Name: Premium, not painful: a better ride, without the extra work
Uploaded: 2026-10-22T18:47:29.022Z
Duration: 26 min 5 s
Description: Premium, not painful: a better ride, without the extra work

Transcript for "Premium, not painful: a better ride, without the extra work": Hi, everyone, and welcome to today's webinar, premium not painful, a better ride without the extra work. Most of the rides your team takes for work are typically seen as routine, a commute, a hop between meetings, or a trip back to the hotel. But a few rides carry more weight, whether that's a client dinner, an executive pickup after a long flight, or a candidate flying in for a final round. In those moments, the ride is part of how your company shows up. Today, we're gonna look at how we can ensure we're providing a better ride experience without adding any additional steps for you or your team in the times that matter the most. Before we hop into things, I'm Fiona Hogg, and I've been a member of our enterprise partnerships team for the past year based out of New York City. And to break the ice a little bit, my favorite Uber Eats order is Thai food. And if you've got yours, let us know in the chat. And I'm here today with my colleague, Kristen Walsh. Thanks, Fiona. I'm Kristen. And I would say my favorite Uber Eats order... This is a little bit bizarre, but me and my husband love to order Hibachi takeout on Uber Eats, which is strange because most people go to Hibachi for the experience, but the delivery gives you so much extra food that you can have for, like, two days after, so highly recommend. But, anyway, I have been with Uber for Business for just about eight years. And over those years when speaking with our clients, it's often that I hear that people are looking for unique ways to elevate the ride experience for specifically their executive traveler group without having to add that additional work onto their plate. And for anyone new to Uber for business, we bring the same rides and meals people already know into one program built for organizations. Admin set the rules that employees ride or order Uber Eats on their business profile in the same Uber app they likely already use in their personal lives, and receipts and reporting land in a single easy to use dashboard. So before we jump into things, a little housekeeping. Firstly, questions go in the q and a tab on the right. We took questions during registration, but feel free to let us know if any questions come up during the session, and someone from our team will get back to you with an answer as soon as possible. Next, the docs tab has more details on the ride options and policy controls that we will cover today. Also, feel free to click get demo at the top of your screen if you want to talk to someone dedicated from our team about how you can set up your own program today. And lastly, we'll send a recording to everyone who registered so there's no need to take notes on everything we cover. Okay. So let's get into what we're gonna be covering today. Firstly, the biggest challenges companies face when introducing premium travel. Then how premium options within Uber for business cover everything from an upgraded commute to a client pickup within the same system that manages everyday rides. And then ways to manage premium ride access, reduce decision fatigue, and enforce policies around ride usage. And we'll end at the end with a look at the dashboards. You can see how little the setup really takes. So let's start with the moments themselves. Awesome. So why moments warrant more? And here's the tension that we wanna work through today. Nobody wants premium rides to feel complicated, but it typically ends up that way because they feel different and are taken under different circumstances, so they ultimately get handled differently. And these moments are specific, and most companies can identify them pretty quickly. And they're usually booked for bigger moments such as the three that we wanna focus on today. The first being a client dinner. So that could be a ride to a restaurant with the client and then sending the client back to their hotel. Second being executive travel. So for example, think of an executive landing after a long flight, and then they're heading straight into board prep with no time to sort out their own ride. And then third, the final round candidate. So someone coming in for a final round interview and the ride from the airport is their first in person impression of your company. At the end of the day, the ride is part of how your company shows up, and the first impressions is what you wanna lead with, which is exactly why these moments end up with so much process around them, and nobody wants to be the one who booked the car that didn't show, the car was late, or something happened with the trip. And let's make that concrete. Picture this. An executive meeting runs late and they miss their scheduled car to an investor presentation. The assistant tries to rebook, but the car service only takes calls and they're on hold. The executive hails a taxi instead, hits traffic, and walks in fifteen minutes late with less time for presentation they spent days preparing for. And even when nothing goes wrong, the process itself is very cumbersome. You start... The executive assistant has to book the car service, which is usually outside the normal ride program that the rest of the company uses, and this typically has to be booked by phone or email. Then the executive assistant has to send the driver's details to the executive, which then leads into them having to relay updates back and forth between the driver and the executive on the day of the trip. Now let's throw in if the flight is delayed. Typically, the assistant has to figure out how to catch that flight delay. Could happen at all hours of the day, maybe late at night, and then they have to call the car service to move that pickup. Finally, the invoice arrives weeks later separate from other rides, and then finance has to match it to a call center by hand. So that's four handoffs for one ride. And these rides, of course, won't show up in the reporting that the travel team usually looks at. Now multiply that by every candidate in a hiring push or every client dinner in a quarter. And if we look at the numbers behind it, 40% of c level