At Uber Eats Getting Back to Normal is ‘Better-4-You’

 

Business is coming back faster than employees, faster than rental car companies can get cars, and technology focused platforms the ilk of Uber Eats are evolving to not only garner your business but garner your loyalty according to Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®.

Uber Eats has been honing in on customer feedback elevating customer touchpoints that meet the unmet need-set. Uber has launched a host of new delivery features for consumers, most importantly the ability to pick up a meal in the middle of an Uber ride or order from two businesses at once.

I like Uber and think that is something business travelers will like, use, and garner value from.  These Uber updates are part of the company's new Go and Get initiatives, that are designed to enhance its mobility and delivery products coming out of the pandemic. In general, the delivery updates bring more flexibility to how and when people can order things on Uber Eats by leveraging its network of drivers, restaurants and other businesses.

So, a new Pickup and Go feature, for instance, integrates the Eats experience and the ride-hailing side. Uber riders will be able to view restaurants and other merchants along their route and order things for pickup mid-ride. Ok, you save time, save money, and don’t have to order room service that your company may not reimburse you for.  Has that happened to you before? 

Battle for Share of Stomach

Get this, customers will also be able to place orders even when a restaurant is closed, so they will be "first in line" when it opens. And they can create multiple, running orders from separate businesses and checkout whenever they want. (Previously, users could only have one order going at a time.)

Yet, there is more, Uber Eats is also testing the ability for customers to order from two nearby merchants on one ticket. When a customer places a dinner order, for instance, the app can identify a nearby partner business and ask if they want to order something from there. Initial tests will focus on pairing restaurant orders with Uber's convenience store partners 7-Eleven and Wawa. The delivery will be fulfilled by a single driver at no additional cost to the customer. Can you spell six pack?

On top of that there can be discounts.  The Uber Eats app will include a new Savings Hub that will display all available offers, promotions and discounts in one place. It will also show a user's progress in various restaurant loyalty programs. Now regular readers of this blog know that consumer interactive and participatory marketing is a hallmark of the grocerant niche. This is the best example of that to date.

You client and or company will be loving Uber soon as in another overlap with Uber, members of the Eats Pass subscription program will be able to get discounts on both food and rides. Members now pay $9.99 a month for unlimited free delivery from eligible restaurants as well as 5% off food orders. Starting in May, they'll also get 10% off three Uber rides every month.

Integrating consumer focused valued touchpoints while generating efficiencies with its two business segments is simply a homerun. Thus, by combining an Uber ride with an Uber Eats order, for example, the company is essentially getting two transactions for the price of one. A similar idea holds for delivering from two businesses with one driver.

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, stated, "As the network gets more-dense, essentially a courier has less ground to cover for the average delivery, and our algorithms are getting smarter in terms of routing, in terms of wait time with restaurants and optimizing every last percentage in order to drive cost per transaction efficiency,"

Do your food marketing tactics look more like yesterday that tomorrow? How are you developing integrated interactive participatory customer touchpoints?   Visit GrocerantGuru.com for more information or contact: Steve@FoodserviceSolutions.us Remember success does leave clues and we just may have the clue you need to propel your continued success.