Name: Ask the experts: Uber for Business answers your questions
Uploaded: 2026-02-19T19:51:04.881Z
Duration: 34 min 41 s
Description: Ask the experts: Uber for Business answers your questions

Transcript for "Ask the experts: Uber for Business answers your questions": Hi, everyone. Welcome to today's webinar, ask the experts for Uber for Business. We're going to answer your questions. So thank you so much for joining us. If you're new for Uber for Business, quick little TLDR of who we are. We are Uber and bringing all of the best parts of Uber to your organizations. We can help empower your organizations to streamline business traveler meals, reimagine your employee well-being or elevates really just the end to end experience that you all know from business travel. So for a quick introduction, my name is Zach Chandler. I've been at Uber for five years. I'm a product manager, and I'm joined today, by Nathan Yang. Nathan, will you give us a quick introduction about yourself? Yeah. Hi, everyone. I'm Nathan, also a product manager here at Uber. Been here three years now, and I'm based in San Francisco. Thank you so much. Cool. So to get to know us a little better, we're gonna start out with a quick little icebreaker. So feel free in chat to chime in with your answer to this. We're all very curious and we wanna know. But where is the most interesting place you've taken an Uber ride? Nathan, why don't you kick us off? Yeah. Great question. I'll share a story that actually happened to me last month. Not in terms of a place interesting place I went to, but a fun Uber trip. So my family and I, we are in Amsterdam for my cousin's wedding and our extended family had booked this shuttle bus for us to get from our hotel to the wedding venue, which is about an hour outside of Amsterdam. And when the shuttle bus came, we loaded everything, our luggage. But as we were doing that, we we realized, oh, no. Our our luggage doesn't fit in the shuttle bus. All like fifteen, twenty of us. And so we were panicking. Like, what do we do? But thankfully, like, Uber was there to save us. I I booked an Uber van for for the family and then we all piled our luggage into this van. But after we did all that, thankfully everything fit. But after we did all that, like someone had to ride in the Uber itself. Like, couldn't just send our luggage off by itself. And so since I was the one that called the Uber, I I decided to go into this van. But just imagine me sitting in the back of this van just surrounded by, like, a pile of suitcases, just sitting there for an hour. That was a very interesting Uber ride for me. But, thankfully, like, everyone and our luggage got there on time and safely, but one of the more memorable Uber rides for me. Wow. That's pretty pretty funny. I I love it, and it's a very novel way to, you know, use Uber to make sure you're getting to where you're going. Ironically, one of the most interesting places I've ever taken an Uber was also to a wedding. It was the first time I ever traveled internationally and I went to India. And I arrived jet lagged, very long flight and had no idea what to do. Didn't know how to get to my hotel and accommodations. Luckily, Uber's there. Global footprints really reached this far and it was just so cool to land and not have to be stressed about where or how I'm going to get around. It was just so seamless and straightforward. Nice. That's very very similar to mine, being able to use Uber anywhere in the world where we're available. Yeah. Definitely. Cool. So today we're answering questions that you have asked during registration. So just to keep things organized, we have divided into three main sections. So first would be the platform setup. Secondly, we're going to talk about executive travel and third, vouchers and ride credits. So before we dig into today's contents though, just a couple of housekeeping items. The first one is if you have any additional questions, look on the right hand side of your tab, you will see a chat box. Please submit through that Q and A box and we will do our best to answer the questions with us or the team supporting us today. If you want more information about Uber for business, there is a ton of related contents under the docs section. And finally, if you do want to request a follow-up and get to know our amazing sales team and support staff that can help and get you going on an Uber for business, just click request a demo or get a demo, and we can reach out and find some time to support you. Cool. So recap, platform setup and administration, executive travel, and vouchers and credits. Alright. What do you guys think? Let's get started. So platform setup and administration. Let's see what our first question here is. So what are the benefits of Uber for business? So Uber for business has a ton of different benefits. From an organization's perspective, it's a really great way to manage your travel and expensing policies. You can set up custom programs, provide dynamic access, and really ensure that your employees are managed for when they travel. They're staying within your policy guidelines. They're getting automated expensing as well as, you know, providing that extra safety layer that you have visibility into your employees travel. With just with travel, there's also meal programs as well where you can do all the same things and even provide greater benefits. From an employee perspective, it's awesome that we're reusing the app that they all know and love. The majority of our business writers are existing personal Uber users. It's really easy to get set up and get going. There's even like exclusive perks from some of our 3P partners. For example, in The US, you can earn Delta or Marriott points based on every Uber ride that qualifies. Yeah. I mean, there's