Just a couple of days back, the Noida DND Flyway, which is one of the fastest ways to commute between Delhi and Noida, announced a toll hike of INR 2 for four wheelers, which in figures is INR 22 from INR 20 previously and INR 1 for two wheelers.
Now this is not the first ever toll hike in recent years, but what is interesting about this hike is the purpose with which it has been done. For people who are new to the entire thing, let me give a little introduction on the numbers:
According to a news report by the Times of India, in February 2011, almost 1 lakh vehicles use the DND Flyway daily. I am myself a daily user of the DND Flyway and I see a fairly large number of four wheelers using the DND Flyway on a daily basis.
I asked this question (why did DND Flyway increase the toll) to many people before this blog and almost everyone responded with an obvious answer, to increase their revenue. Now that’s obvious.
User Behavior and Revenue – penny saved is a penny earned
Lets look at the picture from a user behavior perspective! If you are using the toll plaza, you obviously are wanting to save on time and that’s why you are ready to invest money into crossing the toll, otherwise you are always free to use the kalindi kunj, Yamuna flyover, which is generally jammed during rush hours. Having INR 2 in your pocket each time you pass the toll plaza will sooner than later, become a frustrating activity. You cannot always keep looking for change and hence spend more time doing what you were initially doing to save time for.
Chances are, you will one day reach out and get yourself a silver/ gold card made, which will make your commute far simpler and easier. The cards will do couple of things:
- Ensure that the Toll plaza confirm revenue at the first level of transaction itself
- Reduce ground staff in terms of the actual toll management personnel and invest into better resources probably
- Get correct data figures which help in strategic decision making
All of this, by simply playing with the user behavior. This is an interesting case which pretty much reflects, how powerful can real customer understanding can be. If you understand your customer amazingly well, you will always be able to visit and re-visit and engage your customer just the right way.
User behavior understanding and knowledge of the customer has led to making of brands like Apple and the amazing products that people take pride in owning today. Get the lesson straight, its about your customer and how well you know him/ her, so get this piece right and you will be on your way to a great business!
*The post was originally published on paritoshsharma.com and the author is republishing it here.
Sahil Baghla
Beautiful. Cheers 🙂