The Case of a Taxi Aggregator
This is a hypothetical case on a Problem solving exercise and any resemblance to a real life company is purely coincidental. :)
Problem solving is an inventive process which gets better with practice and conviction. This read is an attempt to give you a high level context of different perspectives to a business problem. The focus here is on Problem identification.
So, here’s a candidate being interviewed for OCaber — one of the biggest taxi aggregator service provider.
Interviewer: OCaber has lost their Play store ratings from 4.5 to 3.8 in a span of one month. You have been tasked to identify the possible problem areas. Assume that there have been no significant changes in the tech stack and no PR/marketing related issues with OCaber
Candidate: I am assuming that this scenario is around the current period just to keep a context on external factors. I am going to evaluate this from a geo perspective first. How is the drop across regions?
Tip: Always start at broad level first and then, narrow it down. The bird eye view differentiates smoke from the dust.
Interviewer: We have divided India into 4 broad regions: N, E, S, W.
- N: 4.2 to 3.6
- E: 4.6 to 3.9
- W: 4.5 to 3.9
- S: 4.5 to 3.6
Candidate: Ok. Looks like the drop in percentage is similar across regions with a little higher drop in the South region. Is there a difference in the type of markets between the 4 regions? I mean, how big are the metro and non-metro markets across all regions?
Tip: Actively picking up on aberrations is key to problem solving.
Interviewer: Well, you can assume that the Non-Metro market business share in south is 10–15% higher compared to other regions. We started our operations from south and have a higher penetration in Non-Metros there.
Candidate: Interesting. Prima facie, looks like the Non-metro market is affecting the ratings. I would like to deep dive into Metro and Non-Metro Split of ratings
Interviewer: The Non Metro ratings dropped from 4.3 to 3.2 while the Metro ratings dropped from 4.5 to 4.1
Candidate: Ok. So, the hypothesis of a higher drop in non-Metro market seems to be true. I would like to deep dive more into the customer perspective now. How has been the MOM (month on month) ride count been changing across categories in the Non-Metro markets? Would it be a good idea to categorize between Low, Mid and High end cars? How has been the movement in Intercity, Rentals and Normal rides?
Tip: Always State and approve / negate your hypothesis. It might look obvious but the flow of thoughts has to be articulated for an effective conversation
Interviewer: Well, we have Hatchbacks (H), Sedans (S) and XL cars as 3 broad car categories and the business is growing in all 3 categories after the improvement in the COVID situation and markets/offices opening up for business. Apparently we have good growth in all 3 segments despite a drop in ratings.
We see similar trends Intercity, Rentals and normal rides also. No red Flags.
Candidate: How has been the User engagement? I mean average distance traveled per Rider. There is a possibility that the new user growth might be obscuring the business continuity from existing users.
Interviewer: Again, we see a 10% growth at MOM and 32% growth at YOY levels in terms of business continuity metrics.
Tip: You might take a wrong turn. Gather yourself, conviction is your fuel
Candidate: Okay. Is there a drop in driver rating feedback that the customer shares. Since, the tech issue is already ruled out. The issue has to be at the business or product side.
How has been the ratings in Non-Metro markets for Driver feedback?
Interviewer: The ratings are fairly stable across markets, regions and categories.
Candidate: Even though you said there are no marketing / PR issues with OCaber. I have seen in the past that people get confused between apps — Snapchat and Snapdeal incident. Could there be a possibility that some entity related/sounding similar to OCaber might have faced a bad PR in the past?
Interviewer: Well, we have recently launched OEater in the non-metro markets after a decent run in the metro markets but the response has not been great since we are still working on market-specific challenges.
Candidate: Interesting. Can you tell me how has been the drop in OEater for non-metro markets?
Interviewer: Well, you have got it right. Many OCaber users downgraded the app because they wanted to give bad ratings for OEater because of similar logos and our holding company being the same. There was nothing fundamentally wrong with OCaber here!
Is there a way to structure or standardize problem-solving?
Every problem is different; there are some templates you can follow depending on the types of problem to get you acquainted with the process. But, problem solving in itself will require you to cut across frameworks and think seamlessly.
It actually boils down to your ability to work on multiple hypothesis and your experiential / scientific knowledge to approve / reject them. So, what do you do? Pick up an angle (Perspective / view), get a direction, hit it hard, break it down, look through the pieces and you might just find the solution. What if you don’t find it? Don’t be afraid to seek for a little help. :)
