# Ratings Education..101



## Blaze333 (Jun 27, 2015)

Ok.. So we all know how unfair UBERs rating system is. They are unlikely to change it anytime in the near future, so we are just going to have to live with it for now and make the best of it. My feelings and experience tell me that the general Ubering public is just plain uneducated on how the rating system works. I generally give 95% of my riders 5 stars unless something is obviously amiss. I could only wish for the same in return.

I have decided to try to educate my riders somewhat so they can at least give a *fair* rating to me and my fellow "Partners". I will be handing out business cards after each ride guidelining what they should actually be rating us on.. letting them know they were rated 5 stars. (whether they were or not).. this is what it might look like.









I would like your thoughts and opinions on this before I do it. Anything to add or change or delete.. or is it a good or bad idea.


----------



## Uber Kraus (Jun 10, 2015)

Blaze333 said:


> Ok.. So we all know how unfair UBERs rating system is. They are unlikely to change it anytime in the near future, so we are just going to have to live with it for now and make the best of it. My feelings and experience tell me that the general Ubering public is just plain uneducated on how the rating system works. I generally give 95% of my riders 5 stars unless something is obviously amiss. I could only wish for the same in return.
> 
> I have decided to try to educate my riders somewhat so they can at least give a *fair* rating to me and my fellow "Partners". I will be handing out business cards after each ride guidelining what they should actually be rating us on.. letting them know they were rated 5 stars. (whether they were or not).. this is what it might look like.
> View attachment 13637
> ...


Ratings don't matter and aren't worth your time. The less you think about it and the less you cater to your pax the more fun you will have and less stress you will have in your life. My rating is usually 4.85 or 4.86 and I never ever talk about it or do anything extra to try to bump it up.

In fact if you talk about ratings you were likely to get rated down for it.


----------



## Huberis (Mar 15, 2015)

There is no possible guideline, the system is flawed, it is rigged. The bottom line is that anything less than 5 stars is a failure. That leaves you zero room for a failure. Unlike drivers, pax are not required to rate their drivers. That being said, they often ride drunk, one could assume they could rate a driver while intoxicated.

There should be some sort of metric, this kind of standard would be better applied by drivers to rate pax and go from there. If the system weren't rigged, Uber could simply ask the pax to answer each of those questions...."Was your driver courteous?" "Was the car clean?" "Did he know where he was going?" There could be four or five questions, the answers shown and displayed for a drivers previous ten or fifteen calls. This could be done to rate pax as well.

There would still be room for abuse unfortunately. The current system is easier to dismiss. 

Personally, in my mind, within your system, anything less than a five star is a fail, so you could currently try to train your pax to rate five stars or not at all. You could rate them before they leave the car, show them they are getting a five from you because anything less than a five is a failure and leave it at that.

Be careful trying to fix something that isn't broken, bit IS rigged.


----------



## Uber Kraus (Jun 10, 2015)

Huberis said:


> There is no possible guideline, the system is flawed, it is rigged. The bottom line is that anything less than 5 stars is a failure. That leaves you zero room for a failure. Unlike drivers, pax are not required to rate their drivers. That being said, they often ride drunk, one could assume they could rate a driver while intoxicated.
> 
> There should be some sort of metric, this kind of standard would be better applied by drivers to rate pax and go from there. If the system weren't rigged, Uber could simply ask the pax to answer each of those questions...."Was your driver courteous?" "Was the car clean?" "Did he know where he was going?" There could be four or five questions, the answers shown and displayed for a drivers previous ten or fifteen calls. This could be done to rate pax as well.
> 
> ...


Again, I think the best thing to do is just drive like you normally would, provide the best service you can and a given circumstance and the ratings will follow suit


----------



## Huberis (Mar 15, 2015)

Uber Kraus said:


> Again, I think the best thing to do is just drive like you normally would, provide the best service you can and a given circumstance and the ratings will follow suit


The rating system mostly creates uncertainty and a kind of fear. People become easier to manipulate under those conditions. Under the best of circumstances, the typical UberXer isn't going to be around that long anyway. For most people, it would be hard to keep at it once their current car starts to deteriorate and the time comes to think of a replacement. Even more reason not to sweat the rating system.

