
über vs. Uber - mtviewdave
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/06/opinion/joe-nocera-uber-vs-uber.html
======
tolmasky
It seems to me that this article is conflating two issues that aren't
necessarily related in a kind of strange way:

First, the understandable misfortune of the naming conflict, which appears to
go beyond just the calling issue (for example the listed suing of the wrong
party).

Second, it uses this as a strange segue way to criticize Uber for not having
phone support. Now if you believe that Uber should have phone support that's
fine -- but its kind of unrelated to this person's troubles. By that I mean,
had she happened to not name her company uber, then this wouldn't all of a
sudden make their lack of phone support OK right? So if what you want to do is
say Uber should have phone support, then this seems like a really strange
primary point.

As an aside -- their email support has always been stellar to me, and I
actually have the opposite complaint of other companies: I'd PAY to be able to
get a prompt < 1 hour email reply from comcast vs. the "intimate interaction"
of wanting to break my table when I'm on the phone with a real life person
from their team.

~~~
geofft
If she hadn't named her company über, then we wouldn't have the convenient
source of data about people who want to call. Since that data exists, it seems
reasonable to write an article about it, and briefly explain at the top how it
came to be that we have so many people trying to reach Uber instead reaching
the same phone.

~~~
tolmasky
But this data is actually useless without context. I actually have no clue if
500 calls since August is a lot -- to be honest my first reaction was that it
sounded low compared to my (completely possibly incorrect) notion of how many
uber rides must be taking place in New York (Uber's biggest market?). It would
have been nice for him to have done some analysis with this supposedly
indicative number, for example saying how that represents x% of all rides or
something. Instead he focuses on really strange parts of this story. I suppose
its an op ed so excusable, but I think there was an insightful possibility
here that instead just comes off as some guy who's kind of angry and snarky.

~~~
viscanti
Especially since it sounds like most of the calls were for people who didn't
understand how uber works and wanted to pre-book a ride. I'm not sure that it
would ever be worth having a listed phone number just so someone could answer
and say "actually you can't pre-book, you'll have to buy a smartphone and
download the app".

~~~
geofft
You could set up an automated phone tree for this. I've seen multiple large
organizations have phone trees where several paths down the tree leads to an
automated answer at the leaf (sometimes you can't even get to a representative
once you reach some leaves).

~~~
viscanti
Sure. You could. But there's a big step between it being possible, and being
(what the author implies) a moral obligation. In fact, there's probably a big
step between it being possible and it being worth it.

If Uber actually got big enough that it became one of the only transportation
options, then they might have some kind of moral obligation to setup a phone
tree to help people who don't have any other options. But I don't think
they're anywhere close to that.

------
sgustard
If she got calls like "I'll pay someone $1000 for a ride to the airport right
now", that might justify Uber hiring people to answer phones. But she doesn't,
she gets calls from angry harassed customers and people who don't know they
can't schedule future rides. Guess what, Uber doesn't want or need to hear
from these people. They've optimized to reach people who make them profit, not
who are a time and money sink. Adding a phone number is only down-side for
them and they clearly know it.

~~~
stanleydrew
I'm guessing you don't spend much time talking to customers in your
organization.

This is a very shortsighted view. Today's angry or confused customer is
potentially tomorrow's evangelist.

~~~
jasonisalive
I work in customer service (telco) and let me say, you could sort the wheat
from the chaff, but there is a _lot_ of chaff.

------
radicalbyte
Lyft should sponsor her voicemail.

~~~
dustinupdyke
Much like domains that live off of mis-spellings, is there a model for
grabbing these customers and offering them another service?

What if these ladies started pushing customers elsewhere?

~~~
Untit1ed
> What if these ladies started pushing customers elsewhere?

I imagine no-umlaut-Uber would retaliate in some kind of distasteful, barely-
within-the-bounds-of-the-law way and HN would have its anti-Uber story for
next week.

------
jlas
Interesting tidbit: it looks like the über folks acquired the
[http://www.uber.nyc](http://www.uber.nyc) domain recently. The .nyc domain
actually started registering this year and the auction for uber.nyc (which I
was a part of) ended at $3,200. I was surprised that Uber (the taxi company)
didn't try to get it.

~~~
greenyoda
It makes sense to me that a Manhattan-based company (über) would want a .nyc
domain and a global company like Uber would not. Wouldn't it be confusing for
Uber to have different domains in different cities?

~~~
IkmoIkmo
Sort of. Uber's profits are extremely lopsided, almost all revenues are
generated from just 5 cities with NY heading the list with twice as much
revenue as the next city.

Given that it makes some sense to try to brand a particular presence in NY. A
bit like how a fashion store might want to have a strong presence in Paris.
And given NYC alone has a runrate of more than $300m alone, it's not strange
to approach this as its own market, just like a company might have a US, UK,
JP, DE etc domain for those country markets. Only Uber is more city-segmented
than country-segmented right now, each city has its own taxi ecosystem and
legislation.

In any case, it'd be an easy redirect and for a company worth tens of
billions, outspending a $3k bid to get a branded domain for your company's
largest market makes sense. Even if you don't use it, grabbing it and
redirecting may be useful. Who knows if its worth much in the future.

So I wouldn't say that grabbing a uber.nyc domain name is the best move ever
but it's not strange given the context. I'd have done it.

