There are times when it’s a lot more convenient getting to certain places with a cab instead of driving. Although there are several options in Lagos, the most preferred remain Uber and Taxify. It’s no longer news that Uber has its own fair share of issues, but Taxify appears to be worse from my own experience. It got so bad I had to delete their app from my phone and I’ve never looked back.
Customer Support
I wrote a post here last year about an app Uber drivers were using to scam customers, inflating fares and making customers pay more they should. This went on for a while but it seems it’s now under control because I haven’t had this issue over the last couple of months.
When this was happening, I was able to get refunds on several occasions without much trouble. Sometimes, it was even instantaneous. This great support system is one of the best things about Uber. From my experience, no issue goes unaddressed and the response time is always great.
Taxify, on the other hand, has the worst customer support I’ve ever seen from any company. It’s so terrible that you might not even get a reply to your complaint even after 3 weeks. There was a particular incident I reported. I was charged almost ₦8,000 for a trip that normally would normally cost just about ₦3,500. There was absolutely no surge, even the driver confirmed there was no surge at the time of my request when I asked him why the fare was so high.
I paid the amount and reported to Taxify. There was no reply for almost a month. I had even forgotten about the incident when I saw a message from them asking me to explain what happened, my pickup point and everything. I simply uninstalled the app out of anger.
Drivers’ Professionalism
I’ve come to realize that Taxify drivers may not be given proper training before starting the job. When you request a cab using the Taxify app, it’s almost certain you’re going to have issues with the driver.
First, most of them have this annoying habit of asking you to pay cash even when you choose to pay with your card. This is almost guaranteed to happen and some go as far as asking to cancel the request and make another one, selecting to pay cash instead.
On a particular trip, the Taxify driver took my wife from her destination and dropped her off in the middle of the trip, ending it and complaining that he needed a cash trip because he had to buy fuel.
Driver’s professionalism is another reason why Taxify is much worse than Uber. Although things like this also happen with Uber, it relatively minimal compared with Taxify.
But who knows, this drivers’ behavior could be as a result of Taxify not treating the drivers well.
Conclusion
Although Uber isn’t perfect, it’s still a much better alternative. The customer support is a lot better and the drivers appear to be more professional. No, I’m not saying I haven’t had terrible experiences with Uber drivers too, but Taxify has a lot of issues to fix. They need to properly train their drivers, swiftly attend to customers’ complaints and give their customers a better app. I even disliked the app when I still had it.