Zoom self drive cars Bangalore-Experience and Feedback

Updated Sep 28th, 2013:
Zoom fleet now includes BMW 320d, Scorpio 8 seater, Vento trendline petrol automatic and Mahindra E20. They also have refined the process a lot since inception.


Updated May 15th: Rented a Scorpio again from Zoom. This time the process was relatively better.
 
Updated April 21st: I've received an official email from Zoom's co founder Greg Moran, clarifying on some of the points mentioned here. I've updated the post with his comments under corresponding sections.

--------------- Original Post -------------------------------------

Zoom cars is a relatively new entrant to self drive car business scene in India and with innovative strategies, they’ve already gained good reputation and popularity. This post is my review of their service, as experienced during my recent self drive booking.

Self drive rentals in India is not a happy scene. Established players like Avis, Hertz, Autoriders etc continue to reduce their self drive fleet and focus more on corporate customers. They don’t find giving out cars to individuals lucrative enough. There’re many private players who rent out regular white board cars. Both have their pros and cons. My previous articles on self drive: Kannada article in Vijaya Next * Self drive in India

I came to know about Zoomcar.in recently. [I don't own a car and keep an eye open for nice cars that I can rent]. Unlike other car rental agencies with a traditional website which hardly had any functionality, Zoom car website was very informative and interactive. It had actual photos of the car, showed its current location on map, showed its availability by the hour and so on. This, coupled with the options of new cars at low rentals, prompted me to try them out- rent a car and go somewhere, even if I had no particular travel plan as such. [We went to Kokkare Bellur and other places around Bangalore]

Unlike any other agency in India, Zoom car offers rentals by hour and also pays for fuel (Conditions apply). There’s a per km charge once you exceed pre-defined limit. This works out very well for short trips, but be sure to do your calculations before long trips. [Per km diesel cost will be Rs 3 for Figo assuming 16kmpl]

Zoom car Bangalore- current self drive rentals

Vehicle: Ford Figo ZXi (2013): 7 brand new Figos are there in their fleet: Rs 199 per hour or Rs 1999 per day. Rs 8 per km after initial 200 kms, fuel expenses reimbursed

Vehicle: Mahindra Scorpio LX (2013): 3 cars: Rs 249 per hour or Rs 2499 per day. Rs 12 per km after initial 200 kms, fuel expenses reimbursed

Other than Zoom, no other agencies in India pays for fuel. They (all companies other than Zoom) give full tank and expect us to return full tank. Few of them unlimited KM offer if rented for 3 days or more and usually enforce a per day usage limit of 150-350kms beyond which a per km charge is levied.

2 Zoom Figo Zxi s at their pickup point

Good things about Zoomcars

1. A very responsive, functional and interactive web page

2. Equally brilliant app for mobile devices

3. Rent by hours- All other players rent out for one day minimum, while with Zoom, you can rent a car for couple of hours- when you need it for a quick visit or airport pickup or other short term activities

4. Latest cars. Though the options are limited to Figo and Scorpio, cars are pretty new

5. Very responsive customer care. On a Sunday morning when I called them, they attended the call and also called back promptly at times

My experience with Zoom cars self drive experience

Booking self drive car in Bangalore with Zoom cars: Booking was smooth. Except that the website was not accepting non-Karnataka addresses for billing. Customer care asked me to enter a tentative address in Bangalore, since their site is not yet integrated with payment gateway.

Update: Zoom Official Response: This should hopefully be fully in place within the very near future. We understand that this is a minor nuisance in this interim period.  At least this workaround was effective.  On the payment gateway front, we expect it will be completed in the next 10 days (we had a slight regulatory delay, but now it's all squared away).  

There was no cancellation fee and I could modify the booking as needed. 
Update: Zoom Official Response: Full fee will be charged if cancelled within 24 hours

However, the modification couldn't be done online- the site didn't allow me to extend the booking saying I can do so only after my booking commenced. This meant I either had to cancel the booking and make fresh booking OR take delivery of the car and then request an extension OR call customer care to extend.
Update: Zoom Official Response: This will be taken care soon (extending the booking online)

Taking delivery of the car: The location shown on map and actual locations were some 3-4kms apart. I didn't know the short cut that connects Malleshwaram to Brigate gateway Rajaji Nagar. I went to Orion Mall first- no one there knew about Zoom cars. After couple of phone calls, I took an exit near Brigade school and reached Zoom car pickup point which was a small counter near the compound. Anyway, this is a one off experience. Now I know how to go there easily.

Update: Zoom Official Response: we've actually since fixed this bug.  The issue was that the 3 new Figos that we had added that week we're entered with a latitude/longitude error (address was correct, but map was showing a different location).  This has since been remedied.  Apologies for the inconvenience here. 

Paper work was minimal- no swiping credit card to block the amount, so giving physical documents for security, no cheques. Sign one paper and you're ready to zoom off.

