? What happens when the driver gropes me? Or I grope the driver? You absolutely need actual support, it's not going to be minimal-to-zero. Both the driver and the passenger need to be able to pick up a phone number and speak to a real human being who can resolve some sort of issue.
  - pizzetta 9y ago
    They have probably worked those issues out by dogfooding this internally already, don't you think? It's not like they just thought it up and didn't test it out internally as they are wont to do. Those issues were likely discovered and have mitigation. Googliness only gets people to be nice to a point.
    - pavel_lishin 9y ago
      > They have probably worked those issues out by dogfooding this internally already, don't you think? They absolutely could not work out the problem of being, e.g., abused by a driver, internally. By being employees of the company that provides the service, they have an automatic customer service hotline by way of HR. If I catch a ride to work with my coworker Jeremy, by using a company-supplied app explicitly for us to test, and Jeremy gropes me, you bet your ass HR is going to hear about it as soon as I hang up with the police department.
scrollaway 9y ago
The reason I wouldn't is Google's obsession with building US-only businesses (Example: Project Fi). Uber is worldwide and is a huge timesaver whenever I travel within Europe. (Edit: Had to reword my example since people just love taking stuff out of context.)
- untog 9y ago
  There are many great examples of Google failing to internationalise, but Google Fi requiring a US billing address is not one of them. Fi is a domestic cell phone service, it provides international roaming as a bonus to its US customers - at much increased cost (to them) compared to domestic service. I wouldn't be surprised if roaming permanently was a violation of their terms of service (it is for Three in the UK, who provide a similar perk) You can of course criticise Google for not launching domestic service in countries across the world, but in fairness to them, that's not a small problem.
  - scrollaway 9y ago
    You're making my point. They made a domestic cell phone service and, despite the service working worldwide, failed to bring it to other countries.
    - sneak 9y ago
      “working” in this sense could mean “operating at a loss”.
      - scrollaway 9y ago
        Uber is operating at a loss worldwide. So, yes, "working" could mean "operating at a loss", it's still a valid example. Also it's not like Fi was my entire point. My actual point was that Google has an utter crap track record at launching stuff outside the US.
    - untog 9y ago
      You're ignoring my point. The costs internationally are far higher than they are domestically. The roaming agreements they have with those networks almost certainly prohibits full time use by a customer. Sometimes there are valid reasons to not launch a service, particularly when the whole point of it is to be low cost! I agree with criticism when Google doesn't internationally launch something they control entirely (say, the Pixel phone). But this is not that.
Cthulhu_ 9y ago
Maybe Waze does customer support as a sub-company of Google?
- pizzetta 9y ago
  Google does decent support for their paid services. Free is different but paid tends to be decent.
JohnStudio 9y ago
Yes, but outsource to someone like SITEL to handle these. It's not like Microsoft staffs the phone directly.
sgustard 9y ago
Here's the support contact form. Some folks should try it and report back with their experience as to response time and quality. https://support.google.com/waze/carpool/contact/ridewith_help https://support.google.com/waze/carpool/contact/ridewith_hel...
nojvek 9y ago
What happens if the driver rapes somebody, or more so the passenger disappears in thin air. Google doesn’t want to take any responsibility or have any support / background checks. I’d stay a million miles away where a human is merely just an entry in their database.
- CobrastanJorji 9y ago
  Doesn't that eliminate anything that organizes people for anything? Your requirement seems to eliminate Meetup, all dating apps, Craigslist, or meeting a stranger for almost any other reason ever.
