In a bid to ensure continuous access to mobility, Ola has announced the launch of ‘Ola Offline’ across key metros in India on its mobile app service. As the name suggests, the feature will enable customers to book a cab even without Internet on their smartphones. Ola has been piloting the feature in smaller towns and cities since June this year. Learning from these markets, need for access to mobility even in the absence of Internet connectivity and constraints in the current data and connectivity infrastructure, has paved way to the launch of this innovative feature for India. Starting with four metro cities, Ola plans to roll out the feature in rest of the cities, over the coming weeks.
The feature will be available across all cab categories viz. Micro, Mini, Prime and Lux.
How ‘Ola Offline’ works:
â-While attempting to book a cab on the Ola app in the absence of an Internet connection, users will now get two options: Retry or Book via SMS
â-Customers can choose to Retry if they've come to a place with better Internet connectivity, or go with the second option
â-On selecting the latter, users will get redirected to their default messaging app where they will see a pre-entered text message requesting Ola to book a cab
â-On sending the text message, users will get an SMS with the particulars of the nearest available cabs across categories
â-Once they select their preferred cab category, they will receive driver and cab details instantly by SMS
â-The driver on the other hand will also receive customer contact details and the GPS triangulated location of the user
Once the internet connectivity resumes, features like ride details, GPS tracking, SOS button will be available for the user on the Ola app.