executives say a travel disruption caused them to miss a business or sales opportunity in the past year. Forty eight percent of c suite travelers have been late or missed an important meeting because of travel disruptions, and fifty five percent of travel managers report friction managing travel disruptions. Four in ten executives lost a real opportunity due to a travel disruption last year. That's the cost of a ride going wrong and that's the reason why these rides get so much attention. Getting it right pays off in two ways. Right away, the executive arrives on time, they're ready to go, and then there's less admin for assistance in the finance team. Then over time, you get fewer status check ins and last minute fire drills for the team supporting the executives, which results in a way better impression on clients and partners. So let's look at the ride options themselves and what changes them... What changes when they live in the same place as our everyday rides. Business comfort and business black are upgraded ride experiences for the moments that call for more. Uber reserve is a separate layer. It provides added peace of mind for trips planned ahead of time. All of it runs inside the same Uber for business program governed by the same policy and reporting as everyday rides. Think of it as two questions. First, what kind of ride does this moment call for? That's comfort or black. Second, does the timing matter enough to plan ahead? That's reserve. Let's start with business comfort. With business comfort, you'll receive newer vehicles, extra leg room, and top rated drivers, premium 247 support, priority pickups or request or prioritize when it's when it's busy, preferences for temperature and conversation, which can all be set before the ride actually starts. And I do think the preference piece gets overlooked. So if somebody needs to take a call or run through their notes on the way in, being able to ask for a quiet ride within the app upfront makes a huge difference in the quality of the ride. Then let's shift over to business black and business black SUV. This vehicle type is everything that business comfort offers but provides newer luxury vehicles with more space. It also provides you with more time to meet the ride. So if you're using Uber reserve, this includes up to fifteen minutes of complimentary wait time. If you think of an early morning airport pickup, you'll now have fifteen minutes after the car arrives to gather your bags, your belongings, and get yourself together. Then when we look at airport pickups, when using Uber reserve, there's up to sixty minutes of built in wait time. With business black, you'll also see on time pickup protection when the ride is booked through reserve, and we'll talk about more on that in a minute. And then finally, twenty four seven support for up to seventy two hours after the ride. So for example, if a client leaves something in the car after dinner, you now have three days of dedicated support to help you retrieve that item. And at the very top of the range, there's Uber Elite, which we started rolling out in March. With Elite, you should expect commercially licensed professional chauffeurs and a new model luxury vehicle less than three years old, meet and greet experiences that we know executives expect where the chauffeur meets the rider inside the terminal at baggage claim, in vehicle amenities like chargers, bottled water, and mints plus special requests arranged ahead of time if needed. And this is all booked through the Uber app from one hour to ninety days in advance. So there's no additional, wait on your assistance plate. Elite is available by invitation in Los Angeles and San Francisco with New York City next and more US and international cities to follow. Overall, it's a great way to welcome a visiting VP or a board member. And because assistance can book a lead through the delegate booking, if it's the same workflow as business black. Of course, the right ride only helps if your travelers know that they're allowed to take it. Here's a feature that helps with the am I allowed to take this question. With custom naming on business comfort and business black, the traveler sees your company's name for that ride option in the app. This helps by not only making it clear to your travelers what's covered because your company's name appears on the ride option in the app so there's no guessing what's in policy, but also by streamlining your expensing process. Business branded rides clearly indicate the business profile simplifying expense reporting and reconciliation. All of this is meant to be more proactive versus reactive. It's meant to alleviate messages to the travel team and prevent rides from being booked on a personal card. Now jumping into a deep dive on Uber reserve. So timing is everything when it comes to important rides, and Uber Reserve gives you the ability to schedule your ride in advance for that added peace of mind. You're able to schedule up to ninety days in advance in the app or on the Uber website. You're locking in upfront pricing at time of booking, which, of course, helps to avoid surge. You can also add in your flight number for tracking purposes during airport pickups, so the pickup time will adjust if your arrival time of your flight changes. And if you're reserving a business black ride, you'll benefit from on time pickup protection, which is a $50 credit if the driver arrives more than five minutes late, and then in a $120 credit if no driver is matched within eight minutes. And I do wanna jump back and highlight that flight tracking. It's one of the features that can really replace that phone call I referenced above where maybe the executive assistant has to catch an executive's delayed flight, which could happen in the middle of the night, and then they have to call the car service to move the pickup, flight tracking handles that automatically and removes all the manual work off their plate. So this leads me into delegate booking. It's very common that premium rides are booked for executives by the executive assistant, which is why we launched delegate booking because it allows an executive assistant to book on an executive's behalf. So what that means, of course, is you're able, as an executive assistant, to request rides, which include business black