zitterbewegung 9y ago
The reason I would consider Google to legitimately compete with them are the following. 1. If they have issues with their system they will create a competitor to it internally. 2. They have the money to subsidize just like uber and lyft. 3. They are the company that could either perform a deal with Elon for his data or buy Tesla out. 4. Since no "contractor" that is employed by uber or lyft have any loyalty torward another it will just drive down prices even more. I'm not sure Uber could survive that or even lyft.
majani 9y ago
It always baffles me that a company based in a country as litigious as the US has gotten away with being so careless about Customer Care for so long.
- lotsofpulp 9y ago
  The customer usually doesn't have sufficient money to be litigious.
jacksmith21006 9y ago
Depends on the product with Google. Purchased the Google WiFi and support was excellent. Human with a phone call that was able to get answers.
methodin 9y ago
Such statements (about customer support) are completely subjective though I'm not sure you can just fling that out there as a global truth. Project Fi, while perhaps an outlier, bucks your point.
whazor 9y ago
Their Google Suite customer service is great, tried it multiple times and they immediately helped me and solved my problems. As far as I know their support is only good if you are actually paying for something.
gesman 9y ago
I think GOOG is perfectly capable of upping their game to- and above UBER/Lyft levels. Even if it would require unthinkable religious sacrifice of actually providing live human support from GOOG side.
- rmrfrmrf 9y ago
  gasp! humans??!
  - gesman 9y ago
    "To help us serve you better, please say the reason for your call..." - this provokes violence
jsadow 9y ago
What we've learned most at Scoop is that this is all about human experience. Commuters are regular people with regular, complicated lives - they have family obligations, schedules, meetings, work priorities, personal desires. Having accessible, thoughtful support is, to us, a critical part of that experience. We believe that software can certainly scale your support efforts and solve a lot of the core problems / answer a lot of the questions. But commuting is an everyday, twice-a-day activity and having a place to go for questions and needs is natural.
uberduber 9y ago
Used Waze Carpool about 30 times 6 months ago. I was actually pleasantly surprised at the level of support. I reported two software bugs in detail and they did get back to me quickly both times and we had a fairly complex discussion. I actually read the Waze t&c when I signed up many years ago, the lack of privacy is astounding, they have pretty much all of your location data from driving which did make me feel more secure.
miko1293949 9y ago
What? This comment is ridiculous. Google has customer service on the scale of Amazon.
- mindfulplay 9y ago
  You are joking. That's like saying Amazon has AI service on the scale of google. No google customer service has unfortunately a very long way to go. Give google a million machines and it can train it to the nth degree. But solving silly human problems was never its strength.
triplesec 9y ago
Sounds like their monetisation strategy. But there are issues with network intermediaries' structural moneymaking strategies. The French startup blablacar.com is the biggest existing player in the market for real ridesharing, at least in Western Europe. And It does take some customer service to run these things. I've used it a fair amount. The biggest issue is that to protect their revenue cut, they track and censor messages between members of their platform until the ride is booked so they don't pay cash. Also, they force bookings to a specific time, and so you have to describe your journey on the comments, and so that way some passengers' attitude treat it like a cheap uber, and not a ride share.
fjsolwmv 9y ago
Lyft and Uber displaced all the old carpool services, because professionals work better than amateurs