~~~
makomk
Except that Uber's current funding and valuation depends on them taking over
the taxi market globally, not just in NYC. Branding themselves as an NYC taxi
firm wouldn't give the right message to investors and the media at all.

------
Malician
The essay writer really doesn't seem to comprehend the decision Uber is
making, or the reasons behind it. It's the model Google used to build Adwords,
scalability by refusing to implement anything that requires massive call
centers, not the Comcast model of trying to minimize the cost of having
hundreds of thousands of employees.

Uber should work with this woman to take action to avoid an externality of
their business model: the harm of her getting spammed by Uber customers. But
that has nothing to do with implementing phone support.

(Maybe a number for Uber support that leads to an automated prompt, "We don't
have phone support, please email us?")

~~~
ianlevesque
For uber the car company, press 1?

~~~
lostcolony
_1_ "We're sorry, Uber the car company does not take calls. Please email us or
give up in frustration."

------
ghshephard
Lyft should register a phone number for über in every city they compete with
Uber in, and offer their services. It's the sort of sharp elbows competition
that Uber would certainly do.

------
spyder
An Uber competitor should make a deal with the owner of the phone number.

------
drdeadringer
I've had similar via a Google Voice phone number and people thinking they were
calling some ride service; I wasn't able to figure out if it was an airport
share-shuttle, a towncar service, or what.

Every so often it'd ring: "Hi, you're supposed to pick me up from the
airport?" or similar.

I ended up not needing that particular Google Voice number as I had thought,
so... to whoever has that phone number now, I've been there.

------
morgante
I don't understand why this is an opinion piece. What exactly is the point?
That companies somehow have a moral obligation to provide phone support
(you'll find many people who disagree)?

If the author personally wants to phone support, he can stick to companies
which provide it. Let the market decide (hint: phone support won't win).

~~~
Someone
_" I don't understand why this is an opinion piece."_

 _" you'll find many people who disagree"_

It almost is an opinion piece because you will find many people who disagree.
[http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/opinion...](http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/opinion-
piece):

 _" Opinion piece: An article in which the writer expresses their personal
opinion, typically one which is controversial or provocative, about a
particular issue or item of news"_

------
JadeNB
It's funny that the article mentions that the Amazon phone number "isn't hard
to find"; I remember that they used to be the poster child (poster company?)
for obscurantism in that respect. See, for example,
[http://amazoncustomerservice.blogspot.com/2007/12/8.html](http://amazoncustomerservice.blogspot.com/2007/12/8.html).
(Actually, although I agree that it's not hard to _Google_ , a few idle clicks
on the Amazon page—including to Help > Contact Us—didn't immediately turn it
up there.)

~~~
cowsandmilk
When I click "contact us", it gives me a page that says:

"How would you like to contact us?" and gives me 3 options:

1) E-mail

2) Phone

3) Chat

If you choose phone, you can have them call you, or you can call their number.
It may seem convoluted, but since you are able to choose your order and issue
you would like to discuss, the amazon representative calling you doesn't have
to go through all the verification nonsense and looking up orders and such
silly steps.

~~~
JadeNB
> It may seem convoluted, but since you are able to choose your order and
> issue you would like to discuss, the amazon representative calling you
> doesn't have to go through all the verification nonsense and looking up
> orders and such silly steps.

You are right that these are advantages, and I'm OK with it; but notice that
you have to be logged in (or enter your password) to see these options. It
seems to me that requiring you to be logged in to find the phone number is
still at least a bit ridiculous.

------
dkarapetyan
I am not exactly sure what the lesson is here. It's just another negative
piece about the impersonal and cutthroat business practices of Uber. Yet in
spite of all the negative press the company is valued at $40 billion and
continues to grow. In the presence of alternatives like Lyft and even just
regular cabs which are almost always cheaper than Uber why do people continue
to use Uber?

~~~
geofft
Because the market is so inefficient and taxis are so terrible that a company
somewhat more efficient and somewhat less terrible can make lots of money and
have only one real competitor.

If a market is ripe for disruption, we shouldn't believe that the first
company that comes along is efficient and running well. Quite the opposite,
since it has so much room not to be and still be successful.

~~~
omonra
I think that we have a case of 'silent majority' at work (of which I'm a part
of).

Chattering classes may yap all day about how Uber is bad - while millions of
customers are extremely happy with the service they receive.

However our level of motivation is starkly different. I am happy using the
service - and don't really care enough to write letters / articles defending
them. Journalists / taxi lobbyists are vastly more motivated to push a
different narrative.

------
imaginenore
The solution is simple - make a deal with Lyft and redirect the customers to
them for a fee.

------
Dewie
> It conveys, she told me recently, both a European sensibility

What?

~~~
jasonisalive
Now that the Germans have been firmly put in their place as the footstools of
the Anglo-Saxons, it's safe and trendy to orientalise aspects of their culture
and language.

------
aaron695
> Here’s a suggestion: Hire some people who will answer the phone.

Lucky a $40 billion company has some hack at the NYT to give them advice.

Pet hate: When a company specifically doesn't want people X as customers, X
thinks it's because said company is dumb. A great example of 'unconscious
incompetence'.

