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The Challenge:

Renata Vasconcellos de Sa, Head of Rider for EMEA at Uber, has been with the company for over five years, overseeing operations across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. 

As Uber expanded its reach to serve over 150 million riders and 90 million drivers worldwide, Renata saw a significant opportunity to leverage customer feedback to drive even greater improvements in products and services. While the wealth of data from NPS surveys provided valuable insights, it was often anecdotal and lacked the clarity needed to make informed, strategic decisions.

In 2018, Uber partnered with Chattermill to take a more qualitative approach to understanding customer feedback, starting in Latin America.

“We partnered with Chattermill to adopt a more qualitative approach to understanding the consumer experience. While surveys provided valuable feedback, they were often too broad and open-ended, making it challenging to extract actionable insights,” says Renata.

As a large company, Uber needed an enterprise-grade solution to scale effectively - one that could surface strategic trends globally while uncovering granular insights from local markets. This would enable Uber to craft a strategy that keeps them connected to consumers both locally and globally.

What began as a localized initiative with Chattermill in Latin America has now scaled to five global mega-regions, helping Uber unlock the full potential of its CX capabilities and support continued global growth.

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The Solution:

Turning Feedback into Actionable Insights with Chattermill’s AI

Uber chose Chattermill for its ability to turn vast volumes of unstructured customer feedback into granular, actionable insights. With advanced AI capabilities, the platform enables teams to identify emerging themes, monitor key trends, and prioritize improvements based on what truly matters to customers.

“Chattermill stood out to us because of its ability to transform open-ended survey responses into detailed, data-driven insights. It enables us to go beyond categorizing feedback by tone - positive or negative - and allows us to identify emerging themes,” says Renata.

This level of depth and context helps Uber improve core parts of the rider experience, from trip quality and cancellations to pricing and app usability - areas where traditional internal data often lacks external perspective.

“This additional layer of feedback complements our internal data, which, while useful, often lacks the broader context due to inherent biases from our in-depth knowledge of the products,” she adds.

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Global Trends, Local Signals: Delivering Insights at Every Level

Chattermill’s enterprise readiness has also been key to scaling customer experience programs across Uber’s five mega-regions. The platform helps Uber spot high-level strategic trends while also surfacing region-specific feedback that enables faster, more targeted action.

“There are two key ways we leverage Chattermill on a daily basis. First, we receive a monthly report that highlights two major trends: regional differences and variations within countries in my region,” says Renata.

“We often observe fluctuations in positive or negative feedback on specific aspects of our business. This allows us to assess whether these changes are occurring globally or are specific to certain regions, and how they impact each market.”

This visibility enables Uber to respond with the right level of precision, whether refining a local product rollout or making broader business decisions.

“Secondly, we continuously test new solutions in our most established markets, and Chattermill helps us gather early consumer feedback locally to decide whether to accelerate initiatives in specific regions. If we see positive feedback in one area, it’s a signal that we might consider expanding more quickly in other regions if we expect similar results,” Renata adds.

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Dashboards That Drive Action Across Teams

Chattermill’s Dashboards are built to put meaningful insights directly into the hands of those who need them - from CX Leads to Product Managers and Operations Teams. Renata uses them daily to monitor shifts in customer sentiment, monitor trends, and drill into the details behind key metrics.

“I find the Chattermill dashboards to be extremely valuable. The real magic happens when I can 'double-click' on any anomaly or unexpected change to explore the details behind it,” she says.

With an intuitive interface and fast access to raw feedback, teams can quickly uncover what’s driving changes in customer experience and act accordingly.

“Being able to quickly investigate details and diagnose issues at a granular level is not only impactful but truly enhances our ability to respond to and address concerns promptly,” she adds.

Insights don’t stop at individual users. Renata’s team regularly aggregates findings and shares tailored summaries with leadership, helping decision-makers stay close to the voice of the customer and take focused, strategic action.

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The Results:

A 7-Year Partnership Driving CX Innovation, Scaled from One Region to 5 Global Mega-Regions

One of the most tangible examples of Chattermill’s impact came from Brazil - and played a key role in scaling the partnership globally. 

Initially, Uber offered only credit card and cash payments, but Chattermill’s insights revealed a growing demand for Pix, a popular alternative payment method.

“At the time, we didn’t believe there was a need to offer more, given that the existing methods were relatively simple and effective. However, by analyzing Chattermill’s feedback, we noticed a consistent pattern where customers expressed a preference for Pix, which was gaining popularity in Brazil,” says Renata. 

“Despite it being a specific request for this region, the demand was growing rapidly, and it became clear that integrating Pix would improve customer satisfaction. As a result, we implemented it, and today Pix accounts for 30% to 70% of the total payments in Brazil - a significant shift that we directly attributed to the valuable insights gathered from Chattermill.”

Soon after, the impact of Chattermill extended beyond specific product changes. Insights from Chattermill influenced localized, country-specific adjustments or targeted product launches, shaping larger, company-wide changes. 

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Over the years, Uber’s partnership with Chattermill has grown from a local initiative to a global CX program across five mega-regions. Today, over 400 employees across CX, Product, and Operations use insights from NPS, sentiment surveys, app reviews, and social media to improve the app experience and drive business growth.

“Initially, our collaboration with Chattermill started as a focused NPS partnership, providing valuable insights into our consumer base. Over the past seven years, Chattermill has evolved into a critical global partner, supporting us with data across both mobility and delivery, and covering all five mega-regions in which we operate,” says Renata.

As Renata notes, “The ROI is very clear to us. We’re able to scale customer feedback analysis globally, which would be difficult even with an internal solution. It’s definitely worth it, and we see the return on investment on a monthly basis, making its value evident to us.”

Looking ahead, Renata sees Chattermill's role as central to their internal decision-making process. 

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Discover how Chattermill helps leading teams scale CX from local initiatives to global strategies - book a demo today.

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