App Profile: BlaBlaCar: Carpooling and Bus

Esteban0005

Rating: 5/5

Great app for selling the extra space in your car when you take a trip. Especially helpful with then increasing cost of fuel. I enjoy having company in the car and learning about other cultures while traveling. The time passes more quickly. A couple things that could improve: - the Messenger does not allow images nor links to be sent which would be incredibly helpful for discussing modifications to the pickup location. - The Messenger is clunky. It often flags messages that are within guidelines and doesn’t send them, however it doesn’t tell you immediately that this has happened, making it difficult to know which messages have gone through and which haven’t. Messages also sometimes are put into the thread out of order. Clear communication is really important when you are trying to meet someone so this really needs to be improved. - The messenger’s email notifications also are also clunky/buggy. I’ve often received email notifications for messages that were supposedly from me, but actually showed messages from a potential passenger - sometimes these were flagged messages, though, so it actually allowed me to see the messages that BlaBlaCar was trying to erase/keep me from seeing, so that was nice :)

Zgypa

Rating: 4/5

The company sometimes applies major workflow changes, for instance how payments are done. It would be nice if there would be notifications to the user to explain why there is a change and what actually changes. There is in fact some confusion amongst users as to how things work because of this. Also, the Messages section has never been very stable ever since I have used it, which is about a couple of years. Notifications come through, but if the user has the app open on the Messages section, One needs to exit the Messages section and come back in in order to refresh it and see new messages.

Thomas_Canny

Rating: 1/5

I downloaded the app while in France, but my phone’s settings are in English. Even so, the app insisted on French. I’m back in the US, and traveling in Mexico frequently, but I’m still stuck using French and Euros. I know enough French to get around, but I’d much prefer English or Spanish. That you refuse to allow a language or currency change in the app shows that you fail to reconcile the diversity of your clientele. Do better. UPDATE: after a reply from the developer, advising me to change my region to the UK (I live in the US), I’d like to ask: Do the developers understand that this is an app for travelers, and thus it might be a nice feature to be able to customize options such as language and currency? Who wants to change the settings of their entire phone just to customize one single application? I’m presently in Mexico, and would love to use the BlaBlaCar app to book a car. But when I use the app, my only options are French and Euros. So, I go to the website, change to Mexico and Pesos, and set up alerts for new trips. Then, I get emails about new trip in English, with Pounds as the currency? Nobody wants to have to do all these unnecessary currency conversions, and nobody wants to struggle through a language they barely speak, unless the goal is to learn that language. BlaBlaCar as a service is great, but there are a LOT of improvements that have to be made before this app can deserve 5 stars.