and elite for your executive. The executive assistant books and manages the ride, and then that ride appears directly in the executive's Uber app. Both the executive assistant and the executive see the driver, they see the vehicle, and all arrival details in their respective Uber apps. And then the assistant can track the ride, they can add stops, and they can also update the destination in real time. And then a really great feature, of course, is you can bill to the executive's payment method, but then both the executive assistant and the executive will receive the receipts for that trip. So, ultimately, the executive assistant still owns the entire booking, which is what we're looking for, but they just don't have to juggle those four handoffs to do it. And for guests who aren't on your business profile, like a visiting client, a board member, or a candidate, there are Uber vouchers. You set the value in the rules, like which location and times the voucher covers, then send it by email, text, or link. The guest applies it in their own Uber app, your only charge for what is used, and redemption status shows up in your dashboard. That matters because fifty 7% of travel managers report friction booking travel for unprofiled guests. Guests are the hardest people to cover. So now you have the right options plus ways to book them for executives and guests. Next is deciding who gets to... Who gets them and when. Premium doesn't have to mean premium for everyone, everywhere. Companies can decide when an upgraded experience makes sense and manage access accordingly. And honestly, most rides do stay standard. The goal isn't to, of course, upgrade everything. It's to be deliberate about a handful of rides that carry more weight. For example, you might allow business black for directors and VPs, elite for VPs and above, and then allow reserve to be used for those early morning airport travels. And if you're handling premium rides today through a separate car service or case by case approvals, These are the rides this section brings back into the program. And if you don't offer premium at all yet, this is where you can start small. Let's walk through these... Let's walk through three of those moments from start to finish. Perfect. So let's start with scenario one, that client dinner I referenced before. You create a client entertainment program for your sales team that allows business black only on weekday evenings. Then the account executive requests business black for the client from the office to the restaurant then back to the client's hotel. So what your employee will see is that premium option under your custom name on their business profile with no approval needed. And then what the admin sees on the back end is both rides tied to the client entertainment program with the trip details and receipts attached. And the part I really like here is that timing rule because business black can be available, obviously, for the booking at 7PM for these dinner scenarios, but it might not need to be there at 8AM for a morning commute program. Great. Okay. So if we look at the second scenario, we think about the executive arrival. So let's say we've set up an executive program that allows business black and reserve at any time with delegate access for the executive assistant. This allows the assistant to reserve a business black pickup at the airport a week ahead of time with flight tracking turned on. Then if the flight is late, the pickup time adjusts and the on time pickup protection still applies. Ultimately, the admin sees one ride booked by the delegate built to the executive program. Compare that to the old way where the assistant checks the flight status at midnight and calls the car service to push the pickup, flight tracking takes the work off their plate. And then finally, the final round candidate. So picture a recruiting coordinator, sends a candidate an Uber voucher with trips limited to the airport, the candidate's hotel, and the office. The interview candidate uses that voucher for their airport pickup to the hotel and then to the ride the ride to the office the next morning. The candidate sees the voucher by... Receives the voucher by email or text, which is then applied in their own Uber app and can be viewed in their wallet. And then the admin can go into the dashboard and review the redemption status for each candidate along with a bunch of other reporting details. And keep in mind that vouchers are only charged if and when the voucher is used and, most importantly, eliminates the need to provide that reimbursement. So for the candidate, the ride just works and that's the whole goal. Nobody should be thinking about a comfortable mode of transportation on the way to their final round interview. And for the recruiting team, the voucher replaces that car service, the forwarded email, and the reimbursement process altogether. Across all three scenarios, the traveler gets a clear signal instead of having to interpret what the policy is. For employees, if an option appears on their business profile, it's covered. For guests, the voucher spells out what's included. If a request falls outside of policy, they can still take the ride on their personal profile. They just can't charge it back to the business. That's where decision fatigue goes away. The policy makes the call so the traveler doesn't have to. So what does it actually take to activate this? Let's put it into practice here. So reminder again, none of this requires a new vendor, a new contract, or new training. It's all pretty simple. Essentially, what an admin does is they'll add business comfort or business black to a programs allowed ride types in the admin dashboard. The employees will then see their business profile and available ride types in the Uber app that they already use today, and then their receipts will be sent to their work email or directly to their expense platform. And for assistance and coordinators from other teams, you can have them reach out to yourself or to your Uber for business rep to get them set up with delegate booking or vouchers. And as a reminder, if you already run a travel program on Uber for business, this is just a few settings, not a whole project. So let's think about a simple way to really roll this out. Pick one moment like executive airport