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This is an interesting problem that will eventually need to be solved. On principal, I always give 5 stars when using Uber, unless the driver is unsafe or is directly rude to me or a passenger. Uber is better in many ways, but expecting something more than what an actual cab would provide seems unfair to the driver.
Uber is better in many ways, but expecting something more than what an actual cab would provide seems unfair to the driver.
I don’t know about that. Is it unfair to go into Ruth’s Chris "expecting something more" than you’d get at Outback?
I agree that it’s disconcerting how much free license users have to bitch, but it’s way better than having no rating system at all, and based on the article, almost all drivers agree.
We’ll get this thing figured out. Companies can require a more detailed comment form to be filled out if you want to give below 4 stars, passengers who routinely give below-median ratings can have their ratings taken into less consideration than other passengers, registering for the platform can require that you watch a 45 second video that makes it clear that your reviews affect others’ livelihoods, etc.
I don’t think that’s a fair characterization of uber personally vs cabs. I understand some people viewing that differently. I’ve noticed that 20 somethings don’t consider uber a limo, it’s just a cab with an app, usually used when you need more than one cab to move a group, if you’re in an area that doesn’t have great cab pick up coverage, or just need to go asap. But people over 30 tend to consider it a treat, like it’s a fancy occasion like High schoolers in a Lincoln town car. Totally anecdotal but my point is, expectations are a weird mix with ratings and rarely homogeneous.
What the article completely glosses over is 2 things: customer ratings and vendor feedback.
You can rate the people who rate you. (Uber)
You can reply back to their criticism if it was unwarranted. (Yelp, Tripadvisor etc etc)
Now for the real flesh of my argument: Uber exists because they offer low rates AND good customer service. Guess what happens if the customer service evaporates? There will be no difference between them and cabs.
Also, I took Uber a lot in Vegas and had positive experiences every single time. The people were great, chatted well and I ended up paying less. Whats not to like?
I took Uber a lot in Vegas and had positive experiences every single time. The people were great, chatted well and I ended up paying less. Whats not to like?
The problem is, what if you were actually a huge a-hole to your drivers but they felt they couldn’t be honest to you about it without risking a bad rating?
Is it unfair to go into Ruth’s Chris "expecting something more" than you’d get at Outback?
You’re already getting something more with Uber: you’re paying 1/3 less than a taxi, and you have the convenience of an app-enabled experience. I think it’s unfair to expect even more than that, like the driver bending over backwards for you.
Late to the party here but as others have pointed out, Uber is not— or mostly not, or often not, or quite often not— "1/3 less than a taxi." This is especially true during prices surges— something taxis cannot do because of local regulations. (As a side note, it’s weird that Uber has bullied its way into local markets to make people EXPECT to pay more, when local regulations of the taxi cab industry were meant to PREVENT price gouging. Uber has made price gouging fashionable.)
During the recent busy Halloween weekend here locally, Uber price surging was through the roof and made them way, way WAAAAAY more expensive than taxis. I heard about one ride that really wasn’t all that far that ended up being over $180— when local cab companies would have charged anywhere from $16 to about $25, depending which one you might have taken.
Other rides to a local concert venue that weekend were $36 to $38 in Uber. Taxis were about $10 to $12 for the same ride.
Uber has gotten a free pass on the facts from many in the media, especially in the tech media on websites like The Verge, among others. (For the longest time, GeekWire was running daily articles glorifying Uber and Lyft and the "sharing economy." They keep using the same photo of Uber & Lyft supporters over and over again as they went before the Seattle City council.
thing is, if you give a bad rating, Uber’ll get back to you (via email usually) and ask you to explain what exactly went wrong. so it’s not really that bad.
anyway, the star system is stupid. they should use a system that doesn’t ask for rating, but assumes "ok" by default.
the app would still allow you to go and deliberately give rating in terms of "praise / problem", to indicate that the service was significantly better (the driver picked you up on a problematic location, waited for you even though you came very late, showed you a great shortcut, saved you from a traffic accident, was super funny etc.) or worse (dirty car, dangerous driving, wrong route…) than usual.
for the negative feedback, the app could require additional input – perhaps in form of predefined categories like those i mentioned above, plus an optional textfield.
Uber has never initiated any communication with me regarding feedback and in fact brushed me off on numerous occasions when I contacted them re: a passenger who had left erroneous bad feedback (some passengers take sadistic pride in informing you that "you just lost a star" over something like missing a green light.) As a driver, how can I defend myself or improve without details regarding what was perceived by the passenger as unacceptable?
The star system is terrible, and the 25-50% of passengers who don’t bother rating unless something went wrong aren’t factored in.
well, i was talking from the perspective of a customer. i wouldn’t know anything about the inner workings between the company and drivers.
i can only say that their response was swift, candid and to the point. they actually tried to defend the driver, but didn’t push it and simply didn’t bill me for that ride (the complaint being that the driver missed two turns, which resulted in a considerably longer ride, and to my question about his gps he told me "naa, i don’t use it".)