Agreed, a person would be far better off just focusing on driving their best and enjoying it. The rating system is working as designed to work as it does.

If a person really needs to fight structure of the rating system , they should be asking what is the mechanism that allows Uber to need such a sysytem and implement it. Tackle that and change might happen. Until then, it will only get worse.


----------



## Blaze333 (Jun 27, 2015)

Uber Kraus said:


> In fact if you talk about ratings you were likely to get rated down for it.


----------



## Blaze333 (Jun 27, 2015)

I don't honestly believe that... but I don't normally talk about it unless the pax brings it up. I find that some or maybe most pax don't even know what to rate a driver on or they just hit any star to clear the way to the next ride. If They were doing that...they would most likely would hit the stars somewhere in the middle of the screen and move on.


----------



## Uber Kraus (Jun 10, 2015)

Blaze333 said:


> I don't honestly believe that... but I don't normally talk about it unless the pax brings it up. I find that some or maybe most pax don't even know what to rate a driver on or they just hit any star to clear the way to the next ride. If They were doing that...they would most likely would hit the stars somewhere in the middle of the screen and move on.


&#8230; Like I said, you can certainly waste your time thinking about it if you want but you probably have better things to do with your brain


----------



## Huberis (Mar 15, 2015)

Blaze333 said:


> I don't honestly believe that... but I don't normally talk about it unless the pax brings it up. I find that some or maybe most pax don't even know what to rate a driver on or they just hit any star to clear the way to the next ride. If They were doing that...they would most likely would hit the stars somewhere in the middle of the screen and move on.


Best ignored. Not worth micromanaging. Uber sets the bar at 4.6 which means you need to be juuust a little better than the lowest 10% of drivers. Drivers who think their 4.78 means something tangible next to another drivers 4.82 are nuts. I have heard of rides going to a higher rated driver if distance is similar, but I personally doubt it is the case. My guess is that there is lag in the app and Uber describes the pax app as a more of a screen saver than a depiction of reality.

It is just all noise and nonsense. Any advice that mostly suggests you should avoid micromanaging your driver rating is solid advice. Just ell your pax anything less than five stars is a fail, rate them five stars and move on. If someone is trouble, don't even mention the rating system.

As a driver, you have more important things to concern yourself with. The rating system may be intended to keep you distracted from paying attention to those very things.

You don't think it is by design this way? This is the company that brought you God's View for Christ's sake, I think they understand how to and how not to apply statistical analysis.


----------



## Blaze333 (Jun 27, 2015)

Uber Kraus said:


> &#8230; Like I said, you can certainly waste your time thinking about it if you want but you probably have better things to do with your brain


I do have better things to think about..or maybe not.
I just irks me when my rating takes a hit due to ignorance.


----------



## Huberis (Mar 15, 2015)

Blaze333 said:


> I do have better things to think about..or maybe not.
> I just irks me when my rating takes a hit due to ignorance.


Is the system as is by design or has Uber created something that functions in a way they didn't intend for it to work?


----------



## Blaze333 (Jun 27, 2015)

Huberis said:


> Is the system as is by design or has Uber created something that functions in a way they didn't intend for it to work?


Im sure it works ...AS DESIGNED...but if they won't change it to work in OUR favor... who will?


----------



## Huberis (Mar 15, 2015)

Blaze333 said:


> Im sure it works ...AS DESIGNED...but if they won't change it to work in OUR favor... who will?


You are focussing or maybe obsessing over what nothing more than the symptoms. Why does Uber benefit from such a skewed rating sytem and what allows them to implement it?

Personally, I believe Uber partly, maybe largely uses the rating system to distract their drivers from concerning themselves with oh say......... anything that might be within a driver's actual authority. It is a way to get drivers to drive more in order to boost their ratings.

What allows for such conditions? What is it about the relationship between partner and Uber that enables this kind of bullshit? It is probably linked to what allows for such crappy rates/mile in mature markets, same thing with the flooding of a town with cars.

