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Uber Rewards is ending on November 1, 2022
- itake 4y agoanyone know why? Aren't loyalty programs typically good for the company?
- yardstick 4y agoGood for profitable companies, yes.
- itake 4y agoI don't see the difference? Like if the program was providing value, perhaps in the form of retention, then the value exceeds the loss. They must have data that their loyalty program did not improve retention to justify the costs to run the program or (as others pointed out) they must see that force loyal customers to Uber One will increase their revenue/more.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- pessimizer 4y ago> if the program was providing value, perhaps in the form of retention, then the value exceeds the loss. This looks like a syllogism, but it is not. If something provides value, it does not mean that the value exceeds the loss. Otherwise everything useful would be profitable, like my gold toothbrush.
- bitnovus 4y ago"...we've decided to end Rewards soon, as we shift our focus to our new Uber One membership program." (EDIT: received in an email notification) It looks like they're trying to drive loyal customers into a paid membership who may have been otherwise happy with the benefits they were receiving under Uber Gold or other level.
- adeelk93 4y agoFirst they nerfed it. Used to be able to redeem 500 points for $5. Earlier this year they replaced it with discounts, so 400 points gets you 10% off. My most expensive ride in the past year was $30, so I view this as a 25% reduction in point value. I guess that wasn’t enough?
- potatolicious 4y agoLoyalty programs also cost money in the form of the free stuff you give away as benefits. For a company that perennially has trouble turning a profit on razor-slim (and most often negative) margins, this would be a problem. There's also a question of if the retention ability of the loyalty program outweighs of the cost of benefits you're giving out. Additionally the shape of the business matters. For some industries (see: hotels, airlines) a lot of the benefits are in the form of things they would've lost money on anyway if they didn't give to the loyal customer. Upgrading room at check-in? That room was pretty much guaranteed to go empty that night anyway. Upgrading airplane seat 24h before departure? That seat was pretty much guaranteed to go empty if they didn't. So the opportunity cost of giving the user the reward is ~zero-ish. This is definitely not true for Uber, where free rides = lost money.
- atlasunshrugged 4y agoThis is a great point, I was wondering why this seemed to work well for airlines and not Uber. And for airlines, I mean it's not even 24hrs sometimes, it's literally at the gate when there is 0 downside for them (other than the cost of a slightly more expensive meal and maybe some cheap champagne?)
- darth_avocado 4y agoSad. Was one of the few things keeping me on Uber eats. Now they have no benefits over their competitors. Doordash costs the same and has more restaurants. Plus the markups from restaurants in Uber is higher than DD. No point using them
- spookthesunset 4y agoThe DoorDash app is way worse though. It’s tracking and time estimates are awful, much worse than Uber.
- ikiris 4y agoThey aren't awful, they just lie. You just haven't noticed the pattern yet.
- neotrope 4y agofaster ETAs improve conversion :)
- darth_avocado 4y agoUnfortunately Ubereats is no better on this front. The shifting goalpost is a big problem. Keep changing ETA so that when you call customer service, they always point to the new ETA and claim that they are within their estimates.
- MacsHeadroom 4y agoI began screenshotting my original ETA every time years ago with Uber and Uber Eats for this reason. A few years back I had an ETA which remained at 15-20 minutes for two full hours and Uber wanted to charge me to cancel. When it happened again I was able to show the original ETA was over 1.5 hours earlier than my cancelation time and received a refund immediately. We shouldn't have to do this though. It's an awful customer experience and has lead me to use alternatives whenever possible.
- 4y ago
- rvz 4y agoThe Uber growth hacking pyramid scheme is complete with the phasing out of the rewards programme with nothing to replace it. It was a good run for the investors who suggested this growth hack in the early days and now they are laughing all the way to the bank and the users and drivers are left behind once again.
- asah 4y agowell... we all enjoyed unsustainably cheap rides and unsustainably high pay. Nobody forced us. We are just sheep.
- ben_jones 4y agoJust like the Uber credit card. They've removed every benefit and re-issued a vanilla master card. Its a company you can't trust.
- runesofdoom 4y agoIt's a company openly founded on "we can make money if we ignore the law". That they weren't trustworthy seemed pretty obvious from the start.
- scarface74 4y agoYou mean there was a point where you could trust a business that broke local laws repeatedly and never had a profitable business model?
- antisthenes 4y agoIt's not about trust. Uber is just realizing they don't really have any moats. All the gravy they collected from riding the gravy-regulation-skirting train was wasted on trying to build competitive advantages, developing self-driving and rewards programs like these to make it more attractive to customers compared to competitors. They've been selling $2 for the price of $1 and now that the party is beginning to die down, they're doing what any large faceless corp is doing - reducing the quality of the services they offer so they can extend their own runway.
- dehrmann 4y agoUber certainly has things in its past that make it a company you can't trust, but discontinuing a credit card with ample notice and reissuing it?
- mynameisvlad 4y agoI mean, in a thread about discontinuing a rewards program with ample notice, it seems pretty relevant to mention the credit card which suffered the same fate.
- _jal 4y agoTaxi companies never did rewards programs, and they had cheaper cost structures.
- hattmall 4y agoI mean they sort of did / do. Once you use them a lot you get to know drivers and you call them directly and they would give you better prices and pickup times. Calling dispatch would often not even work on busy nights. Obviously this isn't for placed like NYC where you just get a cab off the street. But in a lot of places you could establish relationships with a few cab drivers if you used them regularly.
- solardev 4y agoIn my entire life, I don't think I've ever seen a cab driver more than once. How small a place do you live in?
- ryoshu 4y ago20-ish years ago in Orange County, CA we had a cab driver we would call instead of dispatch. Super chill guy and good conversations with prompt service.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- kyleee 4y agoYou may just be closed off to the idea due to personality (not chatty) or due to lack of need (never needed to call and schedule a ride), but pre Uber (and maybe even today, don’t know) it was definitely common
- solardev 4y agoI'm not doubting that this CAN happen, just wondering where it DOES frequently happen. I do enjoy chatting with drivers, though these days it's 99% Lyft and almost never a taxi. Back in the day though, I'd ride a taxi maybe once a week or so. The opportunity never even came up, like how would you start that discussion...? "Cool chat bro, can I have your number so I can just call you direct next time and bypass dispatch?" I'm not saying this is unbelievable, I'm just genuinely curious as to how this comes to pass, organically. I've never heard of anyone doing this, so was surprised when you said it's common, that's all.
- bombcar 4y agoUber had rewards program?
- fonix 4y agoYea per usual you spend like $1k for $5 off or something.
- atlasunshrugged 4y agoThey really didn't make it that easy to use or find. I think I got 1-2 discounts out of it but it certainly wasn't something I thought about regularly (or at all except when there was some push notification)
- fullsend 4y agoI was a big Uber eats user out of laziness and the rewards program actually cost me something like $10 per month and saved me $50 or 60 per month.
- peanut_worm 4y agoThe thresholds for the rewards were insane anyways youd have to make like 15 orders to get anything
- atlasunshrugged 4y agoInteresting that this model didn't work for them when it seems to work very well for airlines which also have a pretty undifferentiated service (I mean, I know some are more or less timely or cancellation prone but generally you are getting a seat on a Boeing or Airbus and nearly everyone has the same experience up to the gate unless you have Clear or TSA Pre which aren't related to rewards programs).
- dastbe 4y agoairline miles have been devalued frequently over the past few years, along with the rest of their award programs.
- paxys 4y agoAirline miles are nowadays bordering on useless for actually booking flights. Loyalty programs are attractive instead for “status”, priority boarding, upgrades, free changes, free bags etc. Uber can’t really offer any of this.