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Six Things Your Uber Driver Wants You to Know
As I’ve alluded to in other comments, I’ve been a driver for Uber since mid-August, with almost 300 trips under my belt. I’m having more fun doing this gig than I thought I would, as the Uber demographic tends to be younger, smarter, and more outgoing than the population in general. Instead of what I expected — passengers sitting stoically, staring at the back of my head — most of my passengers are interesting and fun to talk to.
There are, however, a few things I’d like my passengers to know:
1. Five stars should be your default driver rating. If you can’t do that, tell the driver why. Uber takes the rating of their drivers very seriously — there have been reports of drivers being deactivated when their ratings stay below 4.7 — and higher-rated drivers tend to get more ride requests thrown their way by the Uber app.
My request to my passengers is simple: if you feel the need to rate me lower than five stars, please tell me why before you leave. We’re probably never going to see each other again, so there’s no reason not to be candid. That’s the only way I can improve my customer service and know what’s on your mind. I might even be able to fix your concern before the end of the ride. I’m proud of my driver rating (currently 4.91) and want to keep it for as long as I can.
Also, as a passenger, bear in mind that you receive a rating as well — in fact, drivers are required to rate passengers in order to complete a trip — and your passenger rating will appear on every future ride request you make. I very rarely rate my passengers less than five stars.
2. Don’t pay surge pricing, unless you’re in a hurry. Passengers rightly hate surge pricing, Uber’s mechanism for adding driver supply when rider demand is high. But if your schedule is flexible, it’s almost never strictly necessary to pay for surge pricing. On the driver app, I can see surge zones come and go within 45-60 second intervals; once, I saw a surge zone after a Paul McCartney concert go from 2.7x to 1.5x to, no surge within 15 minutes. If you’re willing to wait before you order a ride, the surge may go away. (In fairness, this is not risk-free, as the surge may also go higher.)
Another strategy is to walk to a pickup location away from the most crowded area. Surge areas tend to be bounded by major highways (e.g., SR-315, I-71, and I-670 here in Columbus). After an Ohio State home game a couple weeks back, I had a couple of passengers walk under SR-315, away from the stadium, and reduce their surge multiplier from 6.7x (!) to 2.1x.
If you do accept surge pricing, though, don’t take it out on your driver by giving him a one-star rating. We don’t set the prices, and we have no ability to adjust your fare, though Uber’s customer support does, and has often been helpful to me and my passengers.
3. Don’t order a ride until your party is ready to leave. We will be there a lot quicker than you expect. When you request a ride, Uber gives the closest driver just 15 seconds to accept the ride; if he lets it go, Uber offers it to the next closest driver, and so on until a match is achieved. Especially on busy weekend nights, you’re likely to get a driver who’s only a few minutes away, and we’ll do our best to get to you just as quickly as distance and traffic allow.
There’s nothing more irritating to a driver than hustling over to a pickup point, then having to wait while a passenger gets out of the bathroom, pays the tab, finishes a drink, etc. Please be considerate of the driver’s time. If you’re at home and the driver is a bit further away, this is less applicable, though do pay attention to the arrival time provided by the Uber app so you can be ready.
4. After you request a ride, keep your phone handy, as your driver may need to contact you. Your location may be hard to find, traffic may be heavy, any number of things. And just so you know, it’s all anonymous: when I call or text my riders, the phone traffic goes through a generic number provided by Uber; I never get your actual cell number, nor do you get mine.
5. You’re not really as funny as you think you are when you’re drunk. Don’t get me wrong, I love my drunk passengers; they’ve made the smart choice to grab their smartphone instead of their car keys, a decision I deeply respect. However, some take it way too far.
6. Tipping is not necessary, but is always very much appreciated. Unlike its competitor, Lyft, Uber doesn’t allow tipping through the app, so tips usually have to be handled in cash (unless the driver has the Square app and a card reader). The rest of the Uber transaction is cashless, so having to handle the tip is often a pain.
That said, if your driver had to drive a long way to pick you up, or if he provided you some extra service — such as running you through a drive-thru, or loading and unloading your bags on an airport trip — a couple of bucks is money well spent and much appreciated.
Published in Culture
NYC is a weird market, from what I’ve heard. If you are licensed to drive for Uber in NY, you cannot drive in NJ, and vice versa. This leads to an undersupply of drivers, which in turn leads to higher surge pricing, which may bump your cost up.
JD, for Federal military and civilian employees, that would require an amendment to the 1622-page monstrosity that is the JFTR. (But if you’d like to propose such an amendment, please go here and note that “Changes are initiated by a MAP/CAP member, PDTATAC staff, and/or outside Agencies/Commands via a MAP/CAP member, or are the result of changes to the law and Service/DoD policy.” 8^)
Yep, the way I figured it out I drop my rental car off at Hertz, I’m in the parking lot and order Uber to take me home. On the app you can see the Uber cars in the area, and I see one come my way. But he turns into the parking lot of the Raddison across the street. I see him on the app map make numerous rounds through the parking lot. Finally I text him to tell him to come across the street to pick me up. Then I realize that my phone had connected to the Raddison wifi.
Interesting.
Now, again simply out of curiosity, approximately how many hours of your free time do you have to give up in order to make those $600 per month? I’m not just talking about actual driving time, but also time where you had to be on-call in case a ride request came through?
Like, you can’t really go out to dinner or to a movie if a ride request might come across your phone.
The way i think it works, is you don’t have to pre sign up, or obligate yourself to working certain hours. You can turn yourself on or off at any moment. You can also not accept particular rides, so if one is longer than (or going in a opposite direction that a dinner date) you want to accept. You can just let the next closest driver get the opportunity.
correct Rapp0rteur?
Correct. You go online when you want to accept rides, and go offline when (even temporarily, as for a gas stop) you can’t or don’t want to take passengers.
I would say that I average $15-30 gross earnings per hour. I wouldn’t want to try to raise a family on that amount, but just about any other job wouldn’t give me the kind of latitude to work when I want.
For a (rather extreme) example, last Friday I drove from 7pm-3am; Saturday from 5pm-2am because of the OSU night game (then volunteered 4 hours at church Sunday morning, came home, and slept like a rock much of the afternoon. 8^) That’s not a typical weekend, though — normally, I knock off around 11pm or midnight.
This is a great post! Thanks for taking the time to answer all this. It’s much appreciated.
Why should they support honest govt. employees looking for ways to keep costs down? It’s all taxpayer dollars, free money! (Plus there’re union workers out there to prop up.)
Like they used to say, “You can take the boy out of Nebraska, but you can’t take Nebraska out of the boy.”
So very true!
I know it’s tacky to quote one’s own post, but I must tell how I abused one set of Uber passengers.
Being a bad Nebraska fan, I opted to work Saturday night, rather than watch what I was sure would be a horrible Cornhusker game against the undefeated #8 Michigan State Spartans. O ye of little faith …
I couldn’t stay completely away from the game, though, so I listened to it on streaming audio. I had an uberXL (5-7 pax) ride from the north suburbs into downtown Columbus during the last two minutes of the game, in which Nebraska rallied back from a 12-point deficit to win by one point. Of course, I made my pax listen to the end of the game over the car stereo. 8^) It turned out well, as all of my pax high-fived me and congratulated me on the win on the way out of the car.