Zum Rides Reviews - What Is It?
DO NOT USE Zum Rides!!! You Must Read This Review!
Fully Researched: Price, User Feedback and More!
Zum Rides is an application-based service that provides reliable, safe, family-focused childcare services and ride-sharing. The service was specially created for busy families and is available seven days a week for children over five years of age. After booking a recurring or one-time ride, you will see the driver's profile and picture within twelve hours of the scheduled pick up. After that, you will receive a notification once pickup takes place and have a chance to track the ride live. The official website of the company indicates that Zum can be used for many different activities, including rides to or from school, meeting with friends, commuting, attending parties and play dates, as well as for chaperoning or when you need after school care for a few hours. There are other ride-sharing services like Lyft and Uber but they tend to have age restrictions. Anyone who orders a ride must be over 18 years of age. Does this mean Zum Rides are right for you? Are there better competitors? How can you find the best option? Before answering these questions let us take a look at the application's functionality.
Booking a ride through the Zum app seems to be quite intuitive and straightforward. You will need to set up a member profile for your kid, to select pick up and drop-off times using the booking tool and locations, as well as riders. Configuring each ride will allow you to see estimated cost based on the total mileage. When you successfully book a ride, you will get an email confirmation. To get your children accustomed to familiar faces and help build trust, the company prefers to choose from only a small number of Zumers. They use their proprietary matching algorithm to meet your family's needs and find you a small number of drivers. They intend to ensuring consistency and long-term relationships, since they are interested in each client. Unfortunately, the company itself is not reputable or well-known in the country, which makes them not very trustworthy. Zum was founded by CEO Ritu Narayan, a former eBay executive, according to a 2016 USA Today article. Earlier, Ritu worked as a group project manager for eBay and the founder of TechX, and was a Sloan Fellow at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. According to the FAQ section on their website, they usually assign drivers to rides by 8 pm PST the day before. When this occurs, you will get a text confirmation and log into the application, where you will find a picture of the car, driver, their license plate number, and even a short biography about the driver. Let's take a look at more details in the next part of this review, as well as find out what real customers are saying about their experience of using the service.
Customer Reviews - Does Zum Rides Really Work?
What users appreciate about the service is that they can share the driver's profile with their child's family member or school via text, phone or email. Any drivers will provide one booster seat if you wish, but it should be booked in advance. Children will be given a specific password for you to feel safe. The company generates a ride-specific password 24 hours before a planned ride for your kid to exchange with their driver for proper identity verification. Childcare can also be scheduled by parents before, during, or after a Zum ride, in fifteen-minute increments up to two hours. You can track your child's ride live with start locations and any stops mid-way. If you have friends or neighbors that you want your kid to carpool with, the driver will accommodate diverse pickup and drop off locations. But the maximum number of children is five. You can create a recurring event if you want. All this information sounds very promising and attractive but is this service really as perfect as claimed on the official website of the company? It is high time to see what actual Zum customers are saying about Zum Rides in their online reviews.
Zum had about sixty 60 customer reviews on Yelp at the time of our research. The average rating was four stars with common compliments referenced ease of use and friendly drivers. As it was already mentioned, a Zumer isn't assigned until the day before a planned ride. It means that drivers are not guaranteed. In this way, the most common complaints related to occasional scheduling problems and some no-shows. There were many situations when parents were left responsible for picking up their children at the last minute. The drivers did not seem to be reliable enough and the customer service frequently unhelpful. Some customers were not pleased with absence of contracts and documentation. Between Google Play and iTunes, Zum Rides' kid's aps and standard had about forty customer reviews with an average rating of 3.75 stars. Some customers reported a pleasant experience, but the most common complaints referred to the last-minute cancellations. Let us take a look at some of the actual customers' testimonials found online.
"We tried Zum Rides only once but they couldn't fulfill on the request. We scheduled four trips several weeks in advance and were shocked when they canceled the night before around 10pm. We were very disappointed. They do not look at their schedules ahead. We started looking for last minute options late at night while being on a business trip. We will never use this service again."
"I am not pleased with ZumRides at all! Some of their drivers are not time-sensitive. My ride was booked for 4.20 pm, and the driver picked up my child at 4.30, and drove him in the opposite direction! You can only imagine my feelings when I saw this live on my phone. Why don't the drivers check address or simply use google maps? As a result, the ride took half an hour instead of twelve minutes, my child was late for the class, and the driver was rudely explaining why she was late and drove in the wrong direction."
"The Zum rides service is contracted via my daughter's school. We have used it twice and we were sick and tired of them. Today I drove up to pick her up after school and saw that one of those drivers backed up next to my car using this red zone. I told him about that through his window, but he brushed me off. Then I warned him that I would be taking pictures to send them to the school and the police. Finally, he backed up down the street. These drivers don't follow street laws and don't respect women."
My Final Summary
Based on what we have learned about Zum Rides during our research, this service does not seem to be worth your attention. It really has an easy-to-use app but it is associated with many customer complaints. The major ones are referred to late cancellations of the rides, lack of drivers' knowledge about locations, inadequate drivers' behavior, high prices and many others. Not all customers find this service safe and reliable. The company offers their services only in the San Francisco Bay and Orange County areas. With all of this said, a recent Pew Research study showed that 34% of ride-hailing users find services such as Lyft and Uber a better way to get their children to their destinations, even though both companies cannot take passengers under 18. The only positive moment about Zum is that they serve children above five years of age. Taking into account all advantages and disadvantages of Zum Rides, this service cannot be recommended to usage.
Zum Rides Pricing and Rates
At present the service is only available to Bay Area and Orange Count customers between the hours of 6a and 9p. Zum Rides do not require any subscriptions or contracts. All payments are handled through the online app, so you won't need to spend your cash. Just like other service of the kind, its cost is based on a number of factors like number of stops, number of riders, total distance, and whether childcare is required or not. Fare Estimator of the company promises to provide you with information on how much you will need to pay for a ride. Rides can be booked up to one year in advance, until 7 PM PST the evening before, but remember that your child can be driven only within the Orange County or Bay Area. It is also mentioned on the site that until a Zumer is assigned and you get a text, the driver is not guaranteed. The childcare services of the company cost $6 for each 15-minute increment. You can book these services as part of a ride only. If you need to cancel a booked ride, you are promised to get a 100% refund if processed before 7 pm the day before the ride. After that time, you will get a 50% refund. If you cancel a planned ride within two hours, no refunds are available. You can reach Zum's support team by calling at 855-RIDE-ZUM (743-3986), writing to support@ridezum.com, or using an online chat.