2017 has been a major PR challenge for Uber the world’s most valuable start up. As a quick reminder here are the main events that have adversely affected Uber’s reputation.
- Uber CEO Travis Kalanick drew criticism for joining then President Trump’s economic advisory board.
- #deleteUBER started trending on Twitter after the company appeared to disrupt a taxi strike in protest of President Trump’s attempted travel ban
- Uber also faced widespread criticism for having a culture that tolerated sexual harassment.
- Most recently Uber was sued for allegedly stealing trade secrets from Google’s self-driving vehicle arm Waymo.
While only 4% of customers moved away from Uber as a result of these events many more customers started to harbor doubts about the organizations integrity and trustworthiness. As Uber prepares to introduce autonomous vehicles these qualities become critical for success. If Uber isn’t trusted as a brand, how likely are customers to entrust their safety to an Uber autonomous vehicle? According to consulting firm cg42, all those negative headlines did leave a mark on Uber’s reputation. As the chart above shows, the percentage of Uber customers with a negative perception climbed from 9 to 27 percent in response to the news events. “You have 81 percent of their users aware of the news. That means people are paying attention, and that means trust is eroding,” said Stephen Beck, founder and managing partner at cg42.
While the short term impact has been negligible there is some serious reputational damage that will need to be repaired over the coming months.
First published by Adrian G Stewart at OOKII.Company
Adrian G Stewart
