June’s fares during peak hours, tbh with you, was still the same. I’m talking from the view of a cherry picker. As long as you are you in the right place and at the right time, the surge is still good. The only difference between now and before gojek, is those surge playgrounds are not able to hold their surge for long. Peak hours surge maybe 10mins, then crash. Then gojek will surge, basically they both keep taking turns because all the customers will book on the cheaper platform, surge only switch to the other platform.
This is what I learnt from cherry picking on both platforms that now I have a rather good understanding. When grab surges higher than gojek, there will still be some people who book grab. Reasons could anything like: tourists who don’t know any better, people claiming OT, gojek no driver accept and they need to get moving asap, loyal grab users, corporate accounts.
When gojek surges higher than grab during peak hours: NOBODY books gojek, I can tell you that for a fact right now from my exp of cherry picking on gj. You might have 1 or 2 bodoh tourist who do it, simply bcos their hotel staff tell them “gojek always cheaper” or at the very rare ulu places that there is not enough grab drivers. The app is totally silent when gojek surge is at its maximum. If you don’t believe me, whenever you receive a gojek booking, go and check grab’s price. 9.9/10 times you have business is because you’re the cheaper 1. There is no such thing as a loyal gojek customer.
So what happens when both companies surge prices are around the same during peak hours? People will book grab, why? Grab gives customer reward points and grab drivers more often than not, tend to arrive quicker.
Every now and then, I get customers who come into the car and tell me how exp grab is, I always tell them the same thing....out of 24 hours in a day, taxi surge 12 hours 6pm-6am. Grab surge timings is much lesser than that. If 24 hours no surge, which driver wanna work? If you don’t wanna pay surge, please go and wait at the taxi stand along with the rest, however long it might take you. You wanna skip the queue, you want somebody appear and take you home fast and you want cheap..got such thing ah?
There are those customers who wanna book grab to work cos cheap...book book book....cannot get driver, then grab surge...mai liao now I book gojek....book book book cannot get driver, then gojek surge...oh grab surge drop already...I book grab again...until finally really late for work...no choice pay surge...come inside car face black and ask you drive faster cos late for work...but in the first place you wanna be cheapo right? If got incentive drivers around the area you lucky la, driver accept. If all the incentive drivers got jobs already, either you suck it up and pay surge, or pls go to the main road and try to hail a taxi like the rest.