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-   -   Will Zoom Car survive? I don't think so (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/street-experiences/226481-will-zoom-car-survive-i-dont-think-so-4.html)

They are close to or already bankrupt, Hertz in USA had filed bankruptcy during lockdown, I had good experience using their service. They had big parking lot in Boston Airport. When such big company which is there from quite long time, and in US lot of people use rentals can file bankruptcy, zoom car which has bad image for looting customers with various false reason like
no refund on extra fuel, charging for scratches which were there already, etc has already lost trust and not making any profit from long time.

I have had wonderful experiences with self-drive cars from Zoomcar. But they were back in 2016. Heard of people abusing their cars, which in India is not a surprise. Wish they can get back in the game. Will be difficult. We need good rental cars in the country. Otherwise we're in the net of unscrupulous cab mafia.

IMHO the self-drive industry in India is at a very nascent stage to write off any player already. The offerings, business models and the landscape itself was evolving over the past few years and I expect more exciting propositions from these players, COVID not withstanding.

Having said that, I have moved from an avid zoomcar user in the early days to a decided non-user few years back.

Back in 2014-2015, I recall the impeccable convenience and service Zoomcar offered. We used to hire Zoomcar for road trips every 3-4 months. Distinctly remember the incidence when during one of our trips (Bangalore-Gokarna), the Scorpio was robbed off its mobile device (they used to provide mobile phones along with the car for navigation & music), and when we reached out to the customer care, they only worried about our safety and ensured full support. Few of my friends too started using Zoomcar as well based on the experience of the trip.

Cut down to 2016, I had made a booking for a family outing, and 30 mins before the schedule, a zoomcar representative calls to inform that the booking is cancelled as they couldn't get the vehicle. It totally derailed our plans, and the representative could not do anything about it. Many emails and messages to Zoomcar went unanswered, and somehow I felt betrayed and decided to not use Zoomcar since then. Silver lining, the entire episode pushed me off the edge to buy my own car and couldn't have been happier.

It's so sad to see car rental companies going bankrupt. From 2016 to 2019, I have had about 10-12 bookings with them, and fortunately, I never had major troubles with them. No doubt their cars were poorly maintained, but somewhere, the customers are to be blamed for this who badly abuse the rental cars:Frustrati

It's so horrific to hear that they have defaulted on the refunds. Does any bhpian have any idea about other car rental companies? Are they issuing any refunds?

Myles
Mychoize
Revv
Avis

Having tried Zoomcar on multiple (10+) occasions, I never came out being happy dealing with zoomcar. The excuses they come up with are classic and scripted. Below are some pointers.

1. Last minute cancellations
2. Downgrades in the segment due to unavailability of cars ( Despite making a booking a month in advance)
3. Conveniently offers a full refund 1 day before your booking date stating the car booked has met with an accident and I either need to chose a diff car by paying extra or opt for a full refund.
4. Dirty cars at times! Dirty enough to catch a flu and allergies.
5. Pickup and drop at airports never happen on time. My wait time went upto 45 mins at times.
6. Automatic SUVs are probably a myth at Zoomcar. They call up one day before the booking date and say the car met with an accident. Same excuse for multiple scenarios.

On the positive side though, this one time I was allotted a 300 kms done Marazzo instead of the automatic XUV 500 I had booked.

All in all, I had forced myself to pick zoomcar despite the downsides purely because they were the better ones out of the worst.

While I am not very sure if Zoom can survive, it would be good if it can, so the waiting refunds are issued at some point, and there is also some competition present in the market.


I concur with your entire post. I have the exact same thoughts, experience and suggestions for ZoomCar or any other self drive rental.


For my first ever Zoomcar booking in late 2018, I had read up quite a bit on what to do when picking up the car. There were horror stories online about customers not paying much attention and therefore not marking damages correctly in the app, or just handing over the phone and letting the Zoomcar attendant select "all good" for all the damage related questions. And then Zoomcar later charging them for damages that pre-existed.

This was my pickup location:https://www.google.com/maps/place/Zo...8!4d73.7953268

The location was difficult to find even with the help of google maps. If you look at the pictures posted on google, it's an empty plot, the ground is not even leveled properly, a muddy & uneven nightmare in the rainy season. Also, there is hardly any light during night time - a lone bulb on top of the cabin. My pickup was at 10:30pm. After looking at the pictures of the pickup location online, I took an emergency torch from home and a few friends along to check the car completely and take photos and videos :D

It would be unwise to go to that location with family esp. at night time. Some folks may want to take an uber there with family, just hop in the zoomcar and drive off, however it did not look safe to me for women and family at night.