really a ton of benefits for the organization and the employee. Nathan, do think I missed anything? No. Think you got it all. Alright. Cool. Let's see what our next question is. Yeah. I can take this one, Zach. Sure. Question from Chad. What are the minimum requirements for Uber for Business? Great question. Uber for Business is built for every business. There's no minimum or maximum size. If you're a really big company, we do have options to make scaling your program easier, including dedicated support. I recommend it I recommend reaching out to our sales team about this. But, like, we do talk about how Uber for Business works a lot at big large scale, but it also works just as easily for small businesses and entrepreneurs, helping you keep personal and business expenses separate. There's no monthly subscription fees or service charges. All you need to do is set up account and your programs and you can start using our business products immediately. You're saying this is free? It is free. Oh, you still gotta pay for the rides and the trips. But in terms of creating an Uber for business account, no charge necessary. Oh, that's awesome. Really helps the sales pitch. Cool. Let's see what the next question is. So how do we give access to our employees? And this is a question from Insik. So great. So giving access to your employees really is as simple as invite The Uber for business dashboard has a dozen different ways that you can add employees. The most common ways are setting up roster syncs. So using your concur integrations or even getting a little more technical with like an SFTP. There's also ways that you can just bulk upload CSVs that has all of your employees information, directly inviting them, just typing someone's email. And there's even bulk options like sending a link in Slack and just letting everyone click and join from there. When employees do get invited, typically they receive a linking email to their business email address. We gotta keep those emails verified and keep all the organizations safe. But once they accept this invite, it opens the Uber app, they connect to their personal accounts, and they're good to go. Yeah. It it's really very streamlined and straightforward. Great. Next question from Laurie here. What are some good strategies for employee adoption? I'd say you have a few options here. First, I recommend highlighting the benefits for your employees. Benefits such as employees don't have to pay out of pocket for expenses or reimbursements, expensing super easy, ease of use in terms of ordering a business ride or placing a business order, and a tailored business experience, including things like premium support in nicer vehicles or priority delivery on the the Eats side. You could also try putting QR codes around the office, sending invitations via email, Slack messages, etcetera. And also consider adding your employees' phone numbers to their and sending invitations to your employees' phone numbers via our Uber for Business dashboard. You could also try piloting with a small group of employees. For example, if you're setting up a travel program, piloting with frequent travelers so they can share and get feedback. Or if it's something like an in office lunch or a late night meal program through Uber Eats, a single team to get them using and share feedback as well. And and just have plans ready to go that meet your team's needs. If anything goes wrong or there's any Q and As, having those resources ready for them is also a great way to drive adoption. Yeah. We also have an amazing team of account managers and people that are here to assist you during these ways that can help you with custom assets and speaking points and documentation. So there's a ton of resources available for you to get any help that you need. Yeah. Don't hesitate to reach out. Our team is here to help you guys. So let us know. Cool. So this one looks like a question from Veronica. How many individuals can have administrative rights? We have nine supervisors. Wow. That seems complicated. So there's actually several different roles that are available on Uber for Business directly to answer your question. There's no limit to how many admins you can have. That being said, we typically see only a few that are added just to simplify the integration. But there are four main roles that you can assign if you want to divvy up some of the responsibilities between your different supervisors. So for example, there's the admin. This is exclusive rights. They can do anything. They have admin access, manage billing, invite people, change the programs, whatever they need to do, they can get this done. There's also coordinator roles. So if you are really just interested in send vouchers or gift cards, that would be a coordinator role. There's also a reviewer role that can help review the different weekly emails and reports and trip reviews. This is typically more a cost associated one. We find that like the accounting team or the finance team typically gets slotted into the reviewer role because they have more of the access to the financial information. And finally the sustainability manager, which is my favorite role because it has access to all of the cool insights that U4B helps generate for you. We've had ton of organizations apply for grants based on their ecological or, you know, their footprints that they're having and how we can help reduce and, know, programs that help, you know, reduce that overall environmental impact. So very fun role. But yeah, so I think that that's probably fine. So let's see what the next question is. So, do I have to manually set up users in group with Uber? What if employee leaves? So this was a question from Linda. Thank you so much. So for this, you don't have to manually set it up. One, like we