If I Worked For: Uber.com
If I Worked For... is going to be a recurring segment where I discuss things I would try to do if I worked for popular companies. I'm not promising the ideas will be amazing or groundbreaking, but ideally they will help drive new users and revenue. Feel free to take my ideas, but if please email me if you do! I'm very curious to hear how they turned out.
About: For the uninitiated, or those that live in small towns Uber is an on-demand black car service (which has expanded to include Hybrids and, in some cities, Taxis). You can request a car via an app on your phone and set your location using the GPS. The nearest car will be routed to you, pick you up and drop you off. All payments are done via the credit card on your account so you don't have to exchange money with the driver - plus it's a much better experience than hailing a cab on the street. If you're new, sign up here!
Background: I've been an avid Uber user for several years now. The first time was during a snow storm in Seattle and I wanted to go to a friend's house. I called Uber and 5 minutes later a black SUV arrived and picked me up - and I was hooked. I have now ubered in: Seattle, New York City, San Francisco, Chicago, Austin (Uber Pedicab @ SXSW 2011).
Ideas: I think Uber is an awesome idea and it has really shaken things up across the board. Everything is trying to be "the uber of..." (there's boats, cars, planes, restaurants...laundry services.) Specific to Uber though I think their major competition is coming from more affordable, though less elegant options, such as Lyft and SideCar. The latter two provide similar on-demand car services, but with regular people driving their regular cars. (I am not familiar with the restrictions for either of these services, but I have ridden in some comparatively very unimpressive cars on both services).
The most important thing for Uber (or any of these companies, really) is to differentiate themselves from the others and I think there's several opportunities to do this and that Uber is the best positioned to do it.
Give Me a Reason To Use Your Service - Or the "Subway Sub Club Stamps" idea. I used to love going to Subway and collecting the stamps and then trading them in for free sandwiches. I love easy to use loyalty programs. Given how all of these services are app based it should be very easy for them to track loyal users and reward them. When I first started using Uber in Seattle I used it ALL the time, I was the mayor on Foursquare! Uber does a lot to give back to people and encourage people to sign up, but now I think it's time to focus some of those efforts on encouraging people to repeat. Give me $10 after I take 10 rides - it's not a lot, but it's something!
Customization - Or the "Myspace Layout" idea. This is pretty straight forward but allow me to create my own, consistent experience. There are some things that are simple and could be implemented across the board:
Pull the passengers seat up all the way to give the most legroom (hey, I'm 6'6", it's real out here!)
Water - have small bottles of water in the car, super easy and almost always a lifesaver.
Beyond this there are simple things that would be very easy to create a more special experience for each rider:
Radio station - let me pick what I would want on the radio (NPR, rap, rock, country, no radio)
Temperature - A/C on? Window(s) down? etc...
Set locations - I always wanted to be able to set "home" or "work" or "friend's house" and then be able to one-click select that location and request a car
In summation, give me a reason to stick with you all the time, aside from the promo codes. And let me set my preferences for my ride. I think all of these ideas would be pretty simple to implement and would make the service even better!
Have any thoughts? Let me know!
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