The popularity of online car-hailing has brought convenience to people's travel. However, consumers will also encounter some troubles when it comes to online ride-hailing fares.
For example, drivers charge in advance, overcharge surcharges, drivers detour to cause the actual cost to be higher than the estimated cost, etc., these phenomena some consumers can take the initiative to discover, but there are many consumers who are not Xi to look at the bill carefully when paying, and do not notice these problems at all.
In addition, there are some fare problems that are actually misunderstandings. For example, the increase in fares caused by traffic jams, or reasonable surcharges such as highway fees, will also increase consumers' fare expenses. Although these reasonable changes are reflected in the cost breakdown, most consumers do not look at the respective details carefully.
At this time, the fare questions generated by consumers need to be answered by the platform. This not only increases the time and labor costs of consumer complaints and platform verification, but also easily has a negative impact on the driver-passenger relationship and the relationship between consumers and platforms.
Industry conundrums
Previously, in order to give consumers a rough expectation of fares, the online car-hailing industry turned "fare estimates" into standard configurations. However, if the actual fare is lower than or equal to the estimated fare, it is fine, but if it is higher, it is easy to have fare doubts.
For the platform, there are many reasons for the inaccurate estimation of fares, such as the imperfect algorithm of the online car-hailing platform, which cannot accurately ** the impact of road conditions, traffic congestion and other factors;Or the ride-hailing driver does have violations such as detours and overcharging surcharges.
In addition, consumers may make mistakes when using online ride-hailing, which is also a common reason for inaccurate fare estimates.
There are a variety of reasons that make it tricky for platforms to deal with related issues. In the face of fare disputes, ride-hailing platforms and drivers often have their own positions and it is difficult to reach an agreement, and consumers often lack strong evidence to prove that their rights and interests have been infringed in the event of a fare dispute.
More importantly, the relevant laws and regulations on this issue are not yet perfect, and there is a lack of clear provisions on the handling of fare disputes.
For this industry problem, the platforms have not had a good solution, and what we can do is basically to try to meet the demands of consumers when there are consumer complaints.
Shift from reactive to proactive
However, this process is still a passive guarantee for consumers to complain first, and then the platform to verify. In September this year, AutoNavi launched the fare bodyguard service, which fired the first shot of the industry's initiative to protect the rights and interests of fares.
It is reported that based on the fare bodyguard service, when consumers encounter common fare questions such as detours, deductions for not taking the bus, overcharging surcharges, failing to end the billing in time, and starting the billing in advance, the fare bodyguard can identify the fare fluctuations in real time, and take the initiative to explain and compensate consumers.
This kind of change from passive security to active protection has set a precedent in the industry and allowed consumers to enjoy a fairer guarantee. In the past, consumers who were willing to take the time to complain about the same problem were often compensated accordingly, while those who "considered themselves unlucky" were harmed.
But now, the bodyguard service can proactively detect fare changes and alert passengers to them without notice or complaints. Take the initiative to explain the reasonable fare, and take the initiative to prompt the passenger to confirm or automatically change the fare and pay in advance for the unreasonable fare.
On December 11, after more than three months of practice, AutoNavi Taxi also announced the official upgrade of the fare bodyguard service. As an aggregation platform, AutoNavi will cover the fare bouncer service to all online ride-hailing platforms that cooperate with the platform.
According to the data, up to now, the proportion of AutoNavi's taxi fare bodyguards who actively protect before consumer complaints has reached 93%.
Technology helps
Behind AutoNavi Taxi's breaking the shackles of the industry and launching the fare bodyguard service, it relies on the help of technology.
Thanks to the accumulation of technical capabilities such as transportation and LBS, the fare bodyguard can detect changes in fares in real time, judge whether it is reasonable, and give passengers explanations or compensation in seconds.
For example, Beidou positioning can help AutoNavi to be more accurate in judging the convergence and separation of drivers and passengersThe traffic light countdown can be used to calculate the travel time more accuratelyThe ability to estimate the highway toll allows AutoNavi to judge the driver's surcharge more accuratelyParking lot data can make the driver more accurate when adding parking fees, etc.
Based on these technical capabilities, the fare bodyguard also has the ability to comprehensively detect consumers taking taxis. When consumers give feedback on a fare problem, the fare bodyguard will conduct a comprehensive inspection of the trip, and if there are other unreasonable charges, the fare bodyguard will take the initiative to compensate for all unreasonable expenses.
For example, if the consumer only complains about the overcharging of the parking fee for the trip, and the fare bodyguard finds that the driver has also taken a detour during the full inspection, then the overcharged parking fee and the detour fee will be compensated to the consumer together.
In this regard, Yang Xiaojun, vice president and secretary general of the Beijing Consumers Association, said that turning post-event rights protection into active protection and advance compensation is a new measure to fully protect the rights and interests of consumers by means of scientific and technological innovation, which not only reflects the sense of corporate responsibility, but also improves the consumer experience.
Aggregator platforms supervise ride-hailing services for consumers.
In the aggregation mode, the aggregation platform does not participate in the pricing of fares, but each online ride-hailing platform formulates its own ** and synchronizes the billing rules to the aggregation platform, and then displays them to passengers.
Therefore, the estimated fare that passengers see every time they take a taxi is estimated by the ride-hailing platform based on the passenger's starting and ending points and their respective billing rules. If it is only a single platform, it is difficult to supervise itself, and the aggregator platform, as a third party, and the foundation of its business is the accuracy of information services, which also makes it possible for the aggregator to supervise.
AutoNavi and its partner ride-hailing platforms have jointly built a benchmark service quality evaluation system, and through various means, they have urged and promoted the online ride-hailing platform to improve service quality based on the evaluation system.
Based on the improvement of technical capabilities, AutoNavi can open its technical capabilities to online car-hailing platforms to help them improve the accuracy of their billingOn the other hand, AutoNavi can also use these capabilities to verify and supervise fares and strengthen the protection of consumer rights and interests.
The service tag launched by AutoNavi also highlights the ecological governance value of the aggregation platform. When consumers check the online car-hailing platform before taking a taxi, they can see the service labels under the online car-hailing platform, such as "five-star platform", "no road selection", etc.
Previously, AutoNavi has launched the "five-star platform" service tag. In the monthly evaluation, the top three ride-hailing platforms in the city can get the "five-star platform" label and display it directly to consumers. For consumers, through this kind of service label, they can have a clear view of the service quality of the online car-hailing platform when they take a taxi, and at the same time, this can also promote the industry to make service another choice in addition to the first, so that the platform can get more orders with the service.
Service labels such as "no road selection supported" remind consumers to pay attention to the lack of services provided by online ride-hailing platforms. For aggregator platforms, only a benign ecosystem can ensure the rights and experience of consumers, and then enable online ride-hailing platforms to continue to develop.