In our latest fireside chat, we sat down with Uber Eats to talk about their recent training initiative in partnership with eduMe, focused around retaining new restaurants and keeping them active on their platform.
Our VP of Client Services, Priya Bhandari spoke with Uber Eats’ Merchant Operations Lead, Vuyokazi Maselana, about:
- The challenge Uber Eats was facing
- Why they chose eduMe
- The results of the initiative
- The impact this has had on their business
- Their highlight from the partnership
Watch the full recording, or find the transcript below.
Uber Eats' challenge: activating new restaurant merchants (1:05)
VM
So I am the merchant operations lead for Uber Eats, which basically means that I look at processes that help equip our merchant-facing teams and also give a great experience to our merchants that really does incorporate a lot of different things. So we look at things like onboarding the merchant, the merchant’s experience, and the merchant’s growth on the platform as well.
PB
Moving a little bit to our partnership, what challenges were you looking to solve through using eduMe?
VM
So when I joined the team, one of the biggest blockers was the number of days it actually took for us to get a merchant to take the first trip and what that basically meant was there were elements during onboarding where the merchant actually took a number of days to complete certain parts.
One of the biggest pain points was definitely around training - the ability to get a hold of our merchants on time and be able to train them and the retention as well of information that they were getting at that time.
So when we partnered up with eduMe, the aim was really for us to reduce the days to first trip by reducing the time it took merchants to get trained, and to bring into place a scalable solution. Something that merchants could access and use to self-serve and onboard quite efficiently, as well as reduce the contact rates because when we train merchants using phone or in-person, there’s a lot of contact with a specific individual and possibly back and forth as well. But we just wanted to make sure that our merchants were quite independent and also just improve the quality of the knowledge and information that the merchant was getting.
Why eduMe? (2:50)
PB
And then tell me, why did you choose to partner with eduMe?
VM
Yeah I chose eduMe because a colleague actually recommended eduMe to us. So I was having a discussion with a colleague of mine who has used eduMe for the delivery people during onboarding training, and they just basically told me how easy it is to use eduMe. And it’s also a product that was used by our ride business for drivers who actually use the platform.
So choosing eduMe was very easy because there were so many people that were able to share their experiences.
The results of the initiative (3:33)
PB
So getting onto results a little bit now. Tell us what you’ve achieved so far through this partnership.
VM
I think the results that we had seen at year end were really quite remarkable. So for the specific cohort that used eduMe for training, we saw a reduction in our onboarding time from 6.6 days to around 3 days. So that’s like 50%, half of that reduced, which is really great to see.
We also saw an increase in the online rate, so the number of hours that the merchant spends on the platform, which is around 5%. We also saw the courses drive a lot of user ownership, which can be seen in the days to first trip or first supply hours, as well as the activation of merchants happening much faster.
I think the most beautiful part as well was just the feedback that we received from our internal stakeholders. So basically our sales team, our account management team that was also sharing these various links with our merchants, they spoke about how this has really empowered our merchants to self-serve and proactively understand the platform and also just proactively take the training.
So both from a quantitative and qualitative perspective, we really saw great results and great feedback that we received from the various team members.
PB
So happy to hear that. And again, just to clarify for everybody some of the terminology. So the first trip is the first order that is achieved by a merchant that’s new on your platform, right? And first supply hours is also the first time that a new merchant has gone online in the Uber Eats platform.
Congratulations to you and all of the team for all of the effort that you’ve put into creating such fantastic, engaging content that’s clearly resonating with merchants.
The impact of the initiative on the wider business (5:40)
PB
You touched on a variety of results that you’ve seen, from a more than 50% decrease in onboarding time and increasing ownership and merchants being able to find the information that they need.
What would you say has been the impact of that on your wider business?
VM
I think for me, really again, going back to purpose the whole partnership just made me realize how we can make our merchants’ lives easier, and how we can make the lives of our internal stakeholders easier as well.
And that’s what we basically aim to do as the operations team. We make sure that we put in place solutions that are scalable and efficient so that people can actually focus on the most impactful things and that’s exactly what eduMe has done for us. It has enabled us to really just do a lot for our internal stakeholders and also allow various stakeholders to focus on what is most important.
What was your biggest highlight from the partnership? (7:01)
PB
I’m so glad to hear that. That really resonates with us and it’s very rewarding for us to hear that it enables people in your team to be focusing on high value-add things that’s freeing up their time by putting in something scalable and allows them to be doing more high value, high impact things instead.
If we take a little step back, I would love to hear: if you had to pick one thing that has really impressed you or stuck with you from this partnership, what would that be?
VM
I think definitely the support. The support and professionalism. Just the ability to really work with every single person in your team that we’ve interacted with, with so much ease. And I mean I’m not taking away from the tool itself - the tool is fantastic, it’s easy to use, the back end is also understandable. But I think, just knowing that we had the support from your team and that anyone from my team could reach out to anyone from your team at any point in time was really outstanding, and truly unforgettable throughout this partnership.
eduMe has played a key role in enabling Uber to onboard and upskill both driver partners and external merchants remotely and effectively - providing seamless access to relevant information has helped them to boost engagement, increase retention and keep their users safe.
To find out more about our solution and what we can do for your business, get in touch below👇