While I checked out the car and documented the evidence of prior damages - scratches/dents, the attendants there had zero interest in attending to us or explaining the documents in the car or offer other general help. There were like 8-10 documents present in the car, and in the app we had to mark each document to be present after checking. I had never seen many of those documents before, so it was difficult to ascertain which document was which. After I marked a bunch of those missing in the app and uploaded, the attendant finally came by and explained which document was which (confirmed all listed documents were actually present).

The car itself, a base variant Hexa, had done ~38K on the odo and was asking for service. The acceleration was poor but thankfully the suspension still had not yet been battered to end of life. Car was not clean (someone had made a trip to the beach) but wasn't as bad as rotting sandwiches stuffed in cup-holders.


I also agree that rather than opening 10 locations in a city with shoddy service everywhere, they should/could have concentrated at Airport + one or two more locations at max (in high booking zones), and deliver a first class service everywhere. The employees also need to be trained in customer service, and how to do a through checkup of their car after each ride, so abused cars are caught immediately.

In the US, I have rented with Hertz, National, Enterprise many a times. The service from all of them were in much higher league compared to Zoomcar (difference of night and day). I don't think Zoom can even come close to that level of service even in the next 10 years, if it survived Covid19.

To be successful in the long term, there has to be a laser sharp focus on the product quality and delivery, rather than blind expansion and burning VC funds and hoping for more investment and finally selling to a giant and cashing out.
It looks like the quality of service parameter is very low in the priority list for Zoomcar executive management.

Revenue crunch and negative customer feedback has definitely led to the downfall of ZoomCar. They cannot be completely blamed though, as they brought a completely new concept in India, which Indians had never used before. As already mentioned by many members, their fleet is old and ageing, and there are no backdoors left for revenue generation.

But one thing we cannot leave out is that the average Indian consumer does not respect rented commodities, be it anything, since they do not "own" it. Same happened with ZoomCar. Many of their vehicles were in the most mechanically horrible conditions possible. This affected the next user of that vehicle, and so on.

I do agree that it is the responsibility of ZoomCar to ensure that their fleet is mechanically sound, but as consumers, we should also learn to respect the vehicles, which sadly most people didn't.

Indians generally want all private companies to close down since they are looting public one way or another. Mobile companies are looting us, real estate companies are looting us, automobile companies are looting us, transport sector is looting us, airlines are looting us Reliance is evil..This despite enjoying some of the cheapest goods and services all over the world.

The anti company mindset is ingrained in our DNA. That is one reason it is so hard to do business in this country. All innovations will be nipped in bud by these anti entrepreneurship viewpoints.

Who is responsible for the poor condition of zoom rented vehicles? Are the people complaining about the cleanliness, cleaned their car themselves before returning? Why are companies like Bounce, Vogo etc all struggling? The biggest mistake Zoom cars did was start self rentals in a country who only knows how to complain but never took upon themselves to change the anti business attitude and vandalistic nature.

I feel it's pretty straightforward - Their existence simply depends whether funding continues or not.

It’s like any other “Startup” company that we have used in past 5-7 years. They all have sprung up due to massive amounts of funding and how long will they stay afloat depends more on whether funding continues, compared to the actual business model. Who knows how long your favourite ‘app’ A.K.A “Startup company” will stay alive or not. I may sound cynical and crude, buts what I feel.

I would like to digress a little here. The android era of smartphones gave an impetus to the online buying culture. Touch screen phones have now become the norm which was once a rarity. We got access to thousands of apps and the user actually explored the power of the smartphone. Things became more than just ‘connected’ and google knew where you are, what you are doing and etc.etc. During this time, the startup culture and business analytics started to address the problems that we face, through the introduction of ‘apps’. We had an app for every problem. Thus, were born apps for online Booking of cabs, buying clothes, phones, watches, electronics, books etc. to now - ride sharing, hauling office/home furniture via tempo, food delivery, self drive car rentals etc and the list continues. There is more emphasis now on giving a service or an experience, compared to giving you a product. If the ‘product’ today in itself, had more importance in terms of the physicality of it, the startup companies would have been manufacturing ‘products’ instead of providing services or experience. Basically what are these services or experiences they offer? It’s basically an “aggregation” of sorts. They’re addressing a problem by utilising what’s already present and ‘aggregating’ it to their platform. Voila, you have a startup company backed by funding and data analytics and tracking. Apologise if i sound harsh, again.

Coming back to Zoomcar, I have enjoyed my experience with zoomcar. They made possible something that I considered impossible in India - self drive car rentals. If today, I don’t feel like buying my own car, it’s because I have so many options to choose from - use self drive or hire a cab ( yes, I’m a millennial and live in a city). But, whenever I did Have a specific purpose to be met - to visit a remote location, travel at odd hours, attend to a family emergency, simply experience driving an electric vehicle, haul many people or luggage from the railway station - zoomcar was the answer. It’s the versatility that zoomcar offered that I was actually able to get the work done in terms of price, car and location.

