One Quick Tip To Boost Your Uber Driver Rating

Hey, what’s up guys? Today I’m going to give you guys one quick tip to boost your driver rating. Now, obviously I get emails all the time from drivers, Facebook comments, YouTube comments and ratings are, obviously, always a huge topic of conversation. Drivers, not only need to make sure that they stay above a 4.6 or 4.7 but at the same time, a lot of drivers like me, they just want to ensure that they’re out there doing the best job they can do, whether they are at 4.8, 4.9. It’s always frustrating when your rating goes down and you feel like you did a really good job.

The biggest source of one-star ratings, according to Uber

So, that’s why I created this video today, because I’m going to give you guys one quick tip and that is to focus on navigation. So Uber actually released a study on driver ratings in San Francisco and they found the number one reason for a one-star rating was navigation. So, either because, drivers are off, not going the right way, they’re taking the most inefficient, or not the most efficient route, there’s a lot of different reasons, basically, why you could get flagged for navigation. But over and over, especially for my rides, obviously I take Uber as a passenger all the time and you’d be surprised at how bad, how poor, some of these drivers’ navigation skills. Even things as simple as having their phone mounted up on the dashboard which is obviously a huge safety issue.

So, the thing that you guys have to keep in mind, is passengers are smart, right? Obviously, I always tell drivers that, “Hey, you guys should go out, take a ride as a passenger because you’ll learn a lot.” Now, what passengers often do, well, I should say they’re smart but they’re also crafty. They tend to have their own preferred route and often times they’ll be sitting in the back of your car looking at the route you’re taking. They’re mapping it on their own GPS, on Google Maps. So, if you missed a turn, or you don’t go the most efficient way, they’re going to know and they’re going to be wondering.

Your phone is your best resource — use it!

I’m sure you guys have had passengers who say, “Hey, why aren’t you going this way? Or why aren’t you going that way?” They expect you to be using Google Maps or Waze to avoid traffic and all these things. So, definitely make sure that you guys are aware of that fact. So you don’t want to try and hide anything or keep anything from your passengers when it comes to navigation. Now, at the most basic level, even if you’re not super experienced with the city, or if you’re not a super experienced driver and you don’t know navigation super well yet, obviously you have your phone as a resource but I think, at times, it can be a little bit tough because you just start depending on your phone so much, you kind of forget the basic.

Well-rated drivers know their cities

So, for example, if you’re a driving in LA, obviously you have to know where the 10 Freeway is, and the 405 is, and you need to know how to get to Hollywood, and need to know how to get to West LA, Santa Monica, Venice, right? Think about all of these top landmarks, top sites, big freeways, those are the things you have to know regardless of whether it’s your first day or your first time in the city. And obviously you’ll get good with practice but, I mean, if you were out driving and let’s say you were having a momentary glitch with your GPS or your navigation, it’s going to be kind of embarrassing if you don’t know how to get to the 405 freeway, or if you don’t know which direction to go on the 405 to get from LA to downtown. So that’s kind of what I mean when I say that it really helps to have sense of where you are, to know a little bit about where you are on a map and don’t be too dependent on the GPS if you don’t have to.

Now a couple other tips that really help with me when I’m trying to navigate passengers around, is I almost always have them enter a destination. Now, if it’s a quick little 5 minute trip and I know exactly where we are and I know exactly where we’re going then I’ll be okay with them not doing it. Now obviously a lot more and more passengers are entering the destination before you get them into the car so that obviously helps. But even if they don’t, it definitely helps because you may encounter traffic. Let’s say you’re 10 or 15 minutes away, you might find traffic, you might hit traffic so obviously having the route in the navigation might give you an alternative route and trying to program that in once you hit the traffic is obviously a safety issue and it could basically make you look bad.

Learning your city is the proactive approach

So take that proactive approach. So even if you know where you’re going, it does make sense. And the one thing I’m definitely… I think is really important is… obviously the passengers always say, “Oh, don’t worry about entering the destination, just go.” Right, at that point I say, I’ll come up with something, “Oh, you know what Uber requires me to input the destination, and for insurance purposes, I need to put in the destination, for traffic” whatever you want to say. Maybe you bend the truth a little bit. You want that destination in especially if the passenger is going to give you directions because I pretty much avoid that at all cost. It rarely works out especially if you have multiple passengers in the car. Or even if it’s just a solo passenger.

They might be on their phone, not paying attention. Or the passengers are all talking to each other. And then, instead of.. and they’ll forget to tell you, “Hey turn left” right? They then you miss a turn, who do you think they’re going to blame? They’re obviously not going to blame themselves even if it’s completely their fault. They’re going to blame you. So, those are kind of the reasons why I think it’s important to have that, you know have them enter their destination.

Phone not mounted = bad ratings

Obviously I mentioned earlier, make sure you have your phone mounted. I’d still say, probably 30% to 40% of the Uber cars that I get into don’t have their phone mounted and meanwhile you have this driver who’s driving around looking like this, looking like that, looking everywhere except on the road which for me, I’m just sitting back there kind of like, “Oh God.” I mean, i don’t want to be a dick and say, “Hey dude why don’t you have your phone mounted?” but at the same time this guy is taking me, or this lady is taking me, I want to feel safe, I want to feel like they’re in complete control of the road and just having your phone mounted right up there is just a simple little fix. Obviously, you guys know I recommend the Kenu Airframe, but there’s lost of other phone mounts as long as you have something up there.

Stick with a navigational app and practice it

So the last thing I want to say is that, once you pick a navigation app, stick with it and practice. Personally, I prefer Google Maps. They integrate a lot of the traffic functions of Waze and I know that some people prefer Waze. Others say that there’s too much going on on Waze. But whatever you pick, go out and practice with it. It might sound a little silly at first, “Hey I need to practice my navigation.” But the thing is, a lot of these programs are a little bit different, with the terminology they use. They say, “Hey turn left ahead,” some will say, “Turn left in 500 feet,” some will say, “Turn left in a quarter mile.”

You need to know what these distances are without having to look at the map. So you want to get really good at whatever the GPS or navigation function that you’re using. When it starts saying, “Hey, turn left in one quarter of a mile,” you know, “Okay, I know about exactly how far that is, how long it’s going to take me to get there.” And then as you start approaching, it might say, “Turn left in 200 feet.” You shouldn’t even have to look at the map at that point because that’s when you start making mistakes and you say, “Hey, wait, do I need to turn left here or is it the next street?” And if you can really get used to it, just from practicing it, I think it really makes you look professional as a driver and it’ll also just ensure that you don’t make nearly as many mistakes which will, in turn, help your rating.

Always think of ways that you can improve

So, I guess those are kind of the examples of, you know when I think it makes a lot of sense. Now, really, don’t underestimate navigation. I think a lot of drivers out there, they say, “Oh I’m great at it.” You always have to be thinking about, “How can I improve? How can i get better?” And I’m telling you guys, if you’re watching this video, you likely have experienced this whether you know it or not and it’s a very common complaint amongst passengers and navigation.

So, that’s my advice for you guys. Hopefully you enjoyed this video. Feel free to like, comment, subscribe. If you have any questions, definitely leave them below or shoot me an email. I respond to each and every single email so take advantage of that. All right, take care guys.