I tried using Careem across borders — Here’s what happened.

This post is about what happened when I tried using Careem whilst travelling to Saudi Arabia. By no means is this a complaint, it is rather a ‘user story’ within the context of my overseas trip. Hopefully the Product and marketing/communications team at Careem can find something of use in here.

P.s. This is a long post so if you’d like to just read the part where I’ve made suggestions simply scroll towards the bottom and look for the section titled “Thoughts on improvements”

The Umrah email

It all started with the ‘Travelling for Umrah’ email from Careem that landed in my inbox. First of all, how on earth did they know I was planning a trip to Saudi? I’m pretty sure it was a coincidence but I must say the timing for the email was apt. As always, the email was nicely designed and all. The only problem was the prices for Makkah-Jeddah-Medina transfers were all hidden away in GIF. Sure, everyone loves a cute GIF but lets keep the important info front and center please? Honestly, I had to open that email so many times just to check the rates before finally realizing I should just take a screengrab and save it somewhere. Also, not sure if GIFs work perfectly with all browsers and mobiles OS.

Is Careem allowed to do airport transfers from the Hajj Terminal?

So after this email I decided I was going to use Careem to get a ride from the airport to Jeddah. However, at the last minute I was told by my travel agent that the Saudi authorities have disallowed the use of privately booked vehicles at the Jeddah Hajj terminal and that passengers must use vehicles booked via the travel agent. Not wanting to take a risk I asked the travel agent to pre-book a ride with the authorized transport provider and ditched the plan to use Careem.

With constant controversy surrounding ride hailing apps and companies like Uber running into trouble with local governments and still running illegally it sure would have been nice to know if Careem was operating legally in Saudi Arabia and was able to do airport transfers or not (specifically from the Hajj terminal). I’ve already had a not so pleasant experience with Uber at the Jeddah International airport in 2015 so you can imagine my reluctance.

Anyways, after a gruelling 13 hour layover in Dubai we reached Jeddah Hajj Terminal, only to find out that some of our bags were still in Dubai and had not reached Jeddah with us. With empty stomachs, very little sleep and our Ihrams on we were informed at Jeddah Hajj Terminal that we’d need to wait another 2 hours for out luggage to arrive from Dubai. So wait we did! True to their word 2 hours later our luggage had arrived. Next task: Find our pre-booked ride to Makkah.

Getting out of the airport we grabbed a few Mobily and Zain SIMs using 1 passport for 2 SIMs (this was a bad idea) and headed towards the designated waiting area for our car to pick us up. Luckily I knew enough Arabic to speak to the guy responsible for arranging our vehicle. He told me it would take 10 minutes for the car to arrive. So we sat down and waited in the hot humid weather, luggage in hand. After more than 15 minutes had passed I approached the Saudi guy again to inquire about my car. It seemed he had forgotten about us and then started calling the drivers. He connected with one of the drivers (Amjad) and said something to him in Arabic (I could tell he was unhappy). I offered to speak to Amjad directly but he wouldn’t let me. After another 5 minutes there was still no driver in sight.

At this time I decided to see if I could get a Careem, so I opened up the app and lo and behold the app said that no car was able to pick me up from this location. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a screenshot.

The Saudi guy told us to come with him and took us for a walk into the parking lot and then drove out his beat up Mercedes Benz and asked us to load up. Reluctantly, we sat inside and then he started driving. After about a few minutes of driving he stopped the car near a check post and waited for Amjad to arrive. Sure enough Amjad arrived a few minutes later and the Saudi gave him a good scolding. Amjad was visibly upset and he helped us load our stuff and on we went. Initially Amjad was driving a bit recklessly but after reminding him a few times that we don’t want to die he slowed down.