can always help you, but two, often with your if you're pursuing automated roster syncs, there are ways that you can dictate what groups they set up. So just for a fundamental, what is a group? A group is where you put employees that control access to their benefits that they receive. So if you want to have a commute program or a business travel, late night meals, these access groups are controlled so I can add Zach and Nathan into the late night meals program so that they have access to that benefit that you're providing for them. So these groups can be automatically set up with your roster syncs. You can also just create a couple groups are persistent. So once you create them and set them up, they will stay that way and you can add and remove people at will. But so yeah, so managing employees leaving your company is very, very simple with roster sync. We will automatic detect through that integration that they've left your company and remove their access to the different programs. That being said, an admin also has the ability to remove employees at will. So it's it's often if you don't have a roster sync that you just kinda set a recurring calendar invite for yourself and, you know, just triple check every few months to make sure that all the groups are set up to date. And to to jump in, if you don't use our roster syncing feature, you can also set up groups directly in the Uber for Business dashboard. There's a there should be a people tab where you can create groups of teams, for example. You can all do it manually via the dashboard. So you have either the roster syncing functionality that we provide or you can do it manually in the dashboard as well. Yeah. That that's a really good point because, you know, that's a that's a great way to like create extra benefits. Like, let's say you have executives or the c suite, you wanna give them access to the more premium product types, which we'll talk about here in a minute. It might be a great way for you to create an exclusive group for them to give them extra benefits. Cool. All right. So that wraps up the first section of our most commonly asked questions. Next, we're going into executive travel. Our first question is from Brandy. What's the difference between Business Comfort and Business Black, Zach? Yeah. So such a good question. My favorite way to answer this is to make an analogy of an airport or of an airplane and airplane classes. So if you think about the economy options as your typical UberX, you basically are working your way up the airplane to more premium and premium options. So whereas, you know, the economy option might be UberX, well, the next step up would actually be like a comfort ride. And then a step up from that would actually be a business comfort ride. Step up from that would be black. And then the most premium would be a business black. So these products really are tiered in the sense of like how they are prioritized in regards to our entire system and experiences. So, you know, depending on the class of the vehicle, the driver, the in ride experience, the preferences you have, it's basically creating a little bit of differentiation between the different premium options that we have. Yeah. Moving right along. My favorite thing that I like to talk about. What is Uber Black and what sets it apart? So, it's top rated drivers. We get the best of the best on our platform and that's what we exclusively use to take these business black rides. We have extremely high quality control in regards to vehicle types, year that they're made, makes and models. So we make sure that only the top ends are included here. The absolute best perk is a pickup on time protection. So reserve is one of the bigger use cases with Business Black. Make sure you're getting those airport trips going and ready on time reliably. But in the event we ever do mess up, that is something that we will help ensure that we will fix for you and make sure that that is all, you know, taken care of. It is our top priority to make sure that our on time pickup protection or our pickup and reliability is as close to perfect as we can possibly get. There's also the new elevated phone support. So I know a common trope with modern age and apps designs as you're talking. Are you talking to AI? Are you talking to a real person? We have real people, especially for Business Black in the premium support options. You need to talk to someone where there's someone here to help you. There's also more flexible time to meet your to get in the vehicle. So it's common that the driver will wait extra time outside your house or outside your place of business to make sure that you can get all your things together and make it to them in a timely manner. And of course, flexible booking options. I mentioned reserve, but there's tons of different product types like reserve and on demand and others that, you know, you can use to schedule these trips and whatever really you need to work for your schedule. Great. Thanks, Zach. Next question here. Also on the topic of Uber Business Black, would Uber Business Black be the suggested option for transportation for c level executives, or do you offer another option with this level of service? Very, very interesting. So as I mentioned before, it's a great option for executives in c suites. I would absolutely it's something that we do and it's something that you guys should do too. Go ahead and put your executives and C suites in an exclusive group, give them exclusive access. But honestly, really everyone would benefit from access to Business Black. But it is a really, really great way to show that extra love and support to those really high level users. So I think it is definitely suggested coordination. The you know, there's actually an interesting take on this