SINGAPORE — To Gojek, Singaporeans are a “very demanding” bunch, complaining disproportionately more than its other users in Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand in its one year of operations here.

But that is a “good thing”, said its newly-installed co-chief executive officer, Mr Andre Soelistyo.

“When we decided to launch in Singapore, it was (to see) whether our product quality — the way we build our features — can stand the test for a more developed country,” he said.

And indeed, Singaporeans demonstrated that they have a “higher standard”, he added.

“If our products and features don’t stand the test of customer needs (in Singapore), then when we want (Gojek) to be a global company, there is always that standard that we have to reach.”

Mr Soelistyo was speaking to reporters on Friday (Nov 29) at an event celebrating Gojek’s first year of operations in Singapore in Ang Mo Kio Industrial Park, where a unit used to host its first driver onboarding centre.

He now heads the Indonesian tech unicorn alongside Mr Kevin Aluwi, who founded Gojek in 2010 with former CEO Nadiem Makarim. Mr Makarim left the firm last month to join Indonesia President Joko Widodo's new Cabinet as education and culture minister.

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Giving a report card for the firm’s first year in Singapore, Mr Soelistyo said that despite operating in a “demanding country”, Gojek’s drivers collectively fulfilled a total of 30 million trips, which he calls “no mean feat”.

The number of rides fulfilled in the past six months was 20 million — double the figure during Gojek’s first six months here.

The app now has 800,000 active users in Singapore. Although that makes it Gojek’s smallest user base — it has 2.92 million users in Indonesia, 4.3 million in Vietnam and two million in Thailand — Singapore is the company’s second largest transport market in terms of transaction volume.

What can Singapore users expect in 2020? A higher likelihood of rider-driver matches and shorter wait times, as more than 3,000 Trans-Cab drivers will become its first group of cabbies to gain access to bookings on its platform progressively from December, Gojek said on Friday.

Another upgrade to come is a wider range of transport offerings, such as an option for users to pick “extra-large vehicle types”, said Gojek Singapore’s general manager, Mr Lien Choong Luen.

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Asked if it will have a carpooling service to rival that of Grab’s GrabShare, which allows different passengers to share a ride and save costs, Mr Lien said such a service is definitely in the pipeline, but the firm cannot commit to a timeline as to when it would be rolled out.

“We want to make sure that we grow our existing GoCar service quality to the level that is required,” he said.

Asked how many more complaints Gojek has handled in Singapore compared with other countries, Mr Lien said he would not release specific numbers, but would only say that the cost of customer care was “much higher” in Singapore as compared to in Indonesia.

But he pointed out that this does not mean that Gojek drivers are “inefficient”.

“The typical Singaporean provides a lot more feedback, and each feedback call requires a lot more time,” Mr Lien said, adding that feedback includes requests to check for lost-and-found items.

“We know these are important to the passengers, that’s why we invest in it. The cost of investing and making sure that we have a backend service recovery is high, but it is important to our business, it is important to our passengers, and so we make sure that we are able to deliver that well.”

Adding to Mr Lien’s point, Mr Soelistyo said: “Consumers in Singapore are discerning. It is a very unique market compared to the rest of South-east Asia. They are tech-savvy and have high standards, but that helps us up our game as we develop a better service across all our markets.”