Careeming in Makkah

Post Friday prayers myself and brothers got out of Haram and ended up on Ajiyad street. We needed a ride to get back to our hotel. Standing the scorching heat at around 1pm whilst fasting we started approaching taxis. The quotes were just astonishing! Some asked for 100 Riyals, another asked for SAR 150. I think the cheapest quote was for SAR 50. This was absolutely ridiculous! I knew they were overcharging like crazy because our hotel was hardly a 5 minute ride. I asked my brother to wait and opened up the Careem app. Again I saw the dreaded screen.

Argghhh! why can’t you pick me up Careem?

There had to be something wrong, I’m smack in the middle of Makkah, why on earth can’t Careem get here? I was fasting, annoyed and under the blazing sun and my phone battery was about to die. Suddenly it dawned upon me that my location was switched off! Damn it, why didn’t I think of that before. Quickly I switched it on and sure enough I could see availability. But when I entered the drop off location I would get a message saying

“Sorry the location you are searching for does not exist in Dubai”

But I’m in Makkah! and my battery is about to die!! Stop messing around with me Careem! I thought to myself how do I change the location? Fumbling around I went into this menu.

There must be a way to change my city in Settings. Let’s see.

Okay this is weird. How do I change my city? Whilst I’m fumbling around my brother tells me “Screw it, lets just walk.” I tell him no, wait. I’m calling a Careem, just give me a few minutes. He says okay and asks me to hurry up.

My next best bet is the ‘Rates’ sub-menu. Aha! so there is a way to select my location. Here I change the location to Makkah and then return to the home page. Now it detects my location properly and when I enter the drop off location it shows availability of cars. Yes! I’m on to something here!

There has to be a catch!

I entered the drop off location to get a fare estimate and showed me SAR 15. Are you for reals Careem? SAR 15 when all other taxis are asking for a SAR 50–150. Is there a catch?

Thoughts going in my mind

• Will the driver pick us up and then demand an exorbitant amount of money under the table?
• Will the driver cancel the ride after he sees that we are at a tourist hotspot?
• Will the driver even be able to pick us up? Considering the police don’t seem to be allowing private cars to enter the area?

In addition my brother said there’s no way he’s going to charge SAR 15, it must be SAR 15 per person and he’s going to pick up other riders on the way. I said I’m pretty sure that’s not going to happen..let’s order the car and see what happens. So I tap ‘Yallah’ and a driver is assigned to us and is on the way with an ETA of about 12 minutes or so.

My phone is dying

At this point it is so hot that my phone tells me to switch it off! Plus the battery is running low too. I quickly get out of the direct sunlight and find myself a shade so that my phone cools down a bit.

The wait…

All I can do now is anxiously watch the captain on the map move closer to me. The ETA goes down to 9 minutes but then goes up again only to go back down. I’m nervous and my brothers are pressuring me to cancel the ride and walk instead. I tell them to be patient and wait. They poke fun of me saying that I probably get paid by Careem. After some more waiting, my brother has had it and he says he’s walking back to the hotel. I try to convince him by showing him that the driver is only 2 minutes away. We can see cars coming from a distance and notice that the police have set up a barricade. My brother tells me that the police won’t let the Careem car through because only authorized taxis are allowed to enter this area. So I suggest we walk up to meet our ride right before the barricade. My brother isn’t interested. The map still shows 1–2 minutes but it has been more than that. So I decide to call the driver, the phone rings and the captain answers.

Ana maafi kalaam engleezi

I ask him where he is (in English of course) and he tells me (in Arabic) that he can’t speak English!

WTH! Seriously? Not even enough to tell me where you are? What the hell do I do now? My brother is pissed now but since he knows a bit of Arabic I convince him to talk to the captain. After a very brief conversation with the captain my brother tells me he can’t understand what the captain is saying and that he probably can’t get through the police barricade. Crap! Now I’m super embarrassed. After all I forced everyone to wait for our ride and now it seems it’s not going to be able to reach us.

Careem stock?

Still not one to give up, I ask my brother for a little more more time. He is annoyed but reluctantly agrees. My eyes are on the road now and am frantically searching for our captain’s number plates. Wait! I think it’s here. Yes! our ride is here! Finally!

