Account Retrieval : Uber vs Grab
This post is long due after I posted my blog post of losing a phone. After getting a new phone I then downloaded Uber & Grab. When trying to login with my usual credentials. I quickly hit the wall as a security measure, an SMS code should be inputted. Being quite in a dilemma, the most sanest choice is to contact customer support of both companies.
Retrieving my Uber account was easy as they only need to change the phone number in the system. By the time Grab replied to my ticket, I'm about to hit another wall.
Good day!Thank you for your email and we appreciate your time reaching us today! This is -redacted-, a member of Grab's Customer Experience team.
I want to apologize for the inconvenience this has caused you. We do not suggest our passengers to change the phone number you already registered in your account as per Technical Team confirmed that the passenger might encounter problems if they choose to change there phone number.
Every phone number this is already tied up with the account they initially created as per advise as well by our Technical Team to prevent fraudulent activities.
If passenger choose to change the phone number they need to create another account and deactivate the previous account they have but then the points and tier they gained will be automatically lost. What we can also suggest is to put the number to the driver's note in the booking passengers made to informed drivers.
We hope this information was of helps!
Reading it again I don't know if I should cry or throw a huge tantrum as my bullshit meter is about to go full. I want to ask a few questions for myself.
Technical Team confirmed that the passenger might encounter problems if they choose to change there phone number.
Is this serious?
Every phone number this is already tied up with the account they initially created as per advise as well by our Technical Team to prevent fraudulent activities.
Are you fucking serious?
And lastly.
If passenger choose to change the phone number they need to create another account and deactivate the previous account they have but then the points and tier they gained will be automatically lost.
This is absolute bullshit.
Going over it and I'm sorry if I have to throw accusations but if that's the logic of the technical team on implementing such security measure. 1) That's not they're department to do so & 2) They're totally inept security practices at all. Let alone if the point of customer service is to relieve the inconvenience of your customer, you're intentionally giving more inconvenience to them.
What could have caused this problem?
The only reason to believe that this problem exist is when the technical team made the phone number, the primary key in the database. If they're using relational databases that's adding insult to injury. If they're using NoSQL then it arbitrarily explains the nonsensical reason they gave me.
I still don't get it why they have to deactivate or delete the account just to have a new number associated with it.
That's not the end of it.
At first when I tried logging in with a social button. I.e. Google Login; It either do the following 1) if the email is associated with a registered user, ask the user to login 2) if the email is not associated, do the usual register flow. When I tried it on Grab, it immediately gave an error "email already exists". I was completely dumbfounded by this. How come this very simple flow was never implemented in the first place? And how come this is overlooked?
Being a programmer myself, it stressed me out very much.
Going over with Uber's support was very smooth I only need to fill up my name, phone number on file, two recent uber trips made, email on file, and other details regarding about the concern. Support replied and asked me for confirmation to change the phone number, I replied the affirmative, poof number changed! That simple! Not only that, when I tried logging via social button, it asked me to input user credentials. That's a major difference right for user experience.
The lessons to be learned from this are,
- Never let the technical team do security implementations that will cause a user inconvenience
- Catch the earliest signs of user experience design flaws before you're causing more inconvenience to the user