Schedule rides in advance

Creating an On-Demand Experience With Sosh

December 9, 2014 / Global

Our friends at Sosh have been working hard on building out their app that curates and recommends the best things to do in your city. Recently the company released a new feature called Concierge (currently in SF only), where users have on-demand access to SF’s best restaurants with the push of a button. But even with such an amazing feature, the question of “how exactly are we going to get there?” still seems to find a way to become an obstacle in creating the perfect user experience. That’s why the team at Sosh have officially integrated with Uber, bringing on-demand transportation to their customers to make the transition from planning to doing even more seamless.

“Our mission at Sosh is to enable people to do amazing things in their city. Integrating with Uber makes Sosh even more useful as it allows users to not only discover, book, and buy incredible experiences, but to actually get there in one tap.”

—Rishi Mandal, CEO at Sosh

Recognizing when customers need the ride

So how does Uber exactly fit into Sosh’s app? Sosh has strategically identified when the need for a ride is at its highest for their customers and used Uber’s API to eliminate that obstacle for them. The magic begins when customers use Sosh’s Concierge feature to book restaurants and bars that specifically hold tables for Sosh members. When customers revisit the app within a few hours of their reservation, a button to order an Uber will appear on the opening screen. This is especially important since one of Sosh’s goals is to create a frictionless social experience for their customers and with this integration they now have everything they need for the perfect night out at their fingertips within one app. If a customer decides to take an Uber, they have the option to not only select the Uber service of their choice, but also see what the estimated fare would be and the time it will take for their Uber to arrive. All from within the Sosh app.

How hard was it to integrate with the uber api?

The Uber API contains several endpoints that you can choose from and can be integrated into almost every type of app. The team at Sosh found integrating with Uber’s API simple and straightforward.

“Integrating with the Uber API was absolutely painless. I explored the API interactively with Python, and in about five minutes I understood the gist of what I needed to do for a full integration. The price and time estimate data comes down in a usable format that we could basically pass straight on to our clients.”

—Lou Zell, iOS Developer at Sosh

Lou was able to integrate the backend in just half a day and fully integrate the feature into iOS in just a few days, even with other integrations happening simultaneously. Here at Uber we like to think that the possibilities are only limited to your imagination.