Uber
Mapping emotions to drive real-world change.
Client: Uber EMEA, NL
Agency: C Space London
My role: Customer Experience Design Director
Led CX design and strategy for Uber EMEA to transform the rider journey into a loyalty driver. My work redefined how Uber understands, designs, and activates the rider experience across markets.
1. Challenge
Function wasn’t enough, loyalty was at risk
Uber needed to build stronger emotional connections with riders while increasing retention and standing out in a crowded market.
Functional delivery wasn’t enough. Growth demanded a new approach to experience that could deliver trust, loyalty, and brand preference.
Real rides, real stories: ride-alongs revealed what the data alone couldn’t.
“
A car is more than just a car. It’s a magic carpet, a beauty salon, a mobile office, a safe haven, a karaoke carpool…”
2. What We Did
Phase 1: Designed a new way to see and shape the journey
We reimagined the entire rider journey by identifying key emotional moments that shape experience and loyalty.
My role as CX Design Director focused on aligning teams, uncovering insights, and turning them into practical strategies.
From sticky notes to strategy: these prototypes were where insights started turning into action.
2. What We Did
Phase 2: Brought insights to life across global teams
We mapped the full rider lifecycle across London, Cairo, Madrid, and Johannesburg using qualitative and quantitative research, ride-alongs, acquisition studies, and co-creation workshops.
This uncovered 11 critical “Moments That Matter.” I led the design of an internal toolkit — including an interactive journey map, a digital playbook, and an always-on insight platform — embedding these insights into Uber’s backend, marketing, and operations teams.
Interactive Journey Experience Map to visualise the whole rider experience, highlighting key opportunities for innovation.
Uber Experience Digital Platform detail linked to the related Moment-that-matter.
Moment-that-matters framework linked to the related Experience Platform.
Experience Platform-specific opportunity areas.
3. Outcomes
Shared clarity, smarter decisions, better experiences
Uber shifted to an experience-first mindset.
The work shaped Uber’s EMEA CX strategy, helped prioritise investments, and gave teams shared clarity. The tools are still live, assisting local teams to design with purpose.
We packaged our findings into an actionable toolkit for Uber’s back-end website, breaking them into market-specific insights. Departments can access these insights, platforms, and recommendations to inform solution design.
"The impact of this work could really have only been realised through a strong strategic partnership and C Space understood early on that more than a detailed map of our customer experience, what we really needed were the tools to activate and embed this in the business."
Daniela Nortjé, Customer Experience, Insights, Innovation, Uber EMEA.
4. My Insight
Emotion is the real driver of loyalty
Emotion isn’t a mere soft extra. It’s what drives retention. Tools only create an impact when they are designed for use. This work succeeded because it was integrated into the business, not merely in the decks.
Ale