Yes, I have had my share of negative experiences as well - biggest being dirty cars, I still feel the positives outweigh the negatives. After all, it’s a rental service and Unfortunately we don’t treat rental services very well. What goes around, comes around.

ABOUT ME.
I, and a couple of my friends, are avid users of Zoom Car. The modus operandi: self drive rentals serves well and safeguards us (and our female acquaintances) from some of the creepy / hostile / mannerless / misbehaving taxi-wallas.


THE GOOD.
For me, and my friends, nine out of ten times the Zoom Car experience that entails committed pickup and drop timeframe, vehicle condition and cleanliness, fuel or mid journey repair support, refunds or reimbursement processes, and so forth has been seamless.


THE BAD, AND THE UGLY.
Please note, we have had our share of issues and concerns: last minute car swaps / cancellation, handover of a dirty pit for an automobile where cup holders were put to use as ashtrays (more than the service provider, I was furious with the previous irresponsible user), etc.


LOCATIONS.
While I am based out of Mumbai and my usual requirement is a trip to the outskirts with friends and family, I have also used Zoom Car in Kolkata, Pune, Delhi and Chandigarh, to name a few.


LATEST EXPERIENCE.
I came across the thread some two weeks back and decided to try Zoom Car one more time. I am happy to state that expect the initial connectivity issues, which were resolved over a phone call, my experience turned out good, yet again.


CLOSURE.
I am as certain or uncertain of Zoom Car's future as I am of any other start up or new age ventures that are backed by cash rich partners or financial institutions without significant returns yet. On the sidelines, do I want them to survive? A definitive yes!

^ The last time I got a Zoom car the headlight was on the back seat and the pick up point was in a shady back alley. They accused me of causing some trim on the bumper to fall off. They charged me 2500 for it. It was an EcoSport and the charges were false. I was so swayed by the tone of the sardarji rep who gave me the car that I did not take a video of the car. And they used that against me.

Never use Zoomcar unless you want to lose money and get handed a broken car. Even a local driver with a car will cost less than a Zoomcar. This is a scam company of the highest order.

PS: see the rates you pay for a Zoomcar i10 in India vs. some premium car in Germany or France. Zoomcar is higher usually. And it still gives crap cars worthy of a junkyard.

Voted No.

I don't think they will survive for much longer, mainly because of how they treat their customers, apart from the point GTO mentioned.
I had this horrible experience with them a few years ago :

At the time I was living in Whitefield and I had my CAT center in a college in Bannerghatta, which was a good 40 KMs away. I hadn't purchased my car yet and didn't feel safe taking the Vespa all the way there with the pressure of CAT on my mind.
So I booked a Swift from Whitefield a night before at 10 PM IIRC. The test was in the afternoon next day, but for some reason I booked it a day prior. And boy, was a grateful to do that!
I reached the pickup point 15 mins earlier (it was in the same IT park as my office), and saw that the car wasn't available. I asked the attendant about it. Here's how the conversation went more or less:
A: "Sir, car is still not returned. I can't do anything. Cancel the booking"
Me: "Can you arrange the car from another location? Call your back-end office?"
A: "I won't do it. You call"
Pissed that I was, I still maintained my cool, thinking Zoomcar customer service would arrange an alternative. So I called the customer service.
CS: "Sir cancel the booking. We cannot do anything"
Me: "Can you provide an alternate car?"
There was a Figo and a City at the lot. So I asked the attendant if the Figo had a booking. It didn't. So I asked the CS again to reallocate the booking. Of course they didn't agree. After haranguing till midnight, they eventually found a Swift in some other location and I finally got the car at 12:30 AM.

That was it. I never booked another car from them. What did it for me was not the logistical issue, but the rude attitude of the attendant and unhelpful customer service. Had I booked the car the same as my CAT, I would have definitely missed it.

If you can't treat a customer politely, one who has already paid for the service, then there is no hope.

PS: I had also heard a couple of years ago that they struggled to give out salaries too. Don't know the authenticity of this grapevine though.

Has anything changed since last year

The last post on this thread is a year old

And now people are traveling almost on revenge tourism

I've been using Zoomcar regularly in BLR.

Cars are always clean. Some are a bit old but everything works. Some are in excellent condition too.

I don't know if Zoomcar will survive given how most customers treat their cars and how they're supposed to make a profit after that.

But as someone above said - I do hope they survive. I find them incredibly convenient and cheap.

I have been a user of ZoomCar - because I simply don't have any choice. All the other companies require online verification of Driving License and my RTO - a small town in Bengal - is not bothered with these things.
That being said, its always a pain trying to get to their cars. The locations are like treasure hunts. Often, one has to negotiate with suspicious guards in building societies as the 'fixer' is nowhere to be found. The cars are not clean too. Stinky even.
So do I want Zoomcar to survive. YES. Do i like them. NO!