question. So we do have this thing called delegate profiles. So I think really oh, that's great. We have slide two. So the executive assistant. So delegate profiles is basically where you can actually share your profile. So let's say I'm an executive that's supported by an EA. I can then share my business profile with that EA to have them help me coordinate and book my rides on my behalf. So if I'm super busy, back to back meetings running the company, my EA can actually reserve those rides to the airport, to the office, back to my home, to the client dinner, and I will just be aware and be notified. And it's still the exact same Uber app experience. If I need to edit or change something or adjust my preferences, that is still the autonomy, but both people can do it. It's really great, especially for three way intercoms. So if let's say the executive is running late in a meeting, EA can just message the driver and be like, hey, I'm so sorry. Please wait two extra minutes. They're on their way. So it's it's really, really handy for both EAs and executives. Great way to coordinate rides. And, yeah, overall, especially for Business Black, it's definitely the service quality that I would expect as an executive. That's really great to hear. Next question here, Zach. How can my organization ensure that rides we request through Uber for Business consistently meet high standards, specifically in terms of vehicle cleanliness, pleasant interior conditions, and reliability? Oh, well, first off, that's our job. So I don't think that's something that really you as an organization need to really worry about too much. It's our responsibility and it's our top priority to ensure that we're consistently meeting these high standards and quality expectations, especially whenever we're branding items business. So like business comfort or business black, like we are really, really going the extra mile to keep these quality as high as possible. So, yeah. So I wouldn't really stress about it too much. We have a really, really great scalable global service and footprint here. And, you know, especially with Business Comfort and Business Black, these luxury ride types, you know, that's kind of our bread and butter. That's what we're making sure that we can ensure is consistent and, you know, keeps that trust from you guys. All right. So now that I have talked way too much about all of these fun things, I'm gonna pass it back over to Nathan. I'm gonna get to ask some questions to him. The true expert. I'm so thankful that he is here to help me out. So let's talk about our third and final sections, which is vouchers and credits. Alright, Nathan. You ready? Yep. Alright. So question number one from Blake. Are we able to provide one off Uber rides or meals for an employee? The answer is yes. There are two products that we offer that you can use for this. One are gift cards, and the second are vouchers. Let's talk about gift cards first. Gift cards, it's like any other type of gift card, how it might work for those. But for Uber, of course, you can buy it up you buy it up front, you send it to someone, they redeem it for Uber Cash, and then they can spend that Uber Cash, which is our like our sport value product in the app on rides or meals through Uber Eats. Our other product, Vouchers, is a good fit for if you want to set up some more controls and limitations for how that credit might be used. For example, you can set things like, oh, geo restriction around where rides can be taken or where food can be ordered as well, when the voucher can be applicable, how much money, of course, that they can spend, that your employee can spend. But also one additional feature that vouchers have that gift cards don't is you can set different types of vouchers. And what I mean by type of voucher, I mean you can do, of course, the dollar credit similar to gift cards. But you can also choose a fully covered voucher or a percent off voucher. A fully covered voucher being oh, if you take a ride to an event, right, that whole ride is covered. You don't want to guess like, oh, is that gonna be $20? Is that gonna be $30? Etcetera. Or you could also give a percent off voucher, which is, of course, like, oh, a 10% off your ride. Company pays 10% of that trip, and then the the the rider would cover the rest of it. I just the TLDR here is for gift cards, if it's more of a gift, like, you're not too worried about how it's being used, but you do wanna give that credit to an employee. Gift cards are great for that. If you wanna set some more controls and limitations how about how that ride or meal should be used, then a voucher is great for that. It's it's more utility based. Oh, so what happens then with I guess, if the let's say the ride to a one off event is, you know, $20, but the voucher you provided them was for 30. How would that end up impacting the client? That's a great question. Thanks for mentioning that because one thing I didn't get to touch on earlier was that gift cards and vouchers are charged differently. Gift cards, like I said earlier, are charged upfront, whereas vouchers are charged based off usage. So if that ride only costs $20 but you get a $30 voucher, you only get charged $20. When I say you charge based on usage, that means you only get charged after the trip is taken. So if you create a $30 voucher or multiple, you won't be charged for creation, You'll be charged for usage. Whereas a gift card, if you buy like $530 gift cards, then you're paying that full amount upfront. Totally makes sense. And then just out of curiosity, and I think some people might find this interesting, for mentioning, like what about, like like, Central, I guess? Like, you I know it might not have as much of a Eats perspective, but can you kind of describe some of the