The issues you are obsessing over are symptoms of the problem and not the problem. You already work within the confines of the problem, you might as well ignore the symptoms at this point and do your best.

It IS NOT designed to work in your favor. Uber (venture capitalism) is about disruption. As a driver, you are not immune to that either. Uber appeals to pax because they remove uncertainty. However, they freely foment uncertainty when it can be used to control or manipulate people.

Question for you, befor I head out the door and I look forward to your answer. If you believe "Im sure it works ...AS DESIGNED...but if they won't change it to work in OUR favor... who will?"

What then is it designed to do?


----------



## Blaze333 (Jun 27, 2015)

Huberis said:


> You are focussing or maybe obsessing over what nothing more than the symptoms. Why does Uber benefit from such a skewed rating sytem and what allows them to implement it?
> 
> Personally, I believe Uber partly, maybe largely uses the rating system to distract their drivers from concerning themselves with oh say......... anything that might be within a driver's actual authority. It is a way to get drivers to drive more in order to boost their ratings.
> 
> ...


I agree with everything you say...exept that by driving more will boost your ratings. driving more..especially at certain times or areas can negatively affect your ratings..
What it is designed to do is... Make uber look good to the public by giving them a say ..or a voice after an unpleasant or not up to par service, which is totally understandable.
Im trying to take their flawed system and make it work against them... what driver cannot provide at least 5 points of good service? I don't want to be rated poorly because of my ethnicity or age or religion or color of my car or whether or not my eyes are brown and not blue.... or whatever reason they can think of. Why do you think Uber doesn't educate their riders on what criteria to rate drivers or don't educate drivers on pax criteria...
They just left us all to figure it out on our own...thereby skewing the system in Ubers favor to generate high driver turnover. Now.. why they would want high driver turnover is beyond me.


----------



## Digits (Sep 17, 2015)

One pax told me that he believes only god has the right to judge and therefore shuts his eyes deliberately on the rating page and let's the divine take over.


----------



## Fuzzyelvis (Dec 7, 2014)

The way they should rate is unless they absolutely think the driver should be fired it's a 5. Period. Or do you want to be downrated because of traffic, not being "friendly" enough etc etc? The little scale is just a way to give them REASONS to down rate a driver.

If it's a to b, not miles out of the way and a safe ride it's a 5. Ridiculous yo think otherwise at these rates.

Bring it up to $2 a mile AT LEAST and maybe the pax should be able to be more picky. Otherwise don't start giving them things to start grading us on. They do that enough already.


----------



## Digits (Sep 17, 2015)

It's more convenient for Uber to drop the marker at a below 4.0 for it being a threat of deactivation,instead of trying to educate each and every pax about how rating works and the bs about all this, the world knows that a rating of 4+ is pretty awesome for every service and goods that are rated. I could get a 1* for providing everything above and beyond from someone who requested the ride for another (dependant on infinite factors not related to the ride).... Keeping multiple factors that influence the rating system, 4.6 threshold is like having the driver's balls in a clamp attached to a windmill.


----------



## Desert Driver (Nov 9, 2014)

Blaze333 said:


> Ok.. So we all know how unfair UBERs rating system is. They are unlikely to change it anytime in the near future, so we are just going to have to live with it for now and make the best of it. My feelings and experience tell me that the general Ubering public is just plain uneducated on how the rating system works. I generally give 95% of my riders 5 stars unless something is obviously amiss. I could only wish for the same in return.
> 
> I have decided to try to educate my riders somewhat so they can at least give a *fair* rating to me and my fellow "Partners". I will be handing out business cards after each ride guidelining what they should actually be rating us on.. letting them know they were rated 5 stars. (whether they were or not).. this is what it might look like.
> View attachment 13637
> ...


This has been discussed to death. First of all, the driver rating system is horribly flawed. In fact, the driver rating system doesn't pass the basic requirements for being statistically valid. The problem you're encountering is that most paxs think that a 4-star rating is a good rating. But in the world of Uber driver rating, a 4-star rating means fire this driver immediately! So, you may consider doing what I have done and this has allowed me to keep my driver rating above 4.95 for the past 8 months. I have this sign on the backs of my front seats.

