Lessons in company culture from Cityflo, an urban commute company
Cityflo is a great example of how culture ensures business excellence
Last Friday, 3 June 2022, I was at the Cityflo bus-build-reveal event for their select customers, at which they showcased the proposed bus interior changes they plan for greater rider comfort in their buses. As a user of Cityflo bus rides since 2017, I have interacted with them for five years and know many of their employees, including their co-founder and CEO, Jerin Venad.
I got an opportunity last week for the first time to meet many Cityflo employees with whom I had been in touch via email, messaging, and phone. From my interactions with the Cityflo team, I perceived several cultural attributes (values) that their team members share, which are the reasons behind their success. Here are Cityflo’s values that distinguish it from its competitors and other businesses and contribute to the company’s success.
Customer-centricity: Cityflo keeps its customers at the center of its plans and business. Though Cityflo started as a bus-finder app, it accepted customer feedback to provide buses. When customers told Cityflo about the soft skills of its drivers, the company trained its drivers to interact better and assist riders. Cityflo’s bus routes depend on customer surveys which point to the time and place where people want the company’s rides to start and end. In a physically intensive business like transportation, Cityflo co-evolves its offerings by continually involving its customers through feedback and events like the bus-build-reveal. Unlike most other businesses, its top management continually engages with customers, and every employee interacts with customers to understand customer needs.
Passion: Cityflo has a team of employees with different personalities that come through in your interactions with them. However, whether it is the four co-founders at the company or any employee at any level, you find unmistakable pride in what their company is doing. Every employee I have interacted with was aligned to offer a convenient, comfortable, and seamless commute to its passengers. Whichever Cityflo employee you meet, they are passionate about what their company is doing and how that makes a difference to society and individuals who use Cityflo buses. Cityflo’s vision of offering a solution to long, stressful daily commutes to office-goers is clear to every employee, down to the drivers who operate the buses.
Pride: When employees of proud of their company and its services, they go out of their way to make things happen and help the company achieve its goals. When I asked Jerin about other competing bus services, he told me there were several but had not heard of the ones I mentioned. I took Jerin’s response to be coming from a focus on Cityflo and how to make it the best and not from an assumption they were better than others (though they are). Last Friday, you could see the whole Cityflo team interact with guests, making sure they were comfortable and checking on them till the program ended. Cityflo employees did not consider the company event as the marketing function or the directors to manage.
Authenticity: Over hundreds of my interactions with Cityflo-ers, I found that they all communicate openly and frankly without hiding any issues from the customer. In December 2021, I messaged Jerin about a creaky suspension of a bus I was riding that morning, and he promptly replied that his team knew of a batch of buses with such a problem. He apologized and accepted that the noisy bus should not have been on a ride with its inconveniencing sound. At the bus-build-reveal event, the display presented a futuristic seat with a tray on the back (like in airlines) but indicated that the feature was only a concept. Cityflo-ers candidly admit to limitations and issues and assure customers only of what their company can deliver.
Thoughtfulness: Customers remember and become life-long admirers of brands that they think are empathetic. Cityflo has a very supportive customer service team that responds quickly and effectively to assist a customer.
Imagine you have set out for work on a Monday morning and realize that you had booked a bus earlier than your usual one, and it has already left. It has happened to me. That day, I called a Cityflo customer service representative (CSR), who listened to me and booked me on another bus after ensuring I could reach the bus stop in time for that trip. Though my no-show at the bus stop entitled me to no refund, the CSR focused on ensuring I reached my office on a Cityflo rather than asking me to pay a second time for a bus I missed.
Another time, I forgot my lunch bag on a Cityflo bus which I realized later and called Cityflo. Their CSR took my request, located the bus, and directed me to the spot where I could meet the bus driver and collect my lunch bag. She followed up with me to ensure that I had found my lunch bag. Cityflo has such legendary customer service that its loyal customers stay with it perpetually and don’t switch to competing brands.
For last Friday’s event, Cityflo arranged buses to pick up and drop guests, knowing that the guests being Citfylo users, would not have private vehicles to come to the event venue and return from it. In addition, at the event, they had a valet to help guests (arriving from work) leave their bags safely while they attended the event. Such attention to detail in their work helps Cityflo thoughtfully address customer needs.
Frugality: Cityflo started just seven years ago in 2015 and has been through the period when the Indian start-up culture meant big fund-raising, splashy advertising, and cash-burn (acquiring customers below cost to generate losses). Taking a different path to business sustainability from other hyped start-ups (including Unicorns), Cityflo has focused solely on its superior offerings and generating customer revenue to manage business growth and margins. Cityflo operates out of Thane from an industrial hub and relies on word-out-mouth promotion by its riders to add new ones.
Few companies focus on company culture to ensure business success, whether new or old. However, the company culture is critical to ensuring customer satisfaction and sustainable business growth.
Most businesses spend a lot of time planning and strategizing on the business but not on the culture. Company culture is not about making nice-sounding vision and mission statements but ensuring that every employee knows what the company is about and practices its values.
It is hard work to identify values dear to the organization and non-negotiable. Companies like Cityflo may not even verbalize or publicly display the values I have listed above. However, as they practice it, any new employee imbibes what is important at the workplace and practices it.
Every Cityflo employee spends a day on their bus frequently to get a first-hand feel of the travel experience that their travelers go through. Such ‘ear-to-the-ground’ by employees generates great insights on customer satisfaction levels and issues causing customer irritation. In addition, by continually evolving its service to higher excellence levels, Cityflo shows how company culture is crucial to business success.
All organizations will do well to emulate the salient features of Cityflo culture that have poised it to become a leading Indian brand in the urban commute segment.