The recent years there is a lot of talk about micromobility and how it affects our lives in the city. This is not only a ground for city development, and a traffic solution, but also a new field for with business opportunities. The ramifications are such (abuse of public space, unregulated operations, increase in accidents) that certain cities try to control or ban overall the use of scooters, while bicycles and e-bikes remain a viable alternative.

Personally, I am not positive towards the solution of scooters for the improvement of mobility, not because of the vehicle itself, or the way it is managed. I believe that shared vehicles are the way to go, especially regarding reduction of idle time. We buy cars that we do not use most of the day, while certain areas (like touristic attractions) do no manage to adapt to surges of demand and supply. Anyway, I am not a transportation engineer, this is just my opinion. What I am mostly concerned about is the users, who are uneducated and reckless. For example, in the city I currently live, the mayor is thinking of banning their use overall and for several good reasons. For me the most important is that the users here don’t give a s*it about proper driving etiquette and survival. They run red lights, they crash into pedestrians, they “conquer” whichever space they can find and in the end they turn the solution into an new problem.

But enough with this “boomer” whining, don’t you think? The reason you came here is to read about customer service and feedback, am I right? So, let’s get to the point. Due to the geography of the city I live in, I have to move a lot across an almost straight line, in an area which is more or less flat. The trick is that I cannot park, or that I have to pay a lot for parking, while the traffic is horrible. Public transport is not punctual (and if a Greek complains about punctuality, imagine the how bad it is), as for taxis they are not always available, either due to limited supply or limited working hours. Therefore, the solution for me (how does not like scooters) is to get a rent an e-bike.

The rent bikes here are available through a taxi app (yep, they complement their core offer) and they are scattered around this area I mention, let’s say it is a promenade. I became instantly a fan of the service, as all I had to do was to locate a bike and unlock it with my mobile through the app. Once you unlocked the selected bike, you are charged with a certain amount plus a rate for every minute you keep the bike. Unfortunately, after 5-6 times that I used the service, I noticed that the bikes started showing deterioration defects almost every time. The first case was an almost flat tire, which If I knew better, I would have checked before unlocking the bike. There was no other bike there, so I continued with what I had, while mentioning the issue (through the comments in the app) when I locked the bike. The next time, I checked the tires and the battery. All good. However, 1 minute after I started the bike, the light stopped as well as the movement support. I forgot to say here, that those e-bikes are heavy as hell, making them nearly unusable without motor assistance. However, the charge on the app kept going. I stopped as soon as I found another e-bike and I switched. I mentioned again the issue on the app asking for a refund. I even tried to find a contact point to push to get the refund, because in the end, they did not deliver the agreed service, and they got double the start tariff. No feedback, no refund, no credit, nothing.

And there was the third time. Again, similar issue, without any support and this time with a wiggling handlebar. At this point I knew how to react and how I wanted to react. I instantly parked the bike, and took the verification photo needed to show that you parked it properly. So, along with the photo and the feedback comments for the issue, this time I gave them a nice finger, prominently visible in the verification photo.

You know what?

This time I got my money back.

Conclusion: We see every day that businesses choose to become faceless and to get away with shitty product, sometimes because they want to decrease costs of because they do not care at all. They do this through outsourcing of services, or by creating communication barriers (direct, by removing contact points like an email address or a phone number, or indirect by creating false contact points like AI assistants that make no sense at all). Furthermore, the incorporation of intermediaries removes liability, especially at the eyes of customers who want to do something but have no time. If we want to get what we pay for, we might have to leave the service forever, or escalate things. Even if you want to be cool and tolerant as a customer, it is our duty as active consumers to shake things a little bit from time to time and make them comply or go home.