Ola, UrbanClap on a ride to attract customers this Diwali

Shreshth Saha Moneycontrol

With offering point-to-point free rides and discounts on house cleaning packages, startups are deploying novel ways to woo customers, this festive season.UrbanClap has partnered with e-commerce firm Snapdeal to launch promotional offers for Diwali home cleaning. The company is offering discounts users who book cleaning sessions through Snapdeal. The offer is being run till Diwali across Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi and National Capital Region, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai and Pune.In a statement last week, Snapdeal said that 1,500 customers ordered home cleaning services from UrbanClap.Similarly, Bengaluru-based services aggregator OTJ247.com is also trying to attract customers by 20% off on painting and cleaning services and 10% off on all services during this festive season.Ola, on the other hand, offered free rides for pandal-hopping in association with Delhi-based citizen groups. It ferried visitors from Nehru Place metro station to CR Park for four days during the Durga Pooja festival from October 8. For this it installed special kiosks from where one could book a cab or an e-rickshaw.“Durga Puja celebration is traditionally one of the most important gala events attracting thousands of visitors and devotees every year. While such a congregation adds to the atmosphere of festivity, getting around from one place to another does become a challenge. In order to provide a seamless Pujo experience, we are offering our customers free rides between the metro stations and the pandals,” said Deep Singh, Business Head - North at Ola.

Not just startups, even larger firms such as Jubilant FoodWorks that operates pizza outlet Domino's launched a 100 percent "Vegetarian Pizza". The company, turned almost half of its outlets all-vegetarian during the Navratri festival.It introduced pizzas that were made by keeping in mind the Indian consumers’ religious faith.