Part 2 of 3: Case Study. Part 3: Real Estate & Service Capacity. Part 1: On-Demand Economy.
Uber, Lyft, Airbnb, VRBO, Instacart, DoorDash, AmazonPrime, Soothe , Grubhub Tech, Postmates, Opendoor, Handy, Hotel Tonight, UrbanSitter, UberEATS, Netflix, Blue Apron
Part 2: Case Study
If you’re one of my coaching clients, it’s likely you’ve heard me talk about progression, iteration, and the commitment to change. It’s easy to say ‘my business is good or my business is running smoothly,’ however, innovation and progress only occurs when you are addicted and in continual pursuit of perfection. The purpose of this case study is to highlight how Uber & Lyft got to a frictionless consumer experience, then, provoke you to think about the experiences you’re providing to your clients and potential clients. As you’ll see, it took multiple new problems and solutions to finally end up at a place where you can count (yes, probably 95% of the time) on a fast, quality ride. As we think about our own businesses, we should embrace the journey of change and take pride in the building process.
So…Real Estate Professionals, how are you applying early stage on-demand economy learnings to your business? As you’ll see below, every early stage business starts out with a “10 Step Plan to Building a Successful Business.”, the good ones ‘start with a plan,’ pivot quickly, and throw their plan out the window. They listen to their customers, dream big, identify problems, and come up with solutions. They avoid complacency, excuses, and constantly challenge their teams to create a new “10 Step Plan.”
Case study. How did Uber & Lyft get to an average driver rating of 4.8 and a sub 3 minute average wait time? Lots of iterations to their business, a ton of data, new technology, and a never ending pursuit of excellence.
Step 1: Create a professional and consumer app.
Step 2: Get users to download it and find drivers to work from the app.
1st Challenge: The consumer demand was strong and they didn’t have enough drivers on the road. Passenger:Driver ratio was too high.
1st Solution: Recruit more drivers to improve passenger:driver ratio.
2nd Challenge: There were enough drivers on the road, however, there wasn’t equal distribution by neighborhood. Wait time was variable based on location.
2nd Solution: Improve the driver technology application & incentivize drivers to work an areas with longer wait times, often, reducing company split on transaction to maintain quality of service standard.
3rd Challenge: Passengers spoke, some of the rides were sub-optimal due to the driver. This business’ margins has a strong correlation to the lifetime value of the client; daily/weekly/monthly passenger LTV creates a high margin business.
3rd Solution: Introduce Customer Satisfaction Ratings (CSAT, 5-star) for both passengers and drivers, creating a sense of pride and accountability from both ends of the marketplace.
4th Challenge: Passengers weren’t always filling out the CSAT rating, making the data captured statistically insignificant.
4th Solution: Improve the passenger technology application. Force both passengers and drivers ‘to rate’ before accessing the next ride.
5th Challenge: Passengers spoke, some of the rides were sub-optimal due to the driver. The service wasn’t good enough!
5th Solution: Make CSAT score transparent to both the driver and the passenger to increase accountability and pride. Separately, introduce minimum CSAT standard to avoid being put on a probational period.
6th Challenge: The minimum CSAT standard was no longer good enough.
6th Solution: Raise the minimum CSAT standard!
I hope you found this case study to be useful and are already thinking about how you can improve your workflows, systems, and create unique CSAT data to improve the overall customer experience in your business. The world is evolving to a place where convenience, speed, accessibility, and service are expected, specifically with the Millennial generation. What’s going to happen when generation Z is old enough to have a point of view?
Part 3: Real Estate & Service Capacity (coming soon)
ABOUT US:
Grid Real Estate Consulting, formerly, the New Ventures team at Zillow. We’re independent, strategic real estate coaches.
Why we went independent: There’s a need in the industry to provide real estate professionals with an unbiased perspective, independent of brand affiliation. We’re here to collaborate, analyze, and give recommendations on how to improve your business.
Our past wins: We founded the 100 person Orange County Sales team from scratch and created one of the most successful and fastest grown teams in company history, working with tens of thousands of agents nationally. We went on to build the 285 person Premier Agent Concierge program from the ground up, working millions of leads annually.
Our expertise is in lead conversion, operations, workflows, and maximizing your profitability. We’d love to give you an objective perspective, independent of the brand you’re thinking about working with.
- Jon Boller, Co-Founder, Grid Consulting
- jon@gridconsulting.com
https://www.gridconsulting.com/contact/
