[KeJorn]

The star system isn't really broken? Could it be better? Yes! However, if you know how to get good ratings and consistently get 5's on average, you have nothing to worry about. Does that mean you have to strive for perfection, well yes. It means also that you know what to say to the Pax, how to treat them. Don't make wrong turns, don't argue. As the saying goes, the customer is always right. Thoughts?

The system is not broken for Uber. It works exactly as they want it to: as a means to control the drivers.
It serves ZERO purpose for riders or drivers. Their system is a LOOONNNG way from 'could be better'.
It provides zero feedback. If you do not understand that, then you must have just started driving or you work for Uber directly.

College is about to start up soon... go to one of the over-priced colleges and cart those students around for a few weeks at night and get back to us.
When they try to fit 6 people into 4 seats or try to bring open bottles of alcohol into you vehicle, be sure to correct them.
Bring water, gum, and anything else you think they might like and enjoy the praises and promises of 5 stars...
Then at the end of the week, go look at your rating and try to figure out why it is so low.
I'm sure it was something YOU did and you will be able to remember exactly what it was and correct your error(s)...

 

[KeJorn]

If you get 100 2's, something has got to be wrong.

Not if you have done several hundreds or thousands of trips.

Do you even know EXACTLY who, why, or when you got a 2?
Uber doesn't even provide a breakdown of the number of stars you get, aside from the following:
"you received X five-star reviews out of XX rated trips in the past two weeks"

I usually see that message show a difference less than 5. I don't think I have ever seen it state more than 5.
ie: "you received 22 five-star reviews out of 25 rated trips in the past two weeks"

Notice that is RATED trips... yes, you gave over 50 trips in the past 2 weeks, but only 25 people took the time to even rate you.
And of that 25, only 3 rated you LESS than 5 stars in those TWO weeks. Was it 1, 2, or 3 this week?
Yet there is your weekly rating: 4.65... too low to qualify for the weekly guarantee.
Interesting how that works. Less than 10% of your riders (who took the time to rate you) decide whether you deserve the guarantee.

Yet the fact that 90% of your riders liked your service is not good enough.
Why have a 5 star system if anything less than 5 stars means you did something wrong?
No normal 5 star system works that way. If they are going to do that, they may as well just provide thumbs up or down. Like or dislike, because that is all Uber is using to 'grade you' and hold you to the fire.

 

[KeJorn]

Weighted Average Ratings
Here's something substantive on the subject to chew on:
Adjusted Driver Rating
View attachment 11583

This is a very positive news that uber actually takes into consideration the surge related bad ratings as well as ETA related bad ratings. But why we don't see the normalized ratings in dashboard ?

It needs to include bar hopping hours...

 

[KeJorn]

Disgruntled "employees" cannot be overcome with PR campaigns Kalanick.
You'd be profitable if you had used 50% of your budget to help drivers and banked the other half.
They would be your perpetual, positive, advertising machine.

How did you **** this up so royally?

Amen.

 

[KeJorn]

Agreed. As drivers we have to rate the rider even before seeing the fare and before we can take another request. Therefore drivers rating riders is 100% compliance and immediate.

Yet riders can wait to rate us because they have two different ways (via app, next time they use it or by replying to the email receipt of their trip). They can even use both. They can choose not to rate us (about 30-40% of riders do not rate us) and still use the service. Because of the delayed rating for riders, there is the potential that they can wait to find out how drivers have rated them before rating us. That is simply unfair and leads to retribution ratings.

While drivers will likely be deactivated if they fall below 4.6, riders can continue to use the service despite their rating dropping well below 4.0. We have seen riders with a 1.0 rating.

 

[KeJorn]

Riders can find out their rating 2 ways.

In app they can request it from Uber.
[Help] -> [Account] -> [I'd like to know my rating] -> [Submit]
They will email it to you.

Or what many often do is they ask their next driver.

 

[KeJorn]

A 4.6 rating... 500 × 0.60 = 300 5 star trips out of 500 trips ...
Which means 200 (out of 500) trips were rated less than 5 star trips. (By riders)
4.7 rating ... 500 × 0.70 = 350 5 star ratings out of 500 trips.
4.8 rating ... 500 × 0.80 = 400 5 star ratings out of 500 trips.
4.9 rating ... 500 × 0.90 = 450 5 star ratings out of 500 trips.

