Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with the company. Having used the service once and discussing with the driver, I decided to share so that people would be aware.
Pamdrive is a taxi booking service that simply put is modeled in the image of Uber. Came across their billboard at GRA junction in Port Harcourt and decided to try the service and it was great. For a driver to qualify to leverage on the service, the car should be brand new (Car I used was a 2014 Kia Optima), have functioning ACs. There offer a category of car services you can request for which include Comfort Category and Executive Category. The comfort category has a base rate of N300, N80 per Km and N7 per minute of waiting time while the Executive Category has a base rate of N450, N120 per km and N15 per minute of waiting time.
The drivers get to make 85% of the fare while PamDrive gets 15%.
As at the time of using the service which was in August, payment method was via cash.
All this lowkey Uber competitors…I wish them luck, a wall partition separates my cubicle from Swiftley and even Uber is in the same building, I wish them all luck.
Swiftley even looks better. I will upload a screenshot of the UI of Pamdrive for you to see.
I was telling the driver that day that their penetration is poor and if Uber decides to launch in PH tomorrow, they would join the graveyard of Taxi Companies that have tried to set up their business in Port Harcourt.
At the time of writing this there were only 4 vehicles showing up on their app as available.
I observe.
@lordbanks Please am very interested in the drinks
They are now getting plenty, apparently the strategy is to launch in areas Uber doesnt exist currently, problem is once Uber feels it has saturated a region enough it comes with bigger PR to each launch state and marketing to such areas. But hey the Country is a Large place.
Question, how Fast and effective can u lock down your city? Do you have a proper Dominant Strategy that includes Fast and simple iteration of ideas and big launches via PR and above board marketing then returns to scale for operations to go head to head when they arrive, which they surely will?
Nna those Swiftley people smh, from their website looking at the UI/UX its obvious they borrowed from Uber, which is funny, its more like a Uberclone, no differentiation which brings to the Question, wats the USP?
My thoughts exactly. They want to harness a pool of 300 drivers but their penetration is low. I know they do have air time on the radio here but from what I see, it’s still not effective.
Anyways not my area of expertise but I would really love for them to succeed before Uber comes that is if they will come to PH.
So, a few weeks back I asked about an Uber like service in PH here on radar Reliable Uber-like service in Port Harcourt?
Yesterday, I got around to trying out Pamdrive, which was one of the recommendations i got. On entering PH, it’s obvious that they are the current big dogs in the taxi hire business. They have bill boards all over the place.
Their app is an piece of shit though, and I eventually just gave up and called one of the numbers they offer.
No queueing system for calls as far as I could tell. The first number came back with a “this number is on another call” response but someone picked up on d second number and I was able to make my order. I was told the taxi would be with me within 20 mins and I would get a call from the driver.
<5 mins later, the driver called n told me he’ll be there in 7 mins. 13 mins later, he arrived and we were off. The car was neat enough and air-conditioned. The fare was comparable to regular PH taxi, albeit in a more comfortable ride and no need to hassle over price for 5 minutes before starting the journey.
The figures OP gave are a bit different now. It’s 350 starting fee, 100 per km and 10 per minute while stationary.
At the end, I had a really favourable experience with the ride and would probably use them again while in PH. The app is utterly horrendous though and should be chucked in a bin somewhere and set on fire for good measure. Also, a single number that would smartly route to any available line would be much better than having multiple numbers IMO.
Great start and wish them all the best.
Edit composed just before radar went down :
On second though, maybe I was being a bit too critical about the app, but Uber has already established a gold standard in car hire apps, so it’s hard to be patient with any other solution that falls short of this. That’s my one and only major criticism to an otherwise fine service.
Oh and on the question of their popularity, the driver seemed to think that it was a really good deal, and he got another ride before even finishing mine. Thats either a testament to their popularity or lack of adequate drivers. Depends on how cynical one wants to be I guess.
@muyiscoi, Thanks very much for your wonderful and honest feedback about PamDrive about a month ago, we also want to thank you for riding on PamDrive platform.
About Uber, Uber came into Nigeria sometime in June 2014, and they stayed low until they finished up their internal arrangement and then started getting popularity in Nigeria, it was wasn’t until 2015 that they were on the news even though they are already on world stage.
Now we are just a start up in Nigeria, barely 7 months in the system, basically no company get a lot of popularity, partnership and etc after not less than a year.
We actually need feedback like yours to fly, and we are working very hard to place things the right place.
We have improved our services and service quality and still working to improve what we do.
I believe that in the future, we will be strong and be one of the best here as regard transportation and taxi business.
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