SOCAR resolves Christmas Day SmartKey issue. Promises to compensate customers

Car-sharing provider, SOCAR, had faced problems with their Smartkey system on Christmas Day. Customers have complained not being able to lock or unlock their vehicles, and some of them had incurred additional charges as they couldn’t return their cars on time.

SOCAR is a completely key-less system where you can book and even unlock your car directly from your smartphone. SOCAR had acknowledged the issue around 6.00pm yesterday, and they have resolved the problem at around 8.40pm.

Obviously, the problem had caused a lot of distress for customers. Some of them have complained on their Facebook page that they were stranded outside with their belongings locked up in the car and there was even a customer that was rushing to get to the airport. Many of them had also complained that they couldn’t get through to SOCAR’s customer service hotline.

We have reached out to SOCAR and they have informed us that they will be compensating all members that were affected by yesterday’s downtime. For those who are still having issues with their booking, you’re advised to contact SOCAR directly via the app.

SOCAR is turning one next month and they currently have over 900 vehicles deployed at over 475 zones located in the Klang Valley and Johor. At the moment, it looks like a lot of people depend on SOCAR. For a service that’s barely a year old in Malaysia, that’s a good sign. This means they need to step up their customer service levels and to be able to respond quickly to complaints as more and more people come on board.