The car: The car was clean, brand new with only 660kms on the odo. I was given all documents and briefed about the car. Fairly professional. Car had a proximity sensor which was good value add. It also had a GPS device, which was frequently screaming out that it is running on trial version of the software. I couldn't effectively use it. Click here to read the review of Ford Figo ZXi.

The return: I had booked till 4 PM, got it extended till 8PM. At 2PM, we were done with whatever we had planned to visit. I called Zoom customer care from Kanakapura to ask if there's any penalty if I return early. I was told there's no penalty. Eventually I returned to Bangalore and reached Brigade Gateway by 4.10 PM. The counter was empty, (I guess because they weren't expecting any customer). I called the customer care and the fleet guys arrived in about 10 mins. But my invoice was for till 8 PM. I am fine with that since nothing extra was charged for excess kms.

Invoicing: Could have been better.I returned the car on Sunday 4.30 PM  and 24 hours since then I don’t have a clue how much they’d charge me. There’s a daily and hourly rent, per km charge, charges for damage if any etc. Monday afternoon I called their customer care to ask when can I expect the invoice. The staff said they are not aware of a timeline for this and offered to take a request if I need invoice urgently. I got my invoice on Tuesday evening. Invoice didn’t have a breakup of the total amount- daily rent, hourly rent, per km charge, charges for damages if any etc. This break up would have helped identifying if there’s any discrepancy.

 

The invoice had a link and I had to click on it to make payment. I made the payment next morning. As a customer I lose nothing if invoicing is delayed, but the business may suffer because not all customers will be that prompt. All businesses expect some payment in advance or block the amount on credit card to be safe. I was expecting something similar from Zoom. Otherwise customers may delay payments and Zoom team will have to spend lot of energy chasing people for money. I learn that Zoom is in the process of integrating payment gateway within the website, so above might be an interim arrangement, considering Zoom is only few months old. Also to be noted that Zoom might become vulnerable to anti social elements- rowdies taking the car out, using for illegal activities, not returning on time and threatening fleet guys if questioned. A person faced same situation in Chennai, sold off his self drive cars and returned to US. I hope zoom takes necessary precautions and performs well.

Other feedbacks and comments

• I made couple of comments at their blog, they’re not approved even after a week. I guess they’re not focusing much on blogs now. Another idea to improve the blogs will be to seek photos and travel experience from their customers- this will ensure steady source of fresh, personal contents and photos for the blog. Such customers can be given some discount for future booking.
• Update: Zoom Official Response: Our blog is being revamped and will be active soom
• Website doesn’t seem to remember user credentials properly. Despite asking the system to remember my details, I had to enter user name, password repeatedly to use the website
• I feel Zoom could have introduced some variations while buying new cars- All 7 Figos are ZXis and All 3 Scorpios are LX. Now I do understand that having same model makes it easy and cheap to maintain, but I am sure customers will enjoy having more options at their disposal. If I am to buy 10 cars, I would have bought different cars and different models. Couple of Figo titaniums, which have airbag and other additional features- if added- could have excited some customers who wouldn’t mind paying a few rupees more in rental for these extra features. Scorpio automatic would have been useful to those not familiar with manual transmission. Basic variant- Figo EXi can save some money. One ford Classic and One Fiesta would have given more choice to people. But again, this is my personal preference. I am sure Zoom people had their own rationale for choosing the cars they’ve chosen. I read they’d soon seek funding to introduce more cars to the fleet and I am eagerly waiting.
• Need to have a better pickup/delivery place. The current pickup place behind Brigade Gateway/Orion Mall near Rajaji nagar is a small counter and some open space. May not be convenient during rains. Zoom should consider moving to a better place where customers can sit and wait for sometime if required, have some space to park their bikes may be and other amenities. Of course, this will cost money and may take time. I am only suggesting this as future action, not demanding it immediately.
• Website has US server timings. Will be good if it can show Indian time for bookings made etc
• Update: Zoom Official Response: This will be taken care soon 
• Return date calendar can be automated to show days after pickup date. I.e. if I select 10 july as pickup date, return date calendar popup can have all days upto 10th July disabled and show July 2013 by default.
• I feel instead of paying for fuel, better to give cash discount and let customer pay for fuel. This is because, in current model a user has no motive to save fuel by driving economically. He may use full AC when not necessary, might drive at speeds that may not give optimal efficiency and so on. 

Also read: An article on Zoom by yourstory.in

Monkey jumping off Zoom Figo

Will I rent from Zoomcar again? Yes, definitely. Have booked the Scorpio next for a day.

Zoom also planning to introduce Mahindra e20, BMW 3 series, X1 and other models soon.

Also watch out for their weekday offer.

You may also wish to read my articles on why renting a car is better than buying * Read this before buying an SUV * SUV purchase- Financial calculations * Chennai-Mysore in Skoda * 

If you're registering at their website http://www.zoomcar.in please use the referral code X9PDcd