Grab's CEO vlogs day as a private-hire driver in honest LinkedIn post

Tech company Grab's CEO and co-founder, Anthony Tan is well-known for being a very hands-on leader. He regularly takes the time to quite literally put himself into the shoes of Grab's food delivery partners and drivers in order to fully understand the pain points of the system for his employees and consumers and to then fix it. 

This year, Tan decided to vlog his experience as private-hire driver. 

"Going onground is still the best way to test the Grab driver app in a real setting and get direct feedback from passengers. Our teams love it when I do this and pass on areas of improvement for us to act on," wrote Tan in a LinkedIn post attached to the video. 

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In his post, Tan also included some key takeaways from his latest shift which included the fact that GrabMaps could be enhanced in low-signal areas such as tunnels. 

He also pointed out that GrabCar Premium was well recieved and that he is trying to solve the pain point of driver cancellations. 

"Far pick-ups were previously a top driver pain point, so we introduced a new driver fare structure where drivers are compensated from the moment, they accept a booking (instead of only when they’ve picked up the passenger). We’ve seen 'driver acceptance rates' go up for longer pick-ups, and will keep monitoring this," he wrote. 

Tan added that while he has previously driven anonymously, his team suggested he experiment with vlogging. "They said I should have taken a vertical video. Or should I embrace my millennial uncle status?" he said. 

When MARKETING-INTERACTIVE reached out to Grab, it said that building on on-ground truths is a longstanding part of Grab’s culture.

"That’s why we encourage all Grabbers to do immersions, whenever they have the opportunity, to engage with users and understand local nuances to continuously improve our products and user experience," it said, adding:

Tan has been a great example of this, often doing immersions and speaking to our driver- and merchant-partners in his personal time.

Grab went on to say that Tan shares his learnings with the team, and that this vlog was another way to document user feedback for the team.

"We hope Tan's vlog was a fun way for his LinkedIn followers to get a glimpse into the immersions that all Grabbers do," it added. 

This is not the only time Tan has been hands on with his team. In 2021, Tan, partnered an experience delivery-partner to go undercover as a delivery rider himself. 

He took to LinkedIn to share his experience and said that he tries to do GrabFood deliveries himself every few months. In his post, Tan talked about how he failed to remember to remove the baby seat on his bike to make room for his GrabFood bag and how he forgot to install metal sticks in his bag in order to make sure that it closed properly. He also added that it was difficult figuring out where to park his bike and noted that it rained while he was out and about. 

"In one and a half to two hours, my total count [was] four batched orders. According to Mr. Lim, experienced delivery-partners complete up to five orders in the same duration. I have lots to learn," he wrote. 

The post received much praise with many commending Tan on his "hands on approach" and for making an attempt to understand what his teams experience when carrying out their duties. 

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