transfers and build one program around it. Tell the people in that program what's covered and when in a short note from the travel team. After thirty days, check the reporting. See how often premium options were used, spend against the allowance, and how many requests fell outside of your policy, and then adjust the rules, then add the next moment from there. Doubling down on that, we do always recommend starting narrow, taking a look at the data, and then expanding from there. Let's show you what this looks like within the dashboard. So first, let's create a travel program called client entertainment. Then we will add business comfort and business black to the allowed ride types. Next, we can set a weekday evening time rule and a per ride allowance. And then we can add the sales team to that program. And if we switch to the rider app on the business profile, it will show the premium options under its custom name. And that's it. A few moments of setup and the rider is in the program have a clear covered option for the moments that matter. Okay. So that was all of our content for today. We'd love to transition into getting into some of the questions that were submitted during registration. And I can jump in to start. This first question is from Quentin. Can we limit business black to certain people? So the answer there is yes. The ride type permission set up the program level in your dash boards. You can create a program for executives or client facing teams and then allow business black only for those programs. Everyone else then can keep their standard options. Great. Okay. Next question is from Lisa. The question is, how do we book a premium ride for a candidate who isn't an employee? So this is a great question. This is with Uber vouchers. So your coordinate... Coordinator sends the candidate a voucher with the value, locations, and times you set. The candidate applies it to their own Uber app, and then you're only charged for what is used. And I can take the next one here. This is from Chris. Won't this increase our ground travel spend is Chris's question. So, great question again. Only where you allow it. So allowances, ride type limits, and time rules can cap premium usage. And the dashboard will show you exactly where it's being used so you get all the reporting on it and visibility. I will say a lot of companies also find they're replacing a more expensive car service rather than adding new spend to your to your program. Okay. Next question is from Graham. What happens if a business black reserve driver is late? So great question here. On time pickup protection always applies. So if, your driver does arrive late, there's always a credit if the driver, is late, that you'll receive or if no driver is matched as well. Awesome. Okay. And I think we've got one more here from Autumn. Does Uber business allow the company to pay monthly, or is the service the same pay as you go? So, again, all these questions are great. Yes. Our billing methods support monthly bill, daily bill, or paper trip. And what I do recommend you do is reach out to your Uber for business representative to get situated with the proper billing for your scenario. And if you don't have a rep, just a reminder to click the get demo button and then someone from our team will follow-up with you directly. Alright. And that's a wrap on premium not painful. If you take one thing away from today, it's this. Think of the moments that warrant more when it comes to rides, match the ride to the need, and let your policy make the call. And thanks to everyone who joined and sent in questions. As a reminder, you'll get a link to today's recording in your inbox. And if you'd like to talk through what premium could look like for you or your program, click get demo or reach out to your Uber for business contact. Thanks again, everyone. We'll see you next time. My name is Michelle Amos. I work for Qualtrics, and we use Uber for Business to improve our employee experience. I'm Steve. I'm from Mastercard. I use Uber for Business to ensure that I have one less thing to worry about when I travel for business. My name is Laura from Autodesk, and we use Uber for Business to travel the world more efficiently. My name is Gabriela Lantigua, and we use Uber for Business to improve our travel program. So first and foremost, if a partner and if a program is gonna deliver a seamless experience to my end user and to my customer, I am intrigued. And with Uber for Business, it's delivered exactly that. I don't have to worry about whether the trip that I am booking is compliant, whether I've booked the right ride type. I know that the currency is there ready to convert to my own home currency. I know the invoices in exactly the same format in whichever location I'm traveling. So to have one thing less to worry about, that makes everything incredibly easy. Employee experience when they're traveling is absolutely number one. We are focused on making sure that employees are happy, that they're comfortable. That's our main focus, and I think Uber for Business makes it pretty seamless for us. For us, it's very important as a global company to have global partners that can give services to more than one location and ensure the employee satisfaction, that they don't have to use multiple app for the same services and multiple the vendors for the same services, and they will have the same experience in every country that they may be. All an employee has to do is simply click a link, and their personal Uber profile is connected to the Qualtrics Uber for Business account. They also don't have have to submit expense reports since it's billed to our corporate account. And it's a tool and a service that they're already so used to using personally. They already are delighted with, and they can experience that for work as well. We have employees on the road, you know, every day, all day. They're traveling to all parts of the world, and so they can pull up their Uber app. They're getting to SFO. They're going to JFK. They're going to Singapore. They can always find a ride or ride share, so it kind of meets all of our needs. In the last six weeks, I've been in Poland, I've been in Portugal, Spain, The US, you land in a location, and I know that Uber for Business is going to be there to get me to where I need to go.