Being here in the San Francisco Bay Area, I’m pretty fascinated by some of the companies that I see and hear about and there are some really great organizations that are here that help get startups promoted and noticed. One of them happens to be SF App Studio which focuses on helping mobile application companies fine-tune their product. Each month this group puts on a showcase that promotes these companies and at the most recent one, I found out about a new company that seems to have an interesting twist on getting back and forth to and from your destination.
How many times have you been in a large city going to a party, meeting , event , conference, etc knowing that you would rather not take public transit or even driving your car for fear of not finding safe and convenient parking? I know I have…and there are times, admittedly, where it’s too late at night and the only means I have to get home are through public transit or perhaps even a taxi cab. Catching the latter is probably the most convenient, but then I need to search through my wallet to see if I have enough cash because finding taxi drivers who accept credit cards can be sometimes stressful and time-consuming. The next problem is actually finding a cab and depending on what application you have and phone, you might need to actually dial a number to have a cab come to your area. While finding a cab is probably unavoidable, mobile applications have made it easy to hail a cab from practically wherever you are. But the one thing people probably worry about is having enough cash on them to pay the fare.
Ride around in STYLE
That’s where UberCab comes into play. Available for the iPhone, this new application is designed to treat its clients in style. It functions somewhat similar to the Cabulous application, but instead of a yellow cab pulling up to your location, you’ll be greeted by a professional driver in a nice black Lincoln town car.
Here’s how the process works:
The first thing you’ll do is sign up for an account. Once you’ve done that, you’re good to go on hailing your UberCab. By using the iPhone application, you can select your location where you want to be picked up. Participating cab drivers will receive a notice and one of them should respond saying “they’re on their way”.
Once confirmed, you’ll input where you want to go – either through a saved destination like your “home”, “work”, “gym”, “friend’s house”, etc or you can add in an original destination. The UberCab will come pick you up and take you to your destination. Once you’re there, then you say “Thanks for the ride!“, step out of the vehicle and go on your merry way.
Where’s the money?
The beauty of UberCab is that there is no physical money that is traded. All transactions are done through credit cards that you inputted when you first set up your account. That way you won’t have to worry about not having enough money to pay for a cab. However, before you get too excited and decide to hail an UberCab, you should know that as a result of driving around town in style, the average fares for UberCab will typically be twice as a high as a regular taxi.
So why choose a UberCab?
For style and elitism seems to be a good reason, but also because this mobile app service relieves you of having to worry about money & the quality of service. We all know that by spending slightly more money, you should be getting way better service. This seemed to be the selling point for UberCab as this startup has claimed that they started the business because:
Other apps are build upon a broken taxi system. Their customer experience regardless of how great the app is will be terrible. Their technology doesn’t improve the end product for the customer at all, our does.
Our network of limo drivers and car services are clean and professional, providing an on-demand and elite experience. We created a service you can trust, and verify. Once you make a request to an UberDriver you can watch his exact moves to your arrival. This means that you can count on his arrival and be confident to make your flight or meeting on time.
Another plus side to UberCab is that it has a Yelp-mechanism attached to it. What this means is that after the ride, both the driver AND the client have the ability to rate each other and this could affect the service you get through UberCab. On one hand, if you, as a client, have horrible service with a driver and it is repeated with other clients, then that driver may no longer be participating in the UberCab promotion because no one would want to be in the same car. But on the other hand, you as a client could be rated so poorly that none of the drivers would want to pick you up because you have a habit of trashing the backseat of their vehicles or perhaps you have a high enough rating that drivers want to chauffeur you around because you are a big tipper. The review mechanism can have a positive AND negative effect.
Now just wait a minute before you sign up for UberCab
As a startup, UberCab doesn’t have the immediate infrastructure or network needed to branch out immediately to most populating cities and is currently only available in San Francisco. Another downside is that it is only available via the iPhone and through SMS messaging. Top top it all off, currently the cabs are only running within certain hours of a day – Thursday 6pm – midnight and Friday & Saturday 6pm – 3am.
Creating an account with UberCab is pretty free & you can sign up by clicking here. It’s interesting how the UberCab service is working as they are starting to leverage more and more the power of social media and the abundant use of mobile devices. Never will drivers have to wonder where their next fare will be – through the use of location-based services, you’ll always know where to be picked up and dropped off. And the rating system just keeps everyone a bit more honest and the quality of service that much higher.
Oh, and you can’t beat the fact that you’re going home in a town car…
Brought to you by Network Solutions®
