Uber move wipes some ratings
In changes made to the Uber ride-sharing app, ratings below five stars will not contribute to a driver’s overall rating, if the reason for a bad experience was not the driver’s fault.
Uber users are now asked to click a reason for their bad experience if they rate a driver below five stars.
Reasons relate to professionalism, navigation, driving and car cleanliness.
If a user clicks a reason relating to price, traffic, the Uber app or the driver’s GPS system, the rating will be wiped from the driver’s record.
Uber New Zealand general manager Richard Menzies said the changes did not aim to discourage users from giving drivers low ratings and would not jeopardise user safety.
Rather, he said, they helped explain why drivers were being rated poorly.
‘‘It is not much of a barrier to the ratings process. We are trying to educate riders more on the ratings process.’’
When asked if a technical error during a ride, such as a GPS being down or incorrect, made for a negative user experience and was therefore worthy of a low rating, Menzies said no.
‘‘The rating is about the overall Uber experience, but we are now giving riders the opportunity to categorise that between ‘Was this an issue that relates to my driver-partner?’ or ‘Was this an issue to do with Uber’s experience, whether it be the app, the price, or the GPS?’.
‘‘We want to separate that from the driver experience to ensure that they are getting a transparent reflection of the service that they [drivers] provide.’’
The changes were introduced on Wednesday after Uber drivers raised concerns over fairness of the ratings system.
In the changes, Uber altered the wording of some star ratings to encourage users to click two, three or four stars if they had a bad experience, instead of giving a one-star rating, Menzies said.
‘‘When something does go wrong, they will just give a one star. We are trying to encourage people to use those middle ratings a bit more to actually give an accurate representation of their Uber experience.’’
A previous ‘‘excellent’’ five stars is now ‘‘great’’, while a once ‘‘good’’ four stars is now ‘‘OK, but had an issue’’, and an ‘‘OK’’ three stars has changed to ‘‘disappointing’’.
All New Zealand Uber drivers are legally required to hold passenger endorsements. The process to receive the endorsement includes criminal history checks.