differences here between a one off ride there versus using a voucher for a one off ride? Yeah. It's a great question. For those that don't know, Central is our concierge delegate booking product. It's imagine, like, being at a hotel and the front desk person can book you ride somewhere. I mentioned hotel, but it works. I know people at hospitals and other types of businesses also use a product like this. And so basically, like, central is the product you use to call a ride for someone, whereas a voucher is the the product you use if you wanna give a ride to someone, but you'd only be the one to book it. That's that's the best way I can explain it. I know we'll go into more detail in a bit. So but I'll I'll put a pin in that for now. Okay. Sounds good. Cool. Let's see what the next question is. I think we have one from Amy. So or which one? What question do we have? Oh, this one's actually from Sam. So what happens if a rider meal ends up having a higher cost than the voucher value? So kind of the inverse of the question I actually just asked. Exactly. It was a great question. Like I said earlier, inverse here would be any overage would be charged to the employee. So if you give a $20 gift card or a $20 voucher, right, but they're placing a $30 order, then that $10 difference is going to be paid by the employee. Awesome. Yeah. Very straightforward. So for the next question, can we purchase one time vouchers for a group? So how does that work, Nathan? The answer is yes. You can buy both gift cards and vouchers, in bulk through our Uber for Business dashboard. We make it super easy. You can individually enter your recipients' emails or phone numbers or create a CSV file with those emails and phone numbers as well so that you can upload to our dashboard and we'll send it out for you nice and easy. Vouchers have an additional feature where you can generate a link and share that directly to your employees if you prefer using that kind of distribution channel. Oh, fun. So that one could be something like if you're having a holiday party, you have a QR code at the exit that says, get home safe, you know, Uber voucher on us. Exactly. Very cool. Alright. Let's see what other questions we have. Can we send a ride for a customer? So question from Lauren. It's a great question. So you can give a fully covered ride via voucher to someone. You just make sure you select that option. And that voucher, when you give it to them, you're basically saying like, oh, this is like an IOU. Book the ride where you need to go, but we'll cover it. But the second product here, and I believe we have a slide for it if we go to the next one, is the central product we mentioned earlier. This is the product where it's a dashboard where you can enter who's riding, where do you want to go. You can select certain ride types, for example, UberX, Uber Comforts, etcetera. And essentially, you're you're booking the ride for them and all they need to do is show up. This is your central place where you can see all the rides you've booked for other people. You can schedule rides. You can monitor all these in progress rides. So it's it's really a surface for those that that they want to book rides for other people and just be that, like, overseeing coordinator managing everyone's travel. Wow. That's awesome. So yeah. So you can send that business black ride to that really important client coming in town. Yep. Yep. Cool. So the next question we have here for you is for one time employee meal, should we use a voucher or a meal allowance? So, So I think this is kind of getting at our program. So what's kind of the difference here? How would you approach? It really depends on the use case. In this specific case, our one time meal. If it's something that is truly one time, for example, just a happy hour for a special event, then I think a voucher would be a good use case for that. Right? But if it's something that's on a more recurring basis, for example, a late night meal program where it's only available for employees that work late in the evening, for example, like after seven p. M, but maybe that happens two or three times a month, A meal allowance or meal program would be better for that. The way I think about it is if you use a voucher, someone on your team will need to go send that voucher to that person so that they can take that ride or order that meal on the company. Whereas if you set up a meal program, right, it's it's already it's there. It's automated. All the employees to do is charge their meal to their business profile. And as long as you've set the proper controls and limitations around that, if there are any, for example, then there's no work for your team to do. It's there for the employee. They can use themselves as needed. So, yeah, it really depends on the use case here. Yeah. That totally makes sense. I I think yeah. Kind of emphasizing, like, do I need a coordinator to bring up the roles again involved to distribute that voucher to someone? Or is this a situation where employees can self serve, you know, under guidance? Exactly. Alright. Well, great. I think that was the last question we had for us today. So I think that's going to wrap up today's session. Thank you so much again for joining Nathan and I and getting, we're so thankful that we had the opportunity to answer some of your questions today. Following today's events, you will receive a link with the recording so you can revisit any of the contents that we have covered today. As a reminder, if you ever want to request more information or reach out to get a demo, please contact our amazing sales team. They will help get everything set up and going and answer even more of your questions that you had. So that being said, thank you so much. Have a great rest of your day. Thank you.