Having been an Uber driver for a while I’d say that it’s not always the customer that’s telling the story wrong, drivers can be d-bags and act like heartless cab drivers. I’ve heard multiple stories of drivers raising their voices at customers, taking them drastically out of the way to pad the fare (especially during Surge pricing) or making passengers uncomfortable by asking inappropriate/exceedingly-personal questions while en route. There are plenty of good drivers that will never know what it means to be deactivated because they’re consistent and understand customer service. It’s the ones that regularly screw around that find themselves getting into hot water most often.
As to the overall topic of the article, allowing a star-based feedback system to entirely dictate an employee’s status with a company can’t be the sole driver of service. Checks & Balances – incentivizing service-based employees with good performance rewards and using written feedback to help tell a better story is what needs to exist or a 1 or 2 star rating has too much power.
Honestly that kind of sounds like the statements that have come and gone in the past.
We used to have rooms full of stat workers that would do calculations. Now we have computers that do it way better, cheaper and faster. People used to talk about how that was worse for everybody, but really it made everything a lot better.
Comments
This is an interesting problem that will eventually need to be solved. On principal, I always give 5 stars when using Uber, unless the driver is unsafe or is directly rude to me or a passenger. Uber is better in many ways, but expecting something more than what an actual cab would provide seems unfair to the driver.
By ugatorf on 10.28.15 12:27pm
By dburstin on 10.28.15 1:22pm
By OpssYourBad on 10.28.15 2:05pm
I don’t know about that. Is it unfair to go into Ruth’s Chris "expecting something more" than you’d get at Outback?
I agree that it’s disconcerting how much free license users have to bitch, but it’s way better than having no rating system at all, and based on the article, almost all drivers agree.
We’ll get this thing figured out. Companies can require a more detailed comment form to be filled out if you want to give below 4 stars, passengers who routinely give below-median ratings can have their ratings taken into less consideration than other passengers, registering for the platform can require that you watch a 45 second video that makes it clear that your reviews affect others’ livelihoods, etc.
By mattkicksass on 10.28.15 4:28pm
I don’t think that’s a fair characterization of uber personally vs cabs. I understand some people viewing that differently. I’ve noticed that 20 somethings don’t consider uber a limo, it’s just a cab with an app, usually used when you need more than one cab to move a group, if you’re in an area that doesn’t have great cab pick up coverage, or just need to go asap. But people over 30 tend to consider it a treat, like it’s a fancy occasion like High schoolers in a Lincoln town car. Totally anecdotal but my point is, expectations are a weird mix with ratings and rarely homogeneous.
By TheBoy on 10.28.15 5:02pm
What the article completely glosses over is 2 things: customer ratings and vendor feedback.
You can rate the people who rate you. (Uber)
You can reply back to their criticism if it was unwarranted. (Yelp, Tripadvisor etc etc)
Now for the real flesh of my argument: Uber exists because they offer low rates AND good customer service. Guess what happens if the customer service evaporates? There will be no difference between them and cabs.
Also, I took Uber a lot in Vegas and had positive experiences every single time. The people were great, chatted well and I ended up paying less. Whats not to like?
By GoodToGo1 on 10.29.15 8:19am
The problem is, what if you were actually a huge a-hole to your drivers but they felt they couldn’t be honest to you about it without risking a bad rating?
By AnjoMan on 10.29.15 7:33pm
You’re already getting something more with Uber: you’re paying 1/3 less than a taxi, and you have the convenience of an app-enabled experience. I think it’s unfair to expect even more than that, like the driver bending over backwards for you.
By joeschmo69 on 10.29.15 11:20pm
Where are you getting that ridiculous number?
In NYC, you actually pay more for Uber than you would a yellow taxi.
Either way, Uber drivers aren’t being forced to be with Uber. Don’t like it? Leave. It’s not "unfair".
By strikethreeout on 10.31.15 11:48pm
NYC is the exception. In most areas they are considerably cheaper. In my territory it is $1.20/mile vs. $3.00-3.50/mile
By SonOfAVondruke on 11.01.15 8:56am
He might be talking about UberX which is significantly cheaper. It is here in Philly at least. Its all I use basically.
By ahuczek on 11.01.15 12:32pm
Late to the party here but as others have pointed out, Uber is not— or mostly not, or often not, or quite often not— "1/3 less than a taxi." This is especially true during prices surges— something taxis cannot do because of local regulations. (As a side note, it’s weird that Uber has bullied its way into local markets to make people EXPECT to pay more, when local regulations of the taxi cab industry were meant to PREVENT price gouging. Uber has made price gouging fashionable.)