As an Uber driver, I must keep my driver rating above 4.7 to keep my job. 
Here's is how the driver rating system breaks down:
5 stars = The driver was courteous. The car was clean. I was transported safely.
4 stars = One vote to terminate this driver immediately.
3 stars = Two votes to terminate this driver immediately.
2 stars = Three votes to terminate this driver immediately.
1 star = Four votes to terminate this driver immediately.

I originally posted these signs as an emotional response to a couple really unfair ratings I received and Uber's total lack of regard for its drivers. I eventually got Uber to remove one of the ratings but it took way too long to do so. Meanwhile, I found that the signs were yielding higher overall driver ratings. I don't hand out gum, candy, water, mints, etc., I don't provide phone chargers, I don't let paxs select radio station, and I never wait more than 301 seconds for a pax to show up.


----------



## Blaze333 (Jun 27, 2015)

Desert Driver said:


> This has been discussed to death. First of all, the driver rating system is horribly flawed. In fact, the driver rating system doesn't pass the basic requirements for being statistically valid. The problem you're encountering is that most paxs think that a 4-star rating is a good rating. But in the world of Uber driver rating, a 4-star rating means fire this driver immediately! So, you may consider doing what I have done and this has allowed me to keep my driver rating above 4.95 for the past 8 months. I have this sign on the backs of my front seats.
> 
> As an Uber driver, I must keep my driver rating above 4.7 to keep my job.
> Here's is how the driver rating system breaks down:
> ...


Ok.. I like your idea too.. it requires a small change to my business card rather than a sign....maybe something like this?


----------



## Desert Driver (Nov 9, 2014)

Blaze333 said:


> Ok.. I like your idea too.. it requires a small change to my business card rather than a sign....maybe something like this?





Blaze333 said:


> Ok.. I like your idea too.. it requires a small change to my business card rather than a sign....maybe something like this?


Nicely played. The malnourished coyote abides.


----------



## Huberis (Mar 15, 2015)

Blaze333 said:


> I agree with everything you say...exept that by driving more will boost your ratings. driving more..especially at certain times or areas can negatively affect your ratings..
> What it is designed to do is... Make uber look good to the public by giving them a say ..or a voice after an unpleasant or not up to par service, which is totally understandable.
> Im trying to take their flawed system and make it work against them... what driver cannot provide at least 5 points of good service? I don't want to be rated poorly because of my ethnicity or age or religion or color of my car or whether or not my eyes are brown and not blue.... or whatever reason they can think of. Why do you think Uber doesn't educate their riders on what criteria to rate drivers or don't educate drivers on pax criteria...
> They just left us all to figure it out on our own...thereby skewing the system in Ubers favor to generate high driver turnover. Now.. why they would want high driver turnover is beyond me.


You answered your own question of "Why do you think Uber doesn't educate the riders on what criteria to rate drivers" with: "Make uber look good to the public by giving them a say ".

Uber doesn't want to have to deal directly with pax nor driver. The rating system allows a pax to feel as if they have a kind of say. Uber sets the threshold where they do for the simple reason that categorically axing the bottom 10% of their drivers saves them money from having to sort through what was just and what was not just. It is simple, it saves them money and it allows them to have more control over many of their drivers who are impressionable.

It is the driver who owns the car, maintains it fuels it, sits in it hour after hour, listens to insufferable pax moan or sing praise of their own ignorance. With all of that in the drivers lap, all of that responsibility, the drivers have little or no personal agency, yet they are classified as independent contractors.

In the end, it saves them money this way. The bottom 10% go whether they all should go or not. The rest, they try to coerce, often through fear of deactivation and the loss of whatever they may have invested. The rating system isn't all that rational, but it is disruptive. That is their mantra.


----------



## Blaze333 (Jun 27, 2015)

Huberis said:


> You answered your own question of "Why do you think Uber doesn't educate the riders on what criteria to rate drivers" with: "Make uber look good to the public by giving them a say ".
> 
> Uber doesn't want to have to deal directly with pax nor driver. The rating system allows a pax to feel as if they have a kind of say. Uber sets the threshold where they do for the simple reason that categorically axing the bottom 10% of their drivers saves them money from having to sort through what was just and what was not just. It is simple, it saves them money and it allows them to have more control over many of their drivers who are impressionable.
> 
> ...


