'Mapping innovations' contribute to improved riding experience, lower calls per ride: Ola

Indian online transportation network company Ola has claimed that it's "Snap to Pickup point" as a first-of-its-kind innovation that suggests pickup point's based your past usage.

It said that it is especially useful when booking from high rises or areas where connectivity is poor.

The Ola app automatically snaps to the pickup location calibrated from your past rides depending on where you booked from or where you exactly boarded your cab. With "Share Directions", you can let your Ola driver know specific information like your block number in a gated society, Ola claimed in a statement.

Each of these innovations has helped in creating a seamless experience of Ola drivers and customers alike. Drivers don't have to call customers to get specific directions, even after arriving at the pickup location. In fact, drivers have been made aware of this feature so that they don't have to call customers until there is a dire need to do so.

The statement says about six months ago, Ola quietly piloted a feature called 'Hotspots' on its app, which automatically checked if the customer was in a public place like a mall or an airport. It then suggested the closest hotspot that showed the user the nearest point in that public space to board their Ola. What it did at the backend, was pinpoint to the driver, where exactly to show up even within such a complicated place with so many gates and exits, without having to call the customer. By September, Ola publicly shared the launch of this and a host of innovations like 'Snap to Historic Pickup' and 'Share Directions'.

Exotel, a cloud telephony company, which handles Ola's calls made to and from customers through the app confirms the impact of these innovations. Shivakumar Ganesan, Co-founder and CEO of Exotel, said: "Ola places massive emphasis on customer experience in every ride. Optimising the number of phone calls between the customer and driver plays an important role in making this possible. With Exotel, Ola has been able to map these calls and build solutions to eliminate these instances. Over the last couple of quarters, we have seen a reduction in the number of calls per ride and this, we believe, is due to their better use of technology and mapping innovations."

Bhaskar Yadav, a driver who bought his Mahindra car and joined the Ola platform recently, said, "We have been trained on using new features, which show exact pickup location of clients. So, when we go to the airport, we know which terminal and which entrance we should come to. There is no confusion."

Pranay Jivrajka, COO of Ola, said, "We are building technology innovations with an ear to the ground. Each of these innovations is extremely local and address pain points for consumers and drivers like never before. As a result, the experience gets superior by the day and brings in phenomenal efficiencies for everyone. Mapping and technology investments are critical for us to realise our mission of building mobility for a billion Indians.