My parents have often wondered how people buy things online without touching and feeling them, without having a conversation with a salesperson, along with a little good-natured bantering and bargaining. And I have cited the convenience of shopping from home, without getting out in the traffic, and doing it at your own time and pace as the reasons so many of us are making more and more transactions online.
But the horrific incident of an Uber cab driver allegedly raping a 25 year old woman in Delhi this weekend made me think more about the Uber model. The various security lapses apart (and there are many for a brand whose tagline reads ‘Safest rides on the Road’), I wonder if technology is veering too far away from the real world? Are we undermining the importance of the human contact?
I confess I have never used an Uber cab. Some of it has to do with everything one has read about Uber and its sexist organisation culture that the feminist in me finds deeply offensive. But it is also to do with the unease I have felt about the fact that there is no phone support available. (I wanted to know how to delete my credit card information but the app told me I cannot delete information once entered, it can only be replaced with another, which itself is disturbing). Anyway, I thought my unease was just one of my silly idiosyncrasies.
But maybe not? Unlike a Zomato or a Tripadvisor, which have to do with subjective reviews of hotels, restaurants etc and so perhaps it doesn’t matter very much if, as a customer, I can reach them on phone or not, a cab service involves my security, my physical movement from one place to another. How can I then trust a service that does not even offer a phone number I can contact them on?
Incidentally, when we were developing our website, www.greenkins.com, the developer told us that it is mandatory to put an address and a telephone number on the website (we were reluctant to put an address because we had started out of my home!). Is it not mandatory or does Uber flout this requirement?
Another case in point is Amazon. Why do they make it so difficult for customers to reach them over phone? Why not simply have a phone number on the Home page easily accessible?
I understand this has probably to do with the sheer volumes of traffic and transactions these large companies generate. But are they not are missing out on something vital and intangible – the significance of human contact, the reassurance of a voice at the end of the phone?
And not to plug greenkins.com, but perhaps therein lies the trick for small businesses and niche players who can offer the convenience of online shopping with the comfort of human contact, a reassuring voice just short call away.
What do you folks think? I hear murmurs about scalability, but perhaps that’s for another post!
Image courtesy an Uber emailer.