Hypothetically, there is a data point that indicates that there are more Uber drop-offs at the airport than pick-ups from the airport. Why is this the case and what would you do within the product to change that?

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Hypothetically, there is a data point that indicates that there are more Uber drop-offs at the airport than pick-ups from the airport. Why is this the case and what would you do within the product to change that?

This was the second question asked to me in the process of an interview at a Health Tech company. My answer is below. You can also find the first question and my answer to it here https://www.productmanagementexercises.com/5423/what-product-you-currently-use-every-day-why-and-would-improve

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SaaSPM exUber · Answer 1 · 2021-02-21T05:52:06+0000

How big is the problem, and how bad?

Drop-off vs pick-up demand at the airport balanced? Pick-up demand could be less because some travelers opt for car rentals. Make assumption still have room to improve regardless
Ask for clarification on numbers, compare with point above to hypothesize scale of problem
Only drop-off no pick-up impacts drivers. They are much less efficient, leaving the airport without a match
If this becomes a known pattern, drivers will be reluctant to take on, or cancel airport drop-off trip, bad ripple effect

Reason why have the problem?

No place to wait for pick-up requests (collect driver feedback)
Too long until the pick-up request, aka not enough demands frequency (can validate metrics)
Small possibility that there are troughs and peaks during a day, where more flight arriving vs leaving
Unlikely due to competing rideshare services, who would face the same drop-off vs pick-up imbalance

Solution

Success criteria is both helping drivers and marketplace efficiency: reduce drivers leaving the airport empty ride, average time to match at the airport cannot be too high
Set up near-airport waiting area, or negotiate with the airport on waiting hubs
Let the driver know his place in the "wait for a pickup" queue
Provide drivers with flight arrival info to anticipate upcoming pickup demands, or even intelligent estimate on when their next pickup would be based on historical data + current driver queue
If driver waits for more than x min, when they actually get an airport pickup ride, apply promo of $y. X and Y amount is related to if the driver were to drive back empty ride until their next pick-up, expected loss of trip commission to Uber

Patikoo · Answer 2 · 2020-12-08T00:09:30+0000

Hypothetically, there is a data point that indicates that there are more Uber drop-offs at the airport than pick-ups from the airport. Why is this the case and what would you do within the product to change that?

For the purpose of this exercise, I will use the following framework / steps:

Describe the product,
Clarify the question
Situation Analysis
Possible Solution
Summary

1- Describe the product

Uber is a transportation company with an app that allows passengers to hail a ride and

drivers to charge fares and get paid. Uber links passengers with drivers using the Uber app.

Uber incentivizes drivers to pick up more fares in peak busy hours by paying more during

those times. This means that riders are charged more at busy times in order to help ensure

the needed number of drivers are available.

2- Clarification Questions

What metric are we talking about precisely? Is it usage related?

When did the drop first happen?

By pick-ups do you mean anytime a driver takes a rider?

To what extent the pick-up business dropped?

What are the types of ride and options that are concerned?

What percentage of the business dropped?

Did this key metric drop for a particular market / City?

Is the drop significant, outside of normal fluctuation?

Is the drop a sudden drop or a gradual drop?

Do we see similar drops in other areas of the city?

3- Situation Analysis

Here let’s draw the user journey and ask a series of questions to narrow the scope of the

problem and find which part of the funnel is facing the problem. Looking at the metrics at

different stages and conversions can give up insight on whether:

User attributes

- Is this fall in key metric seasonal? Has it happened before? Over what time frame

has this key metric fallen? Did we experience a similar drop last year?

- If this metric is usage related, is the metric going down a result of a recent app

redesign ? (user error)

- If this metric is usage related, did the passenger pick-up usage go down for ALL

ridesharing services, or was it just ours?

- Drivers revenue: are they making more money vs other apps ($ made per week) –

assumes competitor data is available.

- Commission: are we taking more cuts from drivers that made them want to quit?

- UX: do we have qualitative or quantitative info on driver’s experience driving with our

app?

Feature attributes:

By looking into the features attributes, we can determine if it’s an internal problem. We will

ask the following questions:

- Is the system properly assigning riders to drivers?

- Did this key metric drop on a specific platform (android, iOS..)?

- Which OS is the most affected?

- Feature launch or bugs, e.g. causing frequent app crashes in this area.

- Did we make changes to the app?

- Is there something wrong with the riders app?

- Can riders request a ride without problem?

- Was this drop in the metric related to problems of internet connectivity? DNS failure?

Data center down? if related to a specific market, did the ISPs go down?

- Is there an outage,e.g. related to load balancer in this city.

- Is the metric going down a result of the app misbehaving? (app error)

Funnel attributes

In order to find out if there is an issue with our funnel, I will investigate the potential factors.

We’ll question different metrics of the funnel (numbers related to acquisition, activation,

engagement, revenue, retention...) We will also PR headlines, competitor announcements,

demand volume, or news relevant to the environment, we can determine whether it's

external factors that are impacting our activities...

- How is the current demand, e.g. drivers move to other cities due to no business

here.?

- Was a policy change, e.g. end of an incentive program implemented recently?

- Did competitors recently launch their app in the city?

- Have we changed the pricing model for rides from the Airport recently?

- Is there something happening in the company exterior environment, e.g. flood, public

events, traffic congestion, or even government regulation?

- Was there a natural calamity that has caused this metric to go down?

- Is Uber facing a PR campaign, e.g. there might be a 'Delete Uber' campaign going on

in this city.

- Is there an event outside the company that triggers this situation Eg social unrest,

flight delays?

- Is the competition impacting our activity? Are they doing something specific,? e.g.

Lyft announced an incentive program in this city from that specific airport?

- Did competitors launch a new program (business model, better treatment, event with

better pay rate)

- Supply x Demand health – are there enough requests to keep drivers in the app?

Would look at the ratio of Drivers to Requests made over a period of time.

- Supplier: Drivers, Demand: Riders

- If this metric is usage related, did the flow from source/referrers (partners,) to a new

driver service change? If so, which one?

- Have the users gone to our competition? Is there a new competitor with a better

payment model for the drivers?

- Do we have a driver acquisition problem? What is the new driver recruitment rate in

the area?

- Is it an engagement problem causing the frequency of drivers becoming available to

ride in this city to drop?

- Are we facing a retention problem, where drivers are leaving the Uber platform at a

higher than normal rate?

4- Possible Solutions

- For issues with feature release causing the drop, I can work with eng to roll back the

change.

- For bugs, I can work with eng to push corresponding changes to fix.

- For Issues around incentive programs, I can work with the corresponding team to

resume or update the driver incentive program.

- If the issue is with demand, I can work with the biz team to offer discounts to riders to

attract more riders.

- If the issue is with government regulation, I can work with the government

relationship team and local government to find a solution, and keep drivers informed

of progress.

- if the issue is with competition, I need to come up with a strategy to address the

challenge, either through incentive policies, or through new features.

- If the issue is with PR, I will work with the PR team to mitigate, and keep our

drivers/riders informed of the progress.

5- Summary

In short, I will first determine whether the drop is seasonal? whether it's due to driver

acquisition, engagement or retention. and finally pinpoint the internal or external factors

causing the change, and propose changes accordingly.