Uber, the world’s largest on-demand ride-sharing company, on Monday announced the launch of India’s second Center of Excellence (CoE) in Visakhapatnam after Hyderabad.
Set up at a cost of US$800,000, the new CoE will create 500 new jobs. It will provide specialised customer support for critical incidents that require immediate attention by employing dedicated teams of solution-oriented, trusted experts to support millions of Uber customers in India, South Asia and Asia Pacific regions. The trained CoE teams will respond to any urgent issue or incident that is reported to the company 24/7. The Vizag facility will be Uber’s 12th CoE globally. It operates two CoEs in the US in Chicago and Phoenix, four in EMEA in Limerick (Ireland), Lisbon (Portugal), Cairo (Egypt) and Krakow (Poland). The company also has two CoEs in Latin America in Costa Rica and Sao Paulo (Brazil).
The Vizag CoE is its fourth in Asia. Others are located in Manila and Pampanga (Philippines) and Hyderabad.
Safety first
Speaking at the launch, Wen-Szu Lin, Senior Director, Community Operations for Asia Pacific, Uber said: “With the launch of the second CoE in India, we aim to reiterate our deep commitment to India by bringing safer and responsible mobility solutions to our riders. Through the new COE we plan to expand our global customer support footprint as well as aim to create new economic opportunities for the high calibre talent in this country.”
Uber launched its first India CoE in Hyderabad in 2015. It has over 1,000 employees providing critical regional and global customer support services to the Uber community of riders, drivers, eaters, couriers, and restaurant partners.
Mr. Lin said for Uber, safety was paramount and over the years the company had introduced several innovative in-app safety features and practices such as two-way call anonymisation to protect the privacy of riders, comprehensive background checks of drivers, reminders to check your ride before boarding and share trip for one’s peace of mind with a 24/7 safety helpline.