During the recent busy Halloween weekend here locally, Uber price surging was through the roof and made them way, way WAAAAAY more expensive than taxis. I heard about one ride that really wasn’t all that far that ended up being over $180— when local cab companies would have charged anywhere from $16 to about $25, depending which one you might have taken.
Other rides to a local concert venue that weekend were $36 to $38 in Uber. Taxis were about $10 to $12 for the same ride.
Uber has gotten a free pass on the facts from many in the media, especially in the tech media on websites like The Verge, among others. (For the longest time, GeekWire was running daily articles glorifying Uber and Lyft and the "sharing economy." They keep using the same photo of Uber & Lyft supporters over and over again as they went before the Seattle City council.
Huge myth that Uber is cheaper.
By Tortured_Verse on 11.02.15 9:18am
thing is, if you give a bad rating, Uber’ll get back to you (via email usually) and ask you to explain what exactly went wrong. so it’s not really that bad.
anyway, the star system is stupid. they should use a system that doesn’t ask for rating, but assumes "ok" by default.
the app would still allow you to go and deliberately give rating in terms of "praise / problem", to indicate that the service was significantly better (the driver picked you up on a problematic location, waited for you even though you came very late, showed you a great shortcut, saved you from a traffic accident, was super funny etc.) or worse (dirty car, dangerous driving, wrong route…) than usual.
for the negative feedback, the app could require additional input – perhaps in form of predefined categories like those i mentioned above, plus an optional textfield.
By mono211 on 10.30.15 5:59am
Uber has never initiated any communication with me regarding feedback and in fact brushed me off on numerous occasions when I contacted them re: a passenger who had left erroneous bad feedback (some passengers take sadistic pride in informing you that "you just lost a star" over something like missing a green light.) As a driver, how can I defend myself or improve without details regarding what was perceived by the passenger as unacceptable?
The star system is terrible, and the 25-50% of passengers who don’t bother rating unless something went wrong aren’t factored in.
By SonOfAVondruke on 10.30.15 7:52am
I think an interesting solution to that 25%-50% of passengers who never rate is for a rating to be assumed for every ride – a rating of five stars.
Thoughts?
By ericlensherrmagneto on 10.30.15 12:33pm
I agree. It seems obvious to me but then it takes away from the importance of the rating system as a whole which I can’t see them getting behind.
By SonOfAVondruke on 10.30.15 4:30pm
well, i was talking from the perspective of a customer. i wouldn’t know anything about the inner workings between the company and drivers.
i can only say that their response was swift, candid and to the point. they actually tried to defend the driver, but didn’t push it and simply didn’t bill me for that ride (the complaint being that the driver missed two turns, which resulted in a considerably longer ride, and to my question about his gps he told me "naa, i don’t use it".)
By mono211 on 10.31.15 12:15pm
Having been an Uber driver for a while I’d say that it’s not always the customer that’s telling the story wrong, drivers can be d-bags and act like heartless cab drivers. I’ve heard multiple stories of drivers raising their voices at customers, taking them drastically out of the way to pad the fare (especially during Surge pricing) or making passengers uncomfortable by asking inappropriate/exceedingly-personal questions while en route. There are plenty of good drivers that will never know what it means to be deactivated because they’re consistent and understand customer service. It’s the ones that regularly screw around that find themselves getting into hot water most often.
As to the overall topic of the article, allowing a star-based feedback system to entirely dictate an employee’s status with a company can’t be the sole driver of service. Checks & Balances – incentivizing service-based employees with good performance rewards and using written feedback to help tell a better story is what needs to exist or a 1 or 2 star rating has too much power.
By kingraven24 on 10.31.15 6:27pm
Isn’t it customers expect?
By robles on 10.28.15 12:52pm
I’m talking about the excerpt, not the inline text. Sorry forgot to clear that up.
By robles on 10.28.15 12:55pm
You’re right, that would be grammatically correct.
I think the error came because they were using a direct quote, but then had to shorten it (probably to save space) and didn’t shorten it correctly.
The full quote was:
They probably should have shortened it to:
By rahulp on 10.28.15 3:26pm
Sounds quite stressful… I wonder how this is going to play out.
By privilegejunkie on 10.28.15 12:53pm
Bad for everyone in the long run (traditional cab drivers, uber drivers, consumers) except for Uber, who will make a boat load of money.
By OpssYourBad on 10.28.15 2:12pm
Honestly that kind of sounds like the statements that have come and gone in the past.
We used to have rooms full of stat workers that would do calculations. Now we have computers that do it way better, cheaper and faster. People used to talk about how that was worse for everybody, but really it made everything a lot better.
By privilegejunkie on 10.28.15 3:56pm
Gah… I responded to the wrong person. Sorry!
By privilegejunkie on 10.28.15 4:00pm