All Hail Ridesharing Services Like Uber
The Saturday Huddle is a weekly column that features opinion, analysis and reflections on Huddle stories, podcasts and business news in the region. Derek Montague is a Halifax-based reporter for Huddle. There will be no Saturday Huddle Christmas Day. Happy holidays everyone.
There I was standing outside the Superstore on Friday night with a cart full of groceries, waiting 30 minutes for a cab that would take me to my destination just five minutes away. Finally, I lose my patience and call the cab company back, wondering if a car is on the way.
Nope, not even close. The dispatcher says they are backed up tonight and a taxi hasn’t even been assigned to me yet!
When I ask how much longer it would take because I’ve already been waiting 30 minutes, I got the response that convinced me to re-add the Uber app to my phone: “Other people have been waiting longer than you.”
I sarcastically thanked the dispatcher for the wonderful customer service and hung up. I then got my roommates to give me a lift home. I’ve only used Uber ever since and have had no customer service problems or long wait times.
It’s been an entire year since Uber launched its ridesharing app in Halifax, and it’s amazing to witness how the taxi industry hasn’t upped its game to compete and stay relevant. It is clear the industry is stuck in its ways and is unable or unwilling to change, despite the fact there is a more customer-friendly option on the streets.
Related: Uber Starts Its Ridesharing Service In Halifax
To be fair, it’s my own fault I waited so long for a taxi last Friday. For nearly a year, I had the Uber app on my phone. But then I clumsily broke my phone and, instead of simply putting the app on my second device, I decided to give the local cab company another go.
I had several trips with no hassle until Friday night.
This is what cab companies don’t seem to realize: all it takes is one bad customer service experience to lose a patron for good. Every other industry where competition is the norm has understood this for eons. But, for most of its existence, the taxi industry was protected from competition. It’s very obvious that a sense of arrogance took hold.
I moved to the great city of Halifax in 2018 and have always relied on public transit and taxis to get around. I’m a nervous driver, you don’t want me on the road, trust me.
It didn’t take long to become frustrated with the lack of competition for ride services. I couldn’t choose another taxi company after bad experiences because only one was really set up in my area. And boy did I have some bad experiences.
I’ll never forget one trip in 2019 where I got a cab from the grocery store. The fare came to $7.50 and I told the driver I would be paying with debit. Right away he huffed about the fact I wasn’t paying with cash.
Then all hell broke loose: For some reason either my card or his machine wasn’t working properly, and he started yelling and screaming and swearing at me. At one point he even took out his phone and said he was going to call the cops on me.
Years from now, historians and philosophers will debate what law this man thought I broke. I mean, I was TRYING to pay the $7.50, damn it!
Anyways, I called his bluff and told him to call the police. Eventually, I called the dispatcher and held the phone up so she could hear me being berated by one of their drivers. She was apologetic and told me this would be taken care of.
Eventually, I got the card to work, and for a few days afterward, I attempted to call the cab company’s management to leave a complaint. To no one’s surprise, they didn’t think this incident was worthy of a phone call to me.
The worst part about this incident is, in 2019, there was no Uber for me to go to (I feel for other Maritime cities that don’t have ride-sharing services yet). There were times I still had to give this company, with its horrible customer service, my money.
There were more annoying incidents after that one as well: times where a driver refused to take debit for some reason and made me withdraw money from a store (Imagine going to a restaurant and a server says to you, “Actually I’m one of the few servers who refuses to take debit. You, the customer, MUST find me cash, wherever that might be!). This nonsense wouldn’t be tolerated in any other industry.
Then there was a time when I waited 40 mins for a cab. When I called the dispatcher to find out what was happening, I was told the driver simply decided not to pick me up. Why? He thought my apartment building’s driveway was too beat up. So instead of doing the sane thing, which was to call me and ask me to meet him out front, he decided to just cancel my cab and have no one tell me.
If you think it’s not fair that I’m casting the Halifax cab industry in a bad light, think again. I’m among the vast majority. In 2019 the HRM did a city-wide survey on the state of the industry. A whopping 88 percent of people said they wanted ridesharing. 68 percent said they were displeased with the level of service they get from taxis. My God those are awful, awful numbers.
It is no wonder there wasn’t a huge fight to stop Uber from coming to Halifax (comparatively speaking).
With that being said, the debate is still raging about ridesharing in other Maritime cities, with as yet no new bylaws to allow them to operate. There are still some old-school defenders of the taxi companies, especially on municipal councils, who feel ridesharing will decimate the industry.
Yet, they don’t seem to realize that the admission that taxis can’t handle the competition is a sign the industry is deeply flawed.
And here is the most ironic part; you’re not saving much money from using Uber rather than a taxi (in my experience). Most Uber rides I get might only be only 50 cents cheaper than a cab. But the service is exemplary.
I’ve never had a reason to give an Uber driver less than a five-star rating. I’ve never waited more than 15 minutes for a car – most of the time it takes around five minutes to arrive.
Best of all, there is no hassling with debit machines that causes a driver to try and call the cops on you. With Uber, they tell you ahead of time how much the ride will be and you pay through the app in advance.
That sure beats the severely outdated meter system cabs still use for some ungodly reason. The meter system causes uncertainty with customers as they are buying a service before they know how much it costs. (Again, I can think of few goods or services where this is the norm).
And, of course, we’ve all had at least one cab driver who took “the long route” to make the trip cost more. By using an app as Uber does, it benefits everyone to make the trip as quick as possible.
So, if the cab industry is in jeopardy because of ridesharing, it has nothing to blame but itself. Why didn’t cabs jump on new technology to get rid of things like the meter system? Why continue to operate the same way as decades before?
It may be too late now, at least for me. I’m not waiting around to find out the answers to these questions anymore – any more than I’m waiting around for one of their cabs.
Feedback? E-mail Derek: [email protected]