Good independent workers are hard to find and even harder to keep if the cost of doing business doesn’t make sense. So Uber is adding a new goody bag of rewards in hopes of retaining its workforce.
One of those perks is Fuel Finder, a new feature inside the driver-side app allowing drivers to search for the cheapest and closest gas stations. Drivers simply zoom in a tap on the provided map and little gas pumps at nearby gas stations will pop up with a price per gallon of gas.
Gas prices don’t fluctuate that much in a day but the app will pull in aggregate data from various sources and refresh about once an hour to reflect any possible changes.
The app will also provide turn-by-turn directions to get the driver to the gas station they wish to fill up at.
Of course, if you are out of gas and out of money you can’t start picking people up so along with finding the best price, Uber intends to offer drivers a fuel rewards card.
The new card is based on a driver’s record instead of credit history and is intended to reward those who drive a lot on the platform. Those completing at least 100 trips a month can get up to 15 cents a gallon off at participating gas stations throughout the U.S. and the rewards card can be used to purchase other items at the station as well like Gatorade and snacks.
The app also offers drivers discounts from certain places. Jiffy Lube will offer those on the platform a 15 percent discount on oil changes, for instance.
Uber will also offer an Instant Payment feature through GoBank. Lyft came out with an instant payment feature for drivers last fall. Uber says it is slowly rolling out a similar feature to its drivers and that the ability to instantly transfer earnings from rides to your GoBank card (and eventually your own bank account) will roll out to all eligible drivers by the end of this month.
Uber updated the driver-side app last October with the intent to integrate several features drivers had wanted more transparency on such as ratings and payments.
Clearly Uber wants to keep its most loyal workers happy and that includes a useful and informative app for drivers.
Other ideas the product team is working on to accommodate Uber’s 1099 workforce include a public restroom locator (currently code-named “poober”) and the best places for grub or rest stops.