Uber and Yext team up to offer riders a smarter way to get to their favorite destinations

Published in

Uber Developers

4 min readSep 29, 2016

This is a guest post from Yext’s EVP Product & Strategy, Marc Ferrentino.

The adage ‘location, location, location’ has never been more relevant than it is today. With the rise of mobile, people are going more places, making more decisions on the go based on the information at their fingertips. For a business, it can still be challenging to use technology to drive consumers to their front door, and that’s where Yext comes in. We help solve that problem by putting business on the map with the award-winning Location Cloud.

Uber and Yext share the same mission — to help people go places. That’s why we integrated with Uber to allow businesses for the first time to drive customers directly from their website to their doorstep — and engage them with a targeted brand experience while they’re en route.

Create an immersive branded experience with Uber’s API

This integration offers three unique tools for businesses:

‘Ride with Uber’ buttons: One-click ride-booking directly from the business’s website, email campaigns, and more with the business preset as the destination.
Trip branding: When users request rides from the Yext-powered Ride Request button, businesses can display valuable information to enhance their journey or prepare them for their arrival — right in the Uber App.
Drop-off points: Pinpoint the precise drop-off point, so the customer arrives at precisely the right entrance, not the mailing address or wrong parking lot.

Yext’s integration with Uber is about more than convenience. It represents a new immersive experience where stores, restaurants, and other businesses can bring customers directly to their doors and increase customer engagement through Trip Branding. We’re closing the loop so that businesses can provide a great experience all the way from search results to checkout, including actually getting to the location.

We love how Yext has brought the power and convenience of the Uber API to more businesses across the web. Combined with Yext’s Location Cloud, businesses can take all the friction out of bringing customers to their doorstep.
— Chris Saad, PM, Uber Platform Partnerships

The world’s largest brands are already using the Uber integration for Yext

Yext’s Uber integration makes getting to a participating business more convenient, creating an incentive for customers to visit it over a nearby competitor. Restaurants can then display their menus during the ride, getting customers excited about the meal to come. Merchandise repair shops can now help their customers get heavy items right to the door thanks to precise drop-off locations for Uber drivers.

Cole Haan, the iconic American lifestyle accessories brand and retailer of premium men’s and women’s footwear and accessories, beta tested the integration to highlight their Fall 2016 collection. And Guitar Center, the world’s largest retailer of guitars and related music equipment, piloted the beta version of the integration to help customers demo its products in store after researching online.

We’re very excited to be one of the first companies launching the ‘Ride with Uber’ feature, which will make the Guitar Center shopping experience even more convenient for our customers.
— Jeff Wisot, Vice President of Marketing & E-commerce at Guitar Center.
We’re using Yext’s Uber integration to be innovative in our hiring process. We can now bring job seekers directly from our website to our front door and brief them about our organization during the ride.
— Richard Ortiz of BAYADA Home Health Care.

Time will tell exactly how businesses will make this tool their own. We’re pleased we’ve been able to give them another adaptable tool to serve and delight their customers.