I recently got caught up in the Target data breach fiasco and was issued a new credit card. And, of course, then had to go through all the various companies that have my card on file and update them. There was a remarkable difference in the process at the various institutions… and, one company that stood out with a well designed solution to the problem.
Most of the companies I had to change the card with basically required me to execute the world’s worst typing test. I was making these changes from my phone while on the road which required me to type 16 random digits perfectly while only seeing one digit at a time (they mask each digit after you type it.) It was incredibly painful and the iPhone’s auto-correct feature doesn’t work particularly well for credit card numbers.
But, Uber was different.
Uber gave me the option of taking a picture of my credit card. A simple picture and it had all of my data. No typing test. No pain. I don’t know why Uber was able to have such a solution when no one else did, but my guess is that they consider their product to be at least as much the technology solution as it is the cars they move you around in. In other words, because they see technology as strategic (especially mobile technology) they spend time designing excellent solutions for it.