And so on...
Which driver would you want to ride with if you used uber as a rider?
Good Luck

It's just an average, so it could be something close to what you have listed or rather different. It is simply the total of 1-5 points for every rated trip divided by total of RATED trips.
You do not show how many 4s 3s, 2s, or 1s were factored in... which obviously still affect the score, though will certainly lower it from a 5 star.

As to WHICH driver would I want to ride with? I know all too well the score does not always reflect the kind of driver. After over 1300 trips, you realize that even when you provide excellent service, make no mistakes, some people will still rate you low. And that is part of the reason the system is broken. No feedback is provided to warrant the score. No accountability. Just a 1-5 star. It could have been how they felt at the time (hours, days later) if they even remembered which driver it applied to. Drive drunks and college students around during bar hopping hours and you can be certain your score will drop. That is something we have all witnessed. first hand.

There are many factors as to why the score was low and it may have nothing to do with the actual performance of the driver or a reflection of the trip they had.

 

[KeJorn]

Yes... of course it could be, something close to what I have listed, or rather different... LOL

For arguments sake... let's say it's, "something close" ...

Uber driver rating is based out of the last 500 rated trips the driver has completed. (Not over all trips since you started... it's only based on the last 500 completed/rated trips.)

If the driver has more than 350 5 Star Rated Trips out of 500 .... (approximately a 4.7 average rating)... that driver is allowed to continue being an Uber driver.

So... my question is...

Is the 500 trip average a fair amount of trips to calculate an average using a 5 star rating system? (Uber is never going to change the rating system, it's here to stay.)

500 seems generous to me... and should be fairly easy to maintain above a 4.7 average.

Should it be More than a 500 rated trips? If so, How many more?

Uber has to put a Cap on the amount of trips to calculate a drivers average... in order for it to be fair for all drivers.

Good Luck!

For Christ's sake.. What does it matter if it is 350, 400, or whatever # of 5's... The point is whether the average is 4.6 or better. 350 five star ratings = 3.5 so there is a lot of room for + or - which is my only point if saying something close or not. The ONLY thing that matters is that if your are rated a 4.6, you can be deactivated.

The system sucks because it is a FIVE STAR SYSTEM. Any standard 5 star system a 4 is an excellent rating, though still not perfect. In this system, if every rider rated you a 4, you' d be deactivated for having a 4.0.... Now do any mix of 4 star and 5 star and you will have more than 50% of them result in deactivation. Do you not understand this simple concept??

If they just want to say good or bad, then do that. Don' t confuse people with a 5 star system that doesn' t follow normal rules.

If you want to talk about how many 5 stars warrants a 4.6 or lower rating, here is an example where it is glaringly off:

Weekly summary... "On the bright side in the past 2 weeks 73 of the 105 trips given were rated. Of those rated trips, 70 were rated 5 star. "

That means THREE TRIPS IN 2 WEEKS WERE RATED LESS THAN 5 STAR.

Guess what my score was for that week?
4.68

So despite the ~95% that were pleased with my service 1-3 (~5%) disenfranchised people affected my score that drastically, which would be considered grounds for deactivation. That is a FAILED system in ANY FIVE STAR RATING SYSTEM.

 

[KeJorn]

It's not your "Weekly Score" that Uber cares about...

It's your average out of the last 500 rated trips.

I was just trying to put it in perspective. (i.e. amount of 5 star rated trips out of 500 trips, that equals a drivers average rating.)

And believe me, the amount of 5 star trips Matter... It Matters to Uber.

If a driver is unable to maintain 350 5 star trips out of 500 rated trips... maybe the taxi business is not for that driver.

The weekly score does not matter? What do you think your overall is built upon? Week after week of ratings. Start with the small piece and you can see why it is broken in the larger piece.

