[T]he new platforms let reviews go both ways, and vary in their transparency about the process. Yelp is straightforward: Businesses can post replies to critical customers. On Lyft, the second-biggest of the new cab companies, passengers are vaguely warned that “a low star rating” means requests for rides may not be accepted. Uber does not mention passenger ratings at all in its user agreement but noted in a blog post that “an Uber trip should be a good experience for drivers too.”Ha! I think this is great. I put effort and ethics into being a good customer, don't you? It's just a bonus to get better service long term because of something I feel bound to do anyway. Who is hurt? Only the people who were relying on the size and complexity of the modern world as camouflage for their jerkiness and lack of empathy for those who perform services for them. In a simpler, more localized economy, this kind of information would always already be known.
It does not seem to take much to annoy some Uber drivers. On one online forum, an anonymous driver said he gave poor reviews to “people who are generally negative and would tend to bring down my mood (or anyone around them).” Another was cavalier about the process: “1 star for passengers does not do them any harm. Sensible drivers won’t pick them up, but so what?”
The culture finds one way or another to get us to behave well.
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Are taxis and the Uber service both considered public accommodations?
A taxi driver pretty much has to not discriminate about who they pick up. What if Uber drivers as a class preferred not to pick up fares where the riders were dropped in Bedford-Stuyvesant? Those riders would get lower ratings. The rating system would be a mechanism for racial discrimination.
Of course, We Don't Know if this is happening. I'm just saying.
@Scott They would be discriminating based on the low rating other drivers had given them as customers, but I think individual drivers are already are discriminating based on whether they want to pick up at a particular time and place and go to a particular time and place.
I agree with your implication that this business model could cloak race discrimination.
This is as good a way as I have heard to destroy a business model
It makes me wonder if Yellow Cab has hacked their comments section.
Once again Seinfeld was ahead of the curve, with Elaine and her medical charts. Bad patient.
Friendly compliments are easy to give about something in the service. The key is not to add a "but" to the compliments. Everybody has bad days, and bad service is usually due to a bad system out of that person's control.
The coaching styles for professional sports teams contrasts the complimentary coaches who get greater and greater efforts with the critical disciplinarian coaches who soon get losing efforts and bad attitudes.
Being complimentary is the social art form of focusing on the good, only.
An example is the coach of the new NBA Hawks team with their new Coach Bud (Budenholzer,) He "... never criticizes our misses, so we have confidence to attempt open shots."
This behavior is NOT new. We've refused to do new business with customers that were difficult and abusive for years. If they called us and asked for a quote, we'd put a premium on the price. Actually, Sometimes the increased price got them to behave better.
It's kinda funny. One of the arguments for a taxi medallion system is that it protects consumers from rogue operators. But the Uber/Lyft approach provides much more real protections.
It's a free market. Why shouldn't the customers have to compete too?
The moral axiom of individual dignity requires mutual respect. While there is a rational and reasonable expectation of conscientious and competent service, consumers should not expect to be placed on a pedestal.
"I agree with your implication that this business model could cloak race discrimination."
Not wanting to drive into high crime areas is not race discrimination.
People are not required to ignore crime simply because black people tend to live in those areas.
This is why our economy isn't taking off. Employers and service providers are being required to take risks on that they should not.
If you're not going to require people start a business, it hardly makes sense to require them to take all contracts.
You know what's going to put a stop to customer grading ---- "It's racist!".
I've lived in DC since 1979. Trust me when I say this --- no one is nastier to folks in the service industries than blacks are. The start of my first name basis with the staff at my favorite pizzeria started when the assistant manager, who's from El Salvador, sat down at my table one day and said to me "You know, you're always so nice to us. Other people, they just treat us like shit all the time...." I knew the customers & I knew what he was talking about.
And what's weird about the rudeness, --- the blacks who are rude are nicer to whites than they are to blacks or, especially, immigrants.
I like the customer ratings, in theory. Of course, won't the drivers who get a bad rating from customers then rate those same customers badly as retaliation? I thought that happens on ebay.
>could cloak race discrimination.<
no more like cultural discrimination. thug culture does not mesh with a civil society.
I like the customer ratings, in theory. Of course, won't the drivers who get a bad rating from customers then rate those same customers badly as retaliation?
Airbnb solved that problem by not releasing reviews until either both the host and the guest have made a review or the deadline for posting a review has passed. I think this system works well.
Hooray for freedom of association and contract! Hope no one crunches any numbers and finds, you know disparate impact or anything, I know local govs would just HATE to have a reason to involve themselves in this new profitable businesses...
@Amexpat
Thanks, that sounds like a great way to help insure accurate ratings.
Do you tip on those services? Would a otherwise pleasant customer who didnt tip "enough" get a bad rating? Even though they promptly paid the agreed on price for the service?
Some of you, such as Michael K, do not really understand what Iber is and who its customers are. Drivers are Uber's customers too. Uber does not own cars. Uber intermediates between drivers and passengers, to reduce their common transaction costs, and charges a fee for so doing. (That this fee is paid by both drivers and passengers is easy to see. If the ride through Uber costs $50 and the driver gets $40, then if the parties could arrange things without Uber they could agree on a price like $45 and each come out ahead. They cannot do so cheaply so pay Uber to arrange things.)
So Uber is providing to all its customers feedback on the parties they are being offered the chance to deal with.
Getting into a pissing match with your customers.
Doesn't sound like a model of success.
Customer rating would be a huge benefit to people in the under-economy, such as undocumented workers deciding whose house to clean or whose kids to care for. It would also be a big boon to sex workers, increasing their safety.
In other words, this is especially helpful for people who provide services who don't generally have access to the courts or law enforcement when their customer goes bad.
"The culture finds one way or another to get us to behave well."
Without much success, as I see it.
Go Hawks! It's unbelievable.
@Scott: Public accommodation? That standard for government interference in private association has been killed. 60-75 bucks or whatever the going rate to just sit in a taxi would exclude more people than mutually consented to one-on-one service without government intermediation / interference.
Businesses have known for a long time that some customers are more trouble than they're worth.
And what are credit scores, if not customer ratings?
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