lg 9y ago

I had problems with my google home mini controlling my android tv and went to the help page for it. A chatbox appeared and for about an hour a support agent talked me through various things to try (the only thing that worked was factory data reset on the TV). Pretty sure it was not a bot, unless they've gotten really good.

saalweachter 9y ago
If it was a bot, would you be mad?
- lg 9y ago
  no, I'd be pretty impressed.

mabbo 9y ago

When you put it that way, I start to think Amazon should get into this business. I'm sure everyone has one bad customer experience incident with them, yes, but overall they're one of the highest rated for customer experience. Then Amazon would say "Hey, while you're on your way there, mind taking a few packages with you?"

fnbr 9y ago
Yup. I've had a number of bad experiences (packages not arriving, wrong thing delivered, etc), but every time, Amazon has made it right. They consistently produce a great customer experience.
- ethbro 9y ago
  They just figured out that cost_to_resolve_complaints < cost_of_lost_customer. Once you make that leap, and commit (via support permissions / manuals / budget) to making that happen, it's a better experience overall. Not least because then it frees you as a business to what you should be focusing on. E.g. "We paid out $x million because of damaged packages. What can we do in the warehouse side to fix this?"
  - nugi 9y ago
    My issue is usually amazon sending the wrong item, or counterfits, dispite their occasionall asinine packaging of my items. That is, assuming the seller bothers to correctly list the item. But they seem to be doing little about any of it. For instance, I recieved 2 vacuum tubes last night. (I ordered 4), and they came jammed in a huge box with no padding on 2 sides. Already scheduled for return. My return rate must be 1 in 10 these days. Is their warehouse overhead so low as to cover this long term? I honestly don't know. But I also know I would stop doing biz wih them in a heartbeat if returning things was difficult. I did so with ebay/paypal nearly a decade ago and am happier for it.
    - djrogers 9y ago
      > My return rate must be 1 in 10 these days. Is their warehouse overhead so low as to cover this long term? The flip side of this is that my wife and I have returned 4-5 packages over the past year, out of 500+...
    - michaelmrose 9y ago
      Maybe you buy from bad merchants selling stuff via amazon? Its possible your choices are leading you on average to have a bad experience. Its likely that your experience isn't even remotely typical
Cshelton 9y ago
Now that I think about it, Amazon would be perfect to do it. I can't remember the last Amazon package I got that wasn't on of their contract, on-demand drivers. Amazon already gives them packages and the optimal route to take and a pretty good estimate of how long that'll take the driver. They could use that and have the driver pick up/drop off people along their route and know a pretty good time frame the driver would arrive.
- apcragg 9y ago
  Optimal route or optimized route? I was under the impression that calculating an optimal route was NP-Hard and not feasible to do at scale.
- IncRnd 9y ago
  > I can't remember the last Amazon package I got that wasn't on of their contract, on-demand drivers. At the moment, there are 10 Amazon packages not yet delivered to my house - 4 haven't updated the computer with their shipping information, 2 UPS, 1 USPS, 2 AMZL US, and 1 from a Foreign Post. > Amazon already gives them packages and the optimal route Optimized not Optimal route.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

dsmithatx 9y ago

This will probably be very cheap just to cover gas. They probably wont do customer support and tell driver/rider they are on their own. Since the rider pays up front they have their Identity and cash up front. I don't see Uber and Lyft competing against this service since the driver isn't going to make a living. On the other hand this will take a lot of rides from other ride share services.

blang 9y ago
It looks like it will at max be the government mileage rate to cover gas and depreciation (currently 54 cents)

skynetv2 9y ago

100% agree. I would never trust Google for any customer / retail effort.

hitekker 9y ago

I agree that Google has a customer-service problem, and would also note that it seems to extend from their consumer tech to their enterprise offerings. For example, when Gitlab decided to transition from the cloud, we saw Google Engineers jump in the discussion thread unprompted, criticizing Gitlab's decision and not-very-subtly telling Gitlab to follow up over email. Obviously, these low-level employees weren't directed to act in concert, but it seems like they came from a culture where the customer knows nothing and is always wrong.

thetwentyone 9y ago

I've contacted all of theses services independently and had positive customer support experiences: Google Wifi, Fi, Google Store (phones), and Drive. Time frame is last couple of years.

joeblau 9y ago
I've had the opposite experience, but this was probably further back then you. I remember trying to call Google to get info about Google maps and it was just a run around. I spent 3 hours trying to figure out who controlled the map tiles behind Apples Maps powered by Google and got nowhere. Even if you go to Google's contact page now[1] it's obscure and the first thing they try to do is shuttle you off to forums or a boilerplate FAQ. You can't run a consumer business like that. Google is great at building pure tech products like Google Search and Gmail, but not so good when it's a product where you might have to talk to a human being. [1] - https://www.google.com/contact/ https://www.google.com/contact/
- mankyd 9y ago
  Perhaps the difference is that Wifi, Fi, and the store in general are all product you pay for, whereas maps is not?
  - joeblau 9y ago
    Yeah that's a possibility. As I mentioned, I haven't really tried to interact with Googles customer service in the past few years so maybe/hopefully it's a lot better now than it was then.
- joshuamorton 9y ago
  Just going to point out that for pixel phones for example, you type in "pixel customer support" on google, click on the "contact us" button, and then answer a couple of (really easy) questions and are given the option to use an online chat or a phone call with support. (I work at Google, but I had the same experience before I worked there). I think the best way of putting it is that (the consumer part of) maps is a library book, and that you wouldn't expect phone support for a library book. You would expect phone support for a product you buy, and you get that. (Google's service for pretty much all of their paid products is decent, or at least it exists). Did/does Microsoft offer phone support for their free software products? I just looked for help with outlook, and got directed to...a chatbot.

