An open letter to Divvy management team: I am one of your original users from July 2013 and I love it! Many days I find myself on four or more successful rides. My Divvy experience has been wonderful – up until the last few months.
For Divvy to work users have to believe that nearly 100% of the time they will be able to grab a bike - or drop a bike - with no issues. But the trend lately is that there are no bikes at some stations, and no empty spots at others. Having to look for an alternate station makes the model fall apart.
[ibimage==39640==Medium==none==self==ibimage_align-right]Part of your operations includes Divvy representatives attempting to solve this by going to stations and level balancing the bikes. This requires teams of workers loading up a van to drive bikes from full stations to empty stations. There is a cost to you for hiring people and vehicles to do this, and a hassle to the city with large vehicles double-parked in the streets. But what if you could ‘crowd source’ this to leverage independent bike transporters to do the shuttling for you?
You could copy the Uber or TaskRabbit model, finding people to ride a bike from one station to another for a fee, a credit, or even a badge. The Divvy app is great and already does the complicated features to support this. You just need to add functionality for users that will show them where bikes are, and where they need to go.
Start by using gamification as a motivator. Give points to users for accomplishing specific ‘Divvy missions’. With enough credits riders could earn t-shirts, special gold Divvy keys, or get invited to events; you may not need to pay anyone! Maybe you can reduce 10-15% of the shuttling you do today, which is REAL cost savings. The best part about this is you could even create a network of people who take pride in being on the leader board of Divvy-Runners. I could even see some folks using this as a workout. You could track their miles for them (.5 miles bike ride, .75 mile run between stations, 1 mile bike ride, etc.). Earn points while working out, seeing the city, and helping the Divvy community.
I am passionate about the success of Divvy in Chicago because of the benefit to all (reduced fuel use, less pollution, improved health of citizens, less street congestions, etc.), as well as the key benefit to me: my commute gets shorter, more fun, and healthier! But even more so, I am a big believer in the ‘sharing economy’ and want it to succeed. My business, Spare to Share, creates private sharing and collaboration groups within residential buildings, engaging people within closed, trusted groups through the sharing of skills, items, ideas and activities. We live and breathe collaborative consumption and really want to see Divvy thrive.
The Run-Divvy-Run workout will improve customer service, create more loyal and passionate Divvy users, engage the community, and save you money!
