Baffled to see Uber compared to black cabs. It's a minicab firm. It's vastly more convenient than the legacy minicab firms, because of the app, but the actual service is identical.
I call the taxi company its automated asks me to push 1 or 2 for the last two trips or 0 for an operator.
I tell the operator where I want to go and my name and I get a sms message with a link to a map and another one when it has arrived.