Unless we receive the weekly summary, we have no idea how many 5 stars we have received and even then the number will be skewed and overlapped because they provide 2 weeks as a reference. The ENTIRE SYSTEM is anything but transparent because it is controlled by Uber, so duh... UBER CARES about our score because it is the primary method they employ to control drivers (via fear of deactivation). In other words it was NEVER DESIGNED to provide drivers useful feedback, just Uber. We said this already. And it is definitely part of the reason the system is flawed.

But it' s fairly clear you do not see it as flawed nor a bad thing. Work for Uber much?

 

[KeJorn]

Drivers own the cars, gas 'em up, repair them... That is what allows them (Uber) to sport a fleet designed to handle peak business first, leaving drivers to figure out how to make the res worth it at mostly sub-cost rates... All that responsibility on the shoulders of the drivers yet they are still led around by the nose.

Funny, just talked about this very aspect with a rider earlier today. Uber created a fleet without buying a single vehicle nor being responsible for their maintenance. The burden falls completely to each driver/owner instead.
Win/Lose

 

[KeJorn]

In my opinion, 500 trip average is generous and quite opposite of tyrannical.

Your opinion has been noted.

Do you need more than 500 chances to prove yourself as a above average taxi driver?

Taxi drivers do not get rated, so how would you know if ANYONE is an above average taxi driver???
Because the 500 rated trips you received while driving for Uber somehow implied that you were?
Compared to how many 10s of thousands of trips those taxi drivers have given?
Seriously? THAT is what you think it means?

If so, I apologize; there is no point in any further discussion.

As you like to say, good luck!

 

[KeJorn]

The rating system is a GOOD thing for everyone.

Correction, a fair and transparent rating system governed by the community is a GOOD thing for everyone.

The current rating system ONLY serves Uber and does NOT help drivers in any way.

 

[KeJorn]

Honestly and how could we possibly expect that from each rider...?
It would be too much tedious work for a rider to rate a driver about 10 different aspects of each ride... Let alone write some kind of summary/paragraph with positive or negative feedback response, or answer 2 or 10 questions about each ride they take in order to "Help a driver"... it's just not going to happen.

You make way too many assumptions there, starting with the notion that we expect a rider to fill out 'questionnaire' style feedback each and every time...
No one said anything like that.

For starters: If you use a 5 star system, then make sure it functions like a 5 -star system.
This one does not, it functions primarily as a good/bad (like/dislike) system with the front end of a 5-star system, leading to ratings that do not reflect the trip/driver.

Even Lyft has narrowed it down to 3 aspects which riders can grade, making it at least somewhat more useful than Uber's.

You also once stated that Uber does not rate drivers, yet they DO have the power to change ratings and they do so with zero transparency.

In addition, useful feedback that IS provided is not relayed to the drivers. So even if a customer DOES take the time to write it out, it does not get to where it can best be utilized and applied - in this case, the driver.

Also, because of the way that Uber scores their rating system, greater weight is placed upon the few disgruntled riders (often less than 10%) with less consideration for the majority of riders who liked the service/driver.
Like you, they love to use Corporate-speak and suggest things like 'setting the bar high', without acknowledging that their unrealistic expectations are actually counter-productive.
In addition, the notion that the customer is always right, is not in tune with the times and culture that mentality has created.
Our society has created a monster because of that one basic premise. Don't agree? Look up any video on Youtube of customers-gone-wild on service-based stores (fast food restaurants, clothing stores, etc).
Where customers go off the charts with insults and unreasonable expectations of those service people. The lower you drop the cost of something, the more these types appear.
Uber is catering to that very demographic and it is being reflected in our ratings. First rate service at cut-rate prices.

The bottom line, NO ONE is ALWAYS right.
Provide a good service, quality, at a fair price, and appreciate your customers (and service providers) and your success should reflect that mantra.
However customers should be held responsible for their behavior and actions. They do not have the right to take it out on the service people, just because they had a bad day.
Most customers that witness one of these 'customers-gone-bad' will actually agree and side with the service people. My wife sees this every day where she works.
She does not take any crap from customers and her regular customers (and management) love and back her all the more. THAT is the kind of support we need from Uber.
Instead, they cater to the ones that should not be catered to. That is NOT an example of good Partner Support.
And unfortunately, their rating system reflects that mentality.