My brothers still think the fare is going to be a lot more than SAR 15 and my older brother sarcastically says, “Saad, if the total fare turns out to be less than SAR 25 I’ll buy Careem stock with my savings”. I have my fingers crossed and tell him “Just get in and if it’s more than SAR 15 I’ll pay for it”.

We get inside, the car is a nice clean Toyota Innova. My older brother tries to ask the captain in Arabic how much he will charge and he says he doesn’t know, and points towards the app suggesting it will be calculated automatically.

Take that, taxi monopoly!

We reach our destination and the fare is…low and behold…15 freaking Riyals! I step out of the vehicle like a champion, my brothers are amazed and almost can’t believe it. They can’t comprehend why Careem would charge SAR 15 for a ride that all the other taxis were charging SAR 50 for?

I explained to them that apps like Careem and Uber are disrupting the taxi monopolies and democratizing the ground transportation space and that it is companies like Careem that are laying down the future of transportation right before our very eyes. Needless to say everyone was super impressed, including myself!

I felt happy and sad at the same time. Happy because we got a comfortable, affordable ride and sad because it was really unfortunate to see the taxi cartel trying to profit off unsuspecting pilgrims that had traveled from afar to visit the Holy city during the month of Ramadan.

Huge thanks to Careem for getting us to our destination in a foreign land without ripping us off.

Thoughts on improvements

1. Language Barriers

At some point in time I got these two push notifications on my app. Unfortunately I couldn’t understand what they were about, since everything was in Arabic. Perhaps, include some English too like Uber does (third image)?

Also how does one communicate with captains in a different country if they don’t speak English? Perhaps allow users and captains to communicate via pre-written messages in English with Arabic translation e.g.

Pre-set messages from user

“Do you know the way to my location?” — هل تعرف الطريق الى موقعي؟

“Are you stuck in traffic” — هل عالقا في حركة المرور؟

Pre-set messages from captain

Sorry, I’m stuck in traffic. — آسف، أنا عالقة في حركة المرور

I can’t understand your location — لا أستطيع أن أفهم موقعك

This will provide a way for the user and Captain to communicate when they don’t understand each others language. I’m not sure how often this happens or how big of an issue this is but just my 5 cents.

2. Adding value to the launch screen

Instead of the big Careem logo set against the green background the app opening screen could convey important information for example,

• Is my location switched on?
• What is the current city I have selected?
• Is my WiFi / 3G switched on?

I hate it when I forget that my location is off and I have to seen the screens below. Which reminds me, what’s the difference between the two screens below? I’m assuming one of the screen shows up because the location is switched off and the other shows up when Careem actually does not operate at a specific location, right? But which one is which? A gentle reminder to switch on my location would be nice.

3. Explanation of all the different vehicle options

Since I have only used Careem in Pakistan, I was not familiar with BASMA and GO, AJRUH(local taxi) and KIDS in Saudi Arabia. It would have been nice to know what all these different options are in terms of how many passengers can fit in each option. I can see the rates in the Rates sub-menu but there’s no information about the number of passengers that can fit. This was important for me because I was travelling with family and children with strollers, baby seats et al.

4. City Selection

This was the most annoying thing. I struggled every time I wanted to select a location in a different city. For example, when trying to book a ride that would take me from Medina to Jeddah airport. Here’s what I saw,

Since locations outside of my current city were unsearchable I had to manually search on the map and pin the location. Not very user friendly I must say. I had to open up Google maps on a separate phone and find Jeddah Airport and then use my intuition to find the same on the Careem app. I don’t really understand why the search feature would limit a user to a specific city.

There’s more (coming soon)

UI/UX issues and Ideas

There are some more issues I came across while using the Careem app in Saudi Arabia and I’ll be writing about those as well as more ideas on how to improve the UI/UX to make it friendlier and easier to use.

Careeming in Medina

Watch out for another post about how I could not use Careem in Medina and the horrors of hailing a private taxi.

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