Uber is catering to the return of post-pandemic corporate travel with the introduction of a business class-like experience called Uber Business Comfort.
The new feature will allow riders to have priority pickup, so their trip requests will be prioritized over non-business travelers. Riders will have access to more legroom, newer cars, more time to meet their driver, custom settings like ideal vehicle temperature, and highly rated drivers in this new enterprise offering. Uber is also launching a designated support service for Business Comfort riders.
“Our expectation is that Uber’s B2B side of the business will begin to increasingly be a meaningful part of the business,” Susan Anderson, Uber’s global head of Uber for business and business development, tells Fast Company. “We’re already a multi-billion dollar part, so a large proportion, and growing fast.”
Uber’s business segment has more than 170,000 customers. In the first quarter of this year, the company reported 40% year-over-year growth, it says. Business customers are an attractive target for the company, as Uber says they generate two times as much gross booking per monthly active user and are more than three times as profitable as a regular customer.
Uber’s push into growing its enterprise segment coincides with a broader rise in business travel. Spending on business travel globally is anticipated to recover to 80% of 2019 levels this year, compared to 65% in 2022, according to a report from the Global Business Travel Association cited by Anderson.
Uber has seen a difference around the types of trips that workers are taking compared to pre-pandemic times. Currently, people are taking fewer trips from one office to another for in-person meetings, because many of those have been relegated to Zoom. But travel to different cities within their home country is coming back strong.
“What we hear from our clients is whilst there are restrictions sometimes on internal travel, there are not restrictions on traveling to meet clients, to meet your customer, to meet partners, and be able to continue to meet with important people that drive the business forward from an external perspective,” Anderson says.
Uber is also building out its business hub to offer information on things like workplace perks and travel policies. Users can search their company name in the business hub to see if travel and meal programs are available and connect with their work email addresses. The company has plans to introduce a toggle in the app so users can switch between their business and personal profiles, so that it’s easy to understand how expenses are being divided up.
“There’s more personalization going to come over the summer as we begin to build business mode out,” Anderson says.
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