How Uber Succeeds, Make Something Easier
Last week, while in San Francisco for work, I had my first experience with Uber. I’m going to be the first to admit that there are some debatable things going on with Uber as a company and political things going on as the service disrupts the existing cab market.
I don’t want to talk about any of that.
I want to talk about why Uber succeeds, in my mind. Because it’s easy.
As a frequent business traveler there are two areas where a service like Uber is great. First, it eliminates the need, when in a city it serves like SF, to worry about how I’m going to get a cab when necessary, and secondly it eliminates the need to deal with paying drivers.
On the first area, it may not seem like a big deal but when you travel a lot, it simply becomes one more thing that has to be planned, how am I going to get from point A to point B. Sometimes that’s easy, at a hotel getting a cab to pick you up is easy, but getting a cab from a client office, or dinner, takes a little more forethought. With The Uber app, it’s one less thing to worry about.
On the second reason, again, as a business traveler I’m usually in a hurry, and need to track receipts. Cabs are kind of the worst for me, because I’m trying to get out and get to where I’m going or catch a flight, but I have to make sure and pay the driver and keep track of my receipt, and maybe even have to argue with a driver over paying cash or using a credit card, and on and on. With Uber, I just hop out and the service charges my card on file or my PayPal account and emails me my receipt. Easy peasy.
That’s why it’s useful to me as a business traveler, even if I’m only using it to hail a taxi instead of the less expensive Uber driver option, and that’s why all of those concerns aside, I’ll probably be using it when I’m in SF next week too!
Have you tried it yet? If not, take a look at the image above and use my code (mikem5409) to try it for free!
Follow these topics: Travel