Bingo...Im onboard with you all the way... what Im trying to do here is save myself from being on the bottom 10% (whether I deserve it or not) by at least trying to get a fair rating from my pax. It may not work all the time, but if it works some of the time... my rating should increase. I see no reason a pax would not rate me 5 stars on every ride. I provide the best possible service I know how. (Drive a new car and keep it clean, dress appropriately, know my city and route, greet each pax with a friendly hello and then speak only when spoken to, drive safely obeying all traffic laws.. etc ,etc....). What I am experiencing is that pax do not understand the rating system as us drivers do and I can try to take advantage of that to work in my favor by educating them to rate on my criteria whether Uber agrees or not. Uber makes no mention that it is a pass/fail system letting the pax assume that it is a scale system and That was by DESIGN. It may work for them...but It doesn't work for me.


----------



## Realityshark (Sep 22, 2014)

Ignore your rating. Don't even look at it. Uber uses ratings to mind **** you. Your rating drops one day, so all the new drivers run out to try and increase their precious rating. Uber uses ratings so you don't think about all of the other ways they are screwing you over. It's a way to make you believe you are lucky to be working for Uber. It's a way for Uber to make you put up with passenger abuse. 

The bottom ljne is this, Never look at your rating and do the best you can without putting up with any passenger bullshit. If you suck so bad that you can't stay above a 4.6 then Uber driving isn't for you.


----------



## Huberis (Mar 15, 2015)

Blaze333 said:


> Bingo...Im onboard with you all the way... what Im trying to do here is save myself from being on the bottom 10% (whether I deserve it or not) by at least trying to get a fair rating from my pax. It may not work all the time, but if it works some of the time... my rating should increase. I see no reason a pax would not rate me 5 stars on every ride. I provide the best possible service I know how. (Drive a new car and keep it clean, dress appropriately, know my city and route, greet each pax with a friendly hello and then speak only when spoken to, drive safely obeying all traffic laws.. etc ,etc....). What I am experiencing is that pax do not understand the rating system as us drivers do and I can try to take advantage of that to work in my favor by educating them to rate on my criteria whether Uber agrees or not. Uber makes no mention that it is a pass/fail system letting the pax assume that it is a scale system and That was by DESIGN. It may work for them...but It doesn't work for me.


It is fighting a never ending battle. It is a symptom of a greater concern. Once you focus merely on the system, Uber has already achieved its goal. It doesn't matter much that you are trying to subvert the injustice of their peer to peer rating system one pax at a time. It simply is keeping you occupied and gives you the false sense that you are fighting a good fight.

By all means, keep it up if you so desire. Personally, I would not work under such a system. To try to do what you are doing would make work unduly tedious and most drivers, under the very best of circumstances really don't drive very long.

When you suggest "I see no reason a pax would....." Stop looking for reason. There is very little real reason. You might be hauling drunks. Pax can rate you while intoxicated. Pax tend to be self centered and the service plays on the sense of entitlement.

If you aren't able to dismiss a poor rating or two, if the difference between having a 4.73 and a4.82 is something that really gets under your skin, keep on keeping on...... In my opinion and it is only my opinion, that of an outsider from the standpoint of not being an Uber driver, while at the same time being a person with a lot of livery experience who very much dreads the idea of this practice becoming an acceptable measure of performance.......

Worry less about the symptoms and look at what it is allowing them to implement such a policy. Why is it in their best interest to use this system. Answer those questions and then try to implement strategies which allow you to improve the greater structure which permits and encourages such bullshit.

All you need to do is fall above a 4.6 and you keep driving. Given how you operate, you should fall above the line...... 4.7, 4.85 or 9....... beyond worthless. Move on and take on what enables such bullshit. That is tougher, will take more will and courage for some, but that is where it is at.

Good luck and enjoy the ride, I hope you find a way to tune your energy and fighting spirit onto something that can really bring change.


----------