cornholio 9y ago

Unlike Uber, they appear to talk about a real carsharing system, as opposed to a taxi service with a lower entry barrier. The prices will be much lower since we are talking about the marginal cost of adding another passenger to an already happening trip - and with full info on where people are going, Waze effectively has an endless supply of trips that are happening, it's just a matter of displaying a pop-up "Hey, Alex is going to the same place as you, do you want to give him a ride for 5$?". So the actual support required will be minimal to zero, it's just a software app to simplify what people already do, not a full transport service.

pavel_lishin 9y ago
You just described the pure software world solution. What happens when the commuter I pick up vomits in my car? Or steals something from my car? What happens if I get picked up by a person who changes their mind about where they're going? Or decide to take an unplanned detour to go to the store, or back home to grab the laptop they forgot, or to score some heroin? What happens when the driver gropes me? Or I grope the driver? You absolutely need actual support, it's not going to be minimal-to-zero. Both the driver and the passenger need to be able to pick up a phone number and speak to a real human being who can resolve some sort of issue.
- pizzetta 9y ago
  They have probably worked those issues out by dogfooding this internally already, don't you think? It's not like they just thought it up and didn't test it out internally as they are wont to do. Those issues were likely discovered and have mitigation. Googliness only gets people to be nice to a point.
  - pavel_lishin 9y ago
    > They have probably worked those issues out by dogfooding this internally already, don't you think? They absolutely could not work out the problem of being, e.g., abused by a driver, internally. By being employees of the company that provides the service, they have an automatic customer service hotline by way of HR. If I catch a ride to work with my coworker Jeremy, by using a company-supplied app explicitly for us to test, and Jeremy gropes me, you bet your ass HR is going to hear about it as soon as I hang up with the police department.

scrollaway 9y ago

The reason I wouldn't is Google's obsession with building US-only businesses (Example: Project Fi). Uber is worldwide and is a huge timesaver whenever I travel within Europe. (Edit: Had to reword my example since people just love taking stuff out of context.)

untog 9y ago
There are many great examples of Google failing to internationalise, but Google Fi requiring a US billing address is not one of them. Fi is a domestic cell phone service, it provides international roaming as a bonus to its US customers - at much increased cost (to them) compared to domestic service. I wouldn't be surprised if roaming permanently was a violation of their terms of service (it is for Three in the UK, who provide a similar perk) You can of course criticise Google for not launching domestic service in countries across the world, but in fairness to them, that's not a small problem.
- scrollaway 9y ago
  You're making my point. They made a domestic cell phone service and, despite the service working worldwide, failed to bring it to other countries.
  - sneak 9y ago
    “working” in this sense could mean “operating at a loss”.
    - scrollaway 9y ago
      Uber is operating at a loss worldwide. So, yes, "working" could mean "operating at a loss", it's still a valid example. Also it's not like Fi was my entire point. My actual point was that Google has an utter crap track record at launching stuff outside the US.
  - untog 9y ago
    You're ignoring my point. The costs internationally are far higher than they are domestically. The roaming agreements they have with those networks almost certainly prohibits full time use by a customer. Sometimes there are valid reasons to not launch a service, particularly when the whole point of it is to be low cost! I agree with criticism when Google doesn't internationally launch something they control entirely (say, the Pixel phone). But this is not that.

Cthulhu_ 9y ago

Maybe Waze does customer support as a sub-company of Google?

pizzetta 9y ago
Google does decent support for their paid services. Free is different but paid tends to be decent.

