The Uber review system explained and explored!

Continuing with my slight obsession with review systems, leading back to 'Google' and why we make the decisions we make, I thought you may be interested to learn a little more about Uber.

I've spent over a hundred hours talking at depth with drivers, and delving into their experience at many levels, including the financials.

Mostly, however, I became fascinated with their reviews system and how it was received by the drivers and passengers alike.

Overview:

This is not a taxi service, but a shared experience.
As you have probably heard, there is a two way feedback loop - rating on a five point scale

i.e. this means that the driver gets to rate the people as well.
Which they seem to like.

And as Peter Diamandis from the Singularity University discusses here, this may well help everyone 'care' more.

We know from my research into 'why' people leave bad reviews, that the main reason is poor customer service, which is otherwise known as poor 'customer care'.

What you may now know is that Uber driver get a weekly email re: their reviews.
In fact, this I am finding to be increasingly the case i.e. business, managers, are using reviews as their main feedback mechanism.

Some David's Tea locations (with over 160 US stores now) and many others I've visited use Yelp and Google reviews to 'judge' what is going on in their stores.

Managers are connecting the names of the customer from the reviews sites, and tallying their experience to the person who served them.

The Prisoner's Dilemma

With Uber there is an interesting phenomena occurring though. And this is based on interviewing many drivers.
If the driver 'has doubts' that the person is going to leave them a good review, and they 'think' the person is going to leave them a bad one, they 'get in quick' and leave a bad review for the passenger!

Now, here is the only thing I question:
Negative reviews are anonymous (i.e. to the driver).

And the feedback from drivers is that this 'hurts'.

If people don't know what they've done wrong, then they don't know what to improve.

We can see this with other review systems such as Yelp or Google My Business - without transparency as to the 'who' the 'what' (i.e. a poor review) may not serve to improve service.

As far as it goes for the passenger, if you ask for your rating they will probably tell you (mine is 4.8 out of 5 - meaning I lost some points along the way),

What can we learn from this?

Review systems are on the rise and I truly think the Google review eco-system has hardly started yet.
The 'gold rush' for stars and positive feedback will be pushed over the coming years.

If you are a small business owner. Start looking at how to help people leave you reviews in the right places for you.

If you are a business looking at implementing a reviews system then consider whether a 360 degree system could work.

As it happens, drivers also seem to think there is an additional scale which is for the organization to assess their performance, e.g. on whether they reject too many calls/pick ups.
Again reinforcing the 'right' behaviours for the business.

All in all, with Uber people love the flexibility, and not having a boss.
As such I expect we will see it continue to rise for years to come.

 

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