Making Captain communication more engaging with InAppStory
Careem operates in over 70 cities across 10 countries, thanks to a substantial network of ride-hailing drivers and motorbike delivery riders, who are affectionately referred to as “Captains” to acknowledge their crucial role in our business. These Captains, working in various locations, speak a diverse range of languages and dialects. In addition to our core transportation services, our expansive reach extends to the “Everything App”, where customers can access a myriad of offerings, including food delivery, grocery shopping, and more. This broadens our engagement with both our Captains and users, reflecting the diverse and dynamic nature of the communities we serve.
To make sure our Captains stay in the loop and find our platform user-friendly, we focus on straightforward, timely, and personalised communication. We keep Captains updated on new product updates on the Careem Captain app, flash bonuses, safety tips, ways to boost their ratings, delivery instructions, and even weather forecasts. This kind of communication is crucial for creating a great experience for our customers.
Our challenge
Traditional communication channels such as in-app push notifications or SMS do the job of getting updates to our captains. But their text-heavy nature makes it challenging to retain reader interest, leading to low open and read rates amidst message volume, and technical reliability issues, such as network-related non-deliveries, which means Captains were not being notified on important updates thereby causing subpar experience.
Embracing emerging tech solutions
In line with our commitment to embracing emerging tech trends, Careem collaborated with InAppStory, a prominent mobile story format that utilises layouts reminiscent of popular social media apps like Instagram or Facebook stories. This partnership aims to enhance interaction and engagement with our Captains, fostering a sense of community through real-time updates and recognition.
One notable advantage of InAppStories is its capability to connect with our Captains in their preferred language. Careem Captains come from diverse linguistic backgrounds, including Arabic, Urdu, English, French, and Kurdish.
Through InAppStories, we actively ensure seamless day-to-day communication, different formats of content like videos, polls/Quizzes, gifs making it a crucial platform for sharing real-time incentives, highlighting new product features, conveying occasion-based greetings or announcements (such as festivals or concerts), communicating policy changes, and celebrating achievements.
How it came to life
A casual LinkedIn in-mail conversation between Dharanidharan Gopalakrishnan and Vlad Lastovsky has developed into a strategic partnership between Careem and InAppStories, enabling us to deliver crucial business updates to Captains in a more engaging format with a clear repository of past notifications—be it bonuses, the launch of new product features, or tutorial information.
Careem’s InAppStory is a very useful information channel. I can easily go back and see the content in case I couldn’t see it properly before. This used to happen a lot when I would get a message from Careem and couldn’t see it in detail if I was driving then. The Careem team sends us stories on safety, city events, how to improve ratings, and other important things that are very helpful.
Khizer Hayat, a Captain with over 5 years of experience at Careem
InAppStory platform capabilities
The advantages of the platform in providing innovative app solutions are substantial:
- Being in the medium of the users: Captains are highly familiar with popular social media apps and stories, conveying messages via this format enhanced relatability and comfort.
- Multimedia options: With diverse multimedia options like gifs, videos, audio, interactive polls, and emojified actions, the platform allows for variety and engaging content.
- Constant visibility: Stories remained readily available on the homepage, ensuring continuous access and visibility.
- Stronger engagement insights: The platform provided rich analytics on delivery, open rates, and completion rates, enabling Careem to tailor its communication strategy effectively.
Business outcomes
The adoption of InAppStory resulted in significant improvements for Careem:
- Engagement rates: A 2x growth in the engagement rate showcased that captains became more attuned to Careem’s updates and objectives.
The strategic decision to integrate emerging tech such as InAppStory within the Careem Captain App for disseminating information through stories proved to be a game-changer. It streamlined communication with the vast Captain community, bringing about a positive shift in crucial performance metrics and steering the company closer to its operational goals.
Check out another article from our Careem Engineering team here.
