How to Handle Uber Passengers Who Want to Stop And Make You Wait!

What should you do when your Uber passengers wants to stop and make you wait? Every once in awhile you’ll get someone who wants you to wait at a drive through for 20 minutes. “Hey man, can you stop at In N Out at 1:00 am and let us get these burgers?” Or maybe they want you to wait in the parking lot while they go shopping and run their errands. It’s kind of annoying, so I want to tell you guys how to handle it, how you can avoid bad ratings, and how to make sure that you’re getting paid the maximum amount.

Check out my video, then read the transcript below.

Two things to do if you don’t mind waiting

First thing’s first: If you’re OK with waiting and you don’t really care, just know that make sure you leave your app on. If you’re going to wait, definitely wait with the app on.

Second thing, if you don’t mind waiting, just know that you get paid for waiting. Since you’re not moving, you obviously don’t get a per-mile rate. In LA for example, I think the the waiting rate or the time rate per minute is 16 cents a minute, which is super low. I think that comes out to $9.60 an hour. After you take out Uber’s 25% cut, it’s just over seven bucks an hour and that is lower than minimum wage.

It’s really not a lot of money and it honestly isn’t super profitable to be sitting around waiting. You can make a lot more money driving. It’s an issue, though, because it can be a little bit of an awkward conversation with you rider, and that’s why I think a lot of new drivers just suck it up. They wait, don’t say anything, but in the back of their mind they’re like “Man, this sucks.”

How to tell your passenger you won’t wait

Here’s how I handle it. It gets a little bit tricky because the rider obviously gets to rate you at the end of the trip. So if you’re a dick about it, you’re going to get a low rating. If you say, “Hey, get the hell outta my car, I’m not going to wait for you”, you’re probably going to get a one star. If it’s a short request, like they want to go in to the grocery store and grab some little pack of gum or something like that and they’ll be on their way, I’ll do it no problem. It’s sort of part of providing good service, and I think that just in general, I’m more than happy to do short little things like that. If it’s on every trip, I’d have to figure something else out. But if it happens once in awhile it’s not a big deal.

Let’s say they want me to wait five minutes or more. I’m usually pretty up front with them in this situation. I don’t have a hard and fast rule that like, if it’s five minutes or more, I’m gone. But if it’s generally more than five minutes, I’m pretty up front with the passenger. I’ll say something like, “Hey, I’d love to wait but unfortunately, I don’t really get paid that much to wait. I really only make money when I’m out driving people around, driving fares. Would you mind terribly if I ended the ride, and you can just call for another Uber when you’re ready?”

In my experience, most riders are pretty understanding if you say something like that. They might offer you a cash tip saying, “Hey, I’ll hook you up with a few bucks”. That’s somewhat rare. But you know, depending on their response you kind of judge from there. I know some drivers will go and maybe solicit a tip, say “Hey, if you’re willing to add five or ten bucks on, I can wait no problem, but I really just can’t afford to sit here while you go shopping.” That’s sort of a little bit of a gray area for me. I haven’t personally done that, but I know some drivers who have. I can totally understand either side of the argument, though.

This is actually one of the reasons why I love Lyft, because it’s so much less awkward because of the in-app tipping option. It makes it really easy for them to leave that tip in the app. Definitely sign up for Lyft if you haven’t, because that’s one of those cool things about them.

Uber doesn’t give much guidance, so you have to figure out your own system

Ultimately, this is sort of one of those gray areas where there’s not a lot of training from Uber, and you have to figure it yourself. You have to decide what kind of customer service that you want to provide. I think some passengers definitely take advantage of drivers, and for those, you probably want to be a little more stern, but if it’s more of an honest situation, I think it’s really not a big deal. Part of providing good customer service is that if you’re cool, calm, and level-headed about the situation, I think that most passengers are going to be pretty understanding. Worst case scenario, you get some dick rider who just doesn’t understand, but don’t let one rider, ruin your entire experience.

Hopefully you guys enjoyed this video. If you have any questions about this topic, you want to see anything in the future, don’t hesitate to reach out. Feel free to like, comment, subscribe to the channel. I really appreciate you guys watching. Take care.