JohnStudio 9y ago

Yes, but outsource to someone like SITEL to handle these. It's not like Microsoft staffs the phone directly.

sgustard 9y ago

Here's the support contact form. Some folks should try it and report back with their experience as to response time and quality. https://support.google.com/waze/carpool/contact/ridewith_help https://support.google.com/waze/carpool/contact/ridewith_hel...

nojvek 9y ago

What happens if the driver rapes somebody, or more so the passenger disappears in thin air. Google doesn’t want to take any responsibility or have any support / background checks. I’d stay a million miles away where a human is merely just an entry in their database.

CobrastanJorji 9y ago
Doesn't that eliminate anything that organizes people for anything? Your requirement seems to eliminate Meetup, all dating apps, Craigslist, or meeting a stranger for almost any other reason ever.

zitterbewegung 9y ago

The reason I would consider Google to legitimately compete with them are the following. 1. If they have issues with their system they will create a competitor to it internally. 2. They have the money to subsidize just like uber and lyft. 3. They are the company that could either perform a deal with Elon for his data or buy Tesla out. 4. Since no "contractor" that is employed by uber or lyft have any loyalty torward another it will just drive down prices even more. I'm not sure Uber could survive that or even lyft.

majani 9y ago

It always baffles me that a company based in a country as litigious as the US has gotten away with being so careless about Customer Care for so long.

lotsofpulp 9y ago
The customer usually doesn't have sufficient money to be litigious.

jacksmith21006 9y ago

Depends on the product with Google. Purchased the Google WiFi and support was excellent. Human with a phone call that was able to get answers.

methodin 9y ago

Such statements (about customer support) are completely subjective though I'm not sure you can just fling that out there as a global truth. Project Fi, while perhaps an outlier, bucks your point.

whazor 9y ago

Their Google Suite customer service is great, tried it multiple times and they immediately helped me and solved my problems. As far as I know their support is only good if you are actually paying for something.

gesman 9y ago

I think GOOG is perfectly capable of upping their game to- and above UBER/Lyft levels. Even if it would require unthinkable religious sacrifice of actually providing live human support from GOOG side.

rmrfrmrf 9y ago
gasp! humans??!
- gesman 9y ago
  "To help us serve you better, please say the reason for your call..." - this provokes violence

jsadow 9y ago

What we've learned most at Scoop is that this is all about human experience. Commuters are regular people with regular, complicated lives - they have family obligations, schedules, meetings, work priorities, personal desires. Having accessible, thoughtful support is, to us, a critical part of that experience. We believe that software can certainly scale your support efforts and solve a lot of the core problems / answer a lot of the questions. But commuting is an everyday, twice-a-day activity and having a place to go for questions and needs is natural.

uberduber 9y ago

Used Waze Carpool about 30 times 6 months ago. I was actually pleasantly surprised at the level of support. I reported two software bugs in detail and they did get back to me quickly both times and we had a fairly complex discussion. I actually read the Waze t&c when I signed up many years ago, the lack of privacy is astounding, they have pretty much all of your location data from driving which did make me feel more secure.

miko1293949 9y ago

What? This comment is ridiculous. Google has customer service on the scale of Amazon.

mindfulplay 9y ago
You are joking. That's like saying Amazon has AI service on the scale of google. No google customer service has unfortunately a very long way to go. Give google a million machines and it can train it to the nth degree. But solving silly human problems was never its strength.

triplesec 9y ago

Sounds like their monetisation strategy. But there are issues with network intermediaries' structural moneymaking strategies. The French startup blablacar.com is the biggest existing player in the market for real ridesharing, at least in Western Europe. And It does take some customer service to run these things. I've used it a fair amount. The biggest issue is that to protect their revenue cut, they track and censor messages between members of their platform until the ride is booked so they don't pay cash. Also, they force bookings to a specific time, and so you have to describe your journey on the comments, and so that way some passengers' attitude treat it like a cheap uber, and not a ride share.

fjsolwmv 9y ago

Lyft and Uber displaced all the old carpool services, because professionals work better than amateurs