DARE - Because Entrepreneurs Do

Hold on to your seats, because autos around the country are geared to take you for a ride of a different kind altogether. Business plans to better auto services are attracting more and more customers.

Entrepreneurs from different parts of the country have come up with unique ideas to make

this mode of public transport more accessible and customer-friendly. Customer experience and services seem to be the new buzzwords doing the rounds in several innovative auto rickshaw circles in some of the popular cities in India. After their first taste of success, the brains behind these talk about how they chanced upon the idea, the challenges to it and roadmaps ahead.

Read up in the Rick
Meter Down, India's first auto rickshaw magazine was launched in March 2010 by entrepreneurs Mulchand Dedhia, Ishan Mehta and Simi Sailopal in Mumbai. The 24-page monthly magazine was an instant hit among the localities, providing a wide array of topics from technology, entrepreneurship to music and lifestyle. The trio came up with the idea to exploit the potential of the auto rickshaw for brand-building after conducting a survey among 200 people in the city. This showed that majority of the people preferred spending their time reading while commuting (30 percent) as opposed to using the cellphone for texting, browsing, playing games or doing nothing at all. Placed immediately in front of the passengers' seat, in a shelf designed to catch the attention of the traveler, the magazine also gives the reader listings on the best movies and cafeterias in Bandra, Juhu and Lokhandwala. “People have responded well to sections like Below the Belt, What if in the magazine which centers around celebrities. They are spoofs to make them laugh,” says Ishan Mehta, Editor of Meter Down. It also has a section called Your Bazaar which allows people to buy and sell products. Other categories include entrepreneurs' and celebrity interviews, quirky quotes, hilarious networking messages and relationships. Apart from Ishan and Mulchand, the magazine has a team of seven to eight writers and seven distributors. The Meter Down shelf also gives opportunities to various brands to advertise themselves.

In response to whether they were sure their idea was going to be a success with an investment of `25,000, Ishan says, “When it’s a startup, you have a to-do list. There will be different things which will test your patience. You get apprehensive about everything but at the same time you work equally hard towards making it work.” The biggest challenge was to convince the auto rickshaw drivers to be a part of the venture. They were apprehensive about the idea. “Auto rickshaw drivers were used to seeing people put up their advertisements on the vehicles at night and not come back to pay them," says Ishan. We had to convince them that we are going to pay them a fixed amount every month if they let us put up the Meter Down shelf and the magazine in the auto rickshaw.” Meter Down team managed to start their venture in 500 auto rickshaws plying between Bandra and Goregaon. Their primary source of income is advertisements. The auto rickshaw drivers are in turn paid every month for carrying the magazines. Meter Down prints 3000 copies every month.

With regards to future plans, Meter Down team decided to play around with the magazine content. They hope to include feature articles which are light and can hold the attention of the rider over an average time period of a 20-minute ride. To make sure that the magazine is not taken by the customer, it is tied with a nylon cloth to the vehicle. Every shelf holds one magazine. The drivers are provided with additional five copies to replace the torn and worn out ones. Since the content has bigger fonts with ample spacing, one copy suffices for three customers. When asked about losses sustained, Ishan says it hardly occurs in five to seven percent of the cases, which comes down to 30-35 auto rickshaws.

Meter Down has been approached by people in Bhopal and New Delhi to expand services. For now, they say they want to expand to the central suburbs of Mumbai within the next six months and expand their customer base beyond 12 lakh. On whether they hope to launch the magazine in the local language, Ishan says, “Well, there are at least 20 colleges along the Bandra-Goregaon route, with students coming from management, engineering, and economics background. Almost 70 percent of the people in the area come from affluent families. So, they are pretty much well-versed in English. As of now, we have not given it much thought, but we might launch it in Hindi,” he adds.

Hello Auto
Dial-an-auto services in Pune is gaining ground by helping the auto rickshaw drivers increase the customer base by making themselves more accessible. All the customer has to do is dial a number and make a request to where he/she has to travel an hour in advance. The same information is provided to the nearest auto rickshaw via phone. Once the driver confirms, the customer receives an SMS which mentions the distance and fare chargeable along with driver and vehicle details. This venture, a brainchild of Janardhan Prasad and Mukesh Jha, IIT Kanpur graduates, helps both the auto rickshaw drivers and the customers in saving time as well as money. “We do not guarantee any kind of safety or security, but we do have a customer base which logs in all the details like license and other information and that can help,” says Janardhan. In a survey conducted, they found that most of the people complain of poor auto services because the auto rickshaw drivers charge an additional fee over the meter. Also, the drivers waste fuel in traveling around 30 kms everyday looking for customers. Dial-an-auto services becomes a meeting ground for both the parties and helps them equally. Although they do not have any tie-ups with any auto rickshaw unions they were able to gather a fleet of 400 vehicles by approaching them directly. “Gradually we started gaining ground as news spread by word of mouth,” says Janardhan.

Dial-an-auto is still in its pilot phase and Janardhan says the biggest challenge initially was to get auto rickshaws under their wing and acquire customers in the process as well. “We want to keep auto rickshaws mobile by trying alternative channels,” says Mukesh. “In the coming quarter we hope to do a valuation of this pilot project, and decide the terms and agreements of our venture.”

Currently, they operate from home and are operational from nine in the morning to nine in the evening. In the future, Dial-an-auto hopes to expand to other cities as tie-ups with some partners. They also hope to expand their fleet by a hundred every month. With regards to implementation of new technology in the rickshaws, Janardhan says, “We do not have any plans of installing GPS services, but we hope to come up with some kind of cell phone technology, the cost of which would come to less than 5000 per vehicle.” For now, they have 400 auto rickshaws under their wing.

G for Going Good
In another part of the country, in Ahmedabad, a young entrepreneur decided to bring about a 360-degree change in the way autos are being run. Along with providing services like Dial-an-auto, it also provides free newspapers and magazines, calling facility, mobile charging points, trash bins to its customers. Nirmal Kumar, an IIM Alumnus came up with the concept of G Autos (G for Gujarat) to change the way auto rickshaws function in the city. “They do not behave properly with customers, I came across such an experience. They charge extra over the meter. That is why customers have also become wary and suspicious about them,” says Nirmal Kumar, CEO of Nirmal Group which owns G Auto. G Auto services claim to be safe and reliable as the customer can contact the call centers any time with the information about the driver.

Now the auto rickshaw drivers, also known as G pilots, who are a part of auto rickshaw services initiated by Kumar are being trained to be proficient in Hindi and English so as to make them more hospitable and customer-friendly. G Autos have already started their courier service and pick and drop facilities for school children as well.

After its success in Ahmedabad, G Auto plans to expand to Vadodara with 250 rickshaws. On 15th August, it will expand to Surat and Rajkot as well with 250 rickshaws each. “We don't want tie-ups with anybody. Then the whole thing becomes very commercialized. The social concern of the venture is lost. We have already received proposals from many cities.”

Initially, the auto rickshaw drivers were reluctant to be a part of G Auto, but as more and more of them joined the group, others followed. They get benefits like an accident insurance and support for their children's education as well. “We never really had a major problem with starting up the business. We got tremendous support from the Government. They are opening a new office for us in Vadodara. It was just a matter of convincing the customers that they will not be cheated anymore.” As of now there are over 1500 registered auto rickshaws in the city.

Regarded even today as one of the most important modes of intra-city transport in the country, these out-of-the-box ideas not only help the auto rickshaw drivers retain their customer base, but also generate interest and induce a sense of novelty to the three-wheeled wonder. Such schemes may give way to newer ideas and services in the near future by way of which auto services can better themselves throughout the country.

Shrasha Mohanty