In the age of social media, it’s the negative stories that get amplified while positive stories remain hidden from sight as happy customers seldom take to social media to express that ‘everything’s fine’. Ola Electric – a disruptor in the electric scooter space – found itself battling perception as complaints about poor service flooded social media outlets.
Like a market leader should, Ola Electric swung into action rapidly, with CEO Bhavish Aggarwal leading the charge to improve service quality and tighten loose ends.
Calling it HyperService, Mr. Aggarwal outlined a slew of measures, such as expanding the service network, training third party mechanics, cutting turnaround time and using AI to diagnose issues. And it seems to be working, as happy customers attest in this video shot by News Agency IANS outside an Ola service center in Kalyanpur, Lucknow.
As the video showcases, multiple Ola Electric customers talk about how their electric scooters have been working very well, and how some service issues are now being resolved quite expeditiously by Ola Electric. A happy customer is the best brand ambassador for a brand. And when real customers acknowledge the improvements in service quality, it’s a big step up for the brand, something that Bhavish Aggarwal and co can pat themselves on their backs, as a job well done.
Now, let’s dive a little deeper into the systemic changes that Ola Electric’s HyperService initiative brings to the table:
Expansion of service network
Ola Electric sells electric scooters by the truck load, and is 3 times bigger than its nearest competitor. The company’s service network was struggling to keep up with massive sales success, and this caused delays in service delivery. Like they say, things break when a start-up scales up rapidly, but start-ups become great when problems are acknowledged, and expeditiously fixed. This initiative is meant to fix just that.
By December this year, Ola Electric plans to double its service centers across India, from 500 currently to 1,000. This doubling of service capacity will be key to Ola Electric being able to fix and turnaround electric scooters landing up for service in a timely manner.
Training 3rd party mechanics
In the medium term spread over the next 14 months, Ola Electric is embarking on an ambitious training program for third party mechanics across India. The electric scooter giant will appoint, train, certify no less than 100,000 third party mechanics to service and repair Ola electric scooters.
This move is expected to conclude in December 2025, and will greatly reduce the load on Ola’s official service centers, and also make service and repair more accessible even in far flung areas. No matter where you live in India, there will be a mechanic trained to service your Ola Electric scooter thanks to this initiative.
1 Day Service Guarantee
Through the two measures outlined above, Ola Electric is confident that it can turn around scooters coming for regular service in just a day. Given the fact that a lot of delivery agents and bike taxi pilots working for online apps cannot do without their electric scooters, Ola is going a step forward by offering a back-up S1 scooter in cases where repairs take more than a day.
This should be particularly useful to those who depend on their Ola electric scooters to earn a living. Additionally, for those who can manage to live without their electric scooters until it’s fixed, Ola is offering a free cab service for customers who have opted for Ola Care+ while purchasing their scooters.
AI-powered remote diagnostics
Ola Electric has announced AI-powered remote diagnostics that will be form a part of the MoveOS5 update. It is meant to catch issues even before they occur by using big data to scan through the scooter’s vital functions, and reporting them to the company.
This will give the company a head start on issues its customers are facing, and also alert customers to potential issues before they flare up and make the scooter unusable.
Ola Electric will then deploy service personnel to its customers’ doorstep, providing quick and seamless resolution of problems. Think of it as preventive maintenance and quick resolution for issues even before they occur.
All these initiatives come under the HyperService umbrella, and are meant to make owning an Ola electric scooter a happy, rewarding and seamless experience.
Ola Electric is set to launch a game-changing electric motorcycle next year along with the Gen-3 S1 range of electric scooters, and a revolutionary new electric three wheeler. So confident is the company about its Gen 3 range of S1 electric scooters that it’s advanced the launch timeline to January 2025.
The same month is also expected to see the Ola Roadster electric motorcycle making its debut, opening a new chapter in the company’s electric vehicle journey. So, there’s a lot of exciting happening at Ola.
In the middle of all this, the service improvement measures will go a long way in making the company the first choice for those looking at cutting edge EVs. The HyperService initiative is now live, and the coming months will give us an idea about how effective the initiative has been. The start looks quite promising, and we hope that Ola Electric is able to scale up this up to a level where every customer is reached across the length and breadth of India.