How to Get More Tips While Rideshare Driving

How can you get more tips while you are driving for Uber and Lyft? Jay Cradeur shared a video recently that showed his pay statement, and he had $206 in tips. He averages about $150 to $160 a week, which is a good amount of tips. He’s going to share some of my strategies and secrets that he uses in order to get more tips.

Stick around for the end of the video, I’m going to share with you what I think is a realistic and strong goal to go for, in terms of the percentage of your passengers who give you tips.

Take a look at Jay’s video, then read the transcript of the video below to see all the strategies he covers.

The strategies I use to earn more tips for Uber and Lyft

The first thing I do is I create a peaceful environment inside of my car. I don’t know if you’ve seen the movie, it’s call Collateral, it features Tom Cruise as an assassin named Vincent and Jamie Fox plays a taxi driver named Max. And Max talks about how he’s going to start his own company and how it’s going to be called Island Limo and it’s just going to be this amazing experience so good that people won’t want to leave his car. I think about that a lot.

As you’re driving around you’ve got to ask yourself what’s the environment inside of my car. So peaceful. Peaceful environment is what’s going to get you more tips. If it’s not peaceful, people aren’t going to give you a tip. They don’t feel safe they feel harried, they want to relax. So make it a nice peaceful environment.

A clean car makes a positive first impression

The second thing you can do. Is make a positive first impression by keeping your car clean, both on the inside and the outside and keep it smelling good.

I’m going to show you a product I use here. It’s called Ozium and I use the new car small. You just need just a little bit, it’s really strong, and it’s going to make your car smell like it’s fresh and new. Particularly useful if you’ve had somebody who’s a smoker who’s come into your car. And you don’t want that smell for your next passenger. I use it every morning just to get my car smelling that way. And then you should get your car washed at least once a week and you should always kind of sweep the any little dust and stuff off the floor, so it looks clean inside of your car. Keep it looking clean because when people get into a car that’s clean and it smells fresh they’re happy. They feel like your a professional and you’re going to do a good job for them and that they will reward your for with increased tips.

Peaceful music creates a peaceful environment

I like to play jazz. Now I didn’t listen to a lot of jazz until I got this job. But since I started driving I’m listening to a lot more jazz. I’ve gotten into John Coltrain and I’ll tell you I get so many compliments by my passengers who tell me how peaceful it was in my car because of the music. “Man I loved your music. Thank God I didn’t have to listen to some of that EDM that some of the drivers listen to.” So take it from me, you’ll get more tips, more love, more money in your pocket if you play some peaceful music.

Let me show you on Spotify, a couple of playlists that I use. The app I use for music is called Spotify, and there are two may playlists that I use, I developed quite a few over the years, but this one right here is called, “Late Night Jazz” which is wonderful, see you can’t go wrong with that one. So you can do a search and type in Late Night Jazz and that will come up. And the other one that’s really great is called “Coffee Table Jazz.”

Work harder on the long trips for tips

The people you take to work in the morning and you take home in the afternoon aren’t going to give you a whole lot of tips. It’s the longer rides, the special rides, the tourists in town that are going to give you the best tips. And particularly you’re going to make good tips on the airport runs.

When I see it’s an airport run and I see somebody coming out of their house with luggage, I get out of my car, I walk towards them and take their luggage and say, “I’ve got this, go ahead and get in the car,” and then I put it in the trunk. Then as I’m driving I’ll ask them, “Hey, where are you going today?” And that gets them talking and get them excited, they may be going someplace I’ve been and we start talking about that.

And then, when we get to the airport I am sure to jump out of the car fast, get to my trunk, take the luggage out, put it on, I don’t put it on the street, I put it on the sidewalk, and I open up the handle so they are ready to go and I say, “Have a great trip, thank you very much,” And I let them go, that’s almost always good for a $5 or $10 tip. Sometimes I’ve gotten a $20 tip on an airport run. Those longer rides feel special and you can really work those rides and get the significant portion of your tips from those long rides.

Drive for Lyft! My Lyft passengers tip more

The passengers who are Lyft passengers have been tipping from the inception of Lyft. Right? Whereas with Uber, for many, many years Uber passengers didn’t have to tip. And it wasn’t even an option for them. They would give you cash once in awhile, but they weren’t used to using the app. The week that I got $206 in tips I drove exclusively for Lyft. So other things being equal, if you don’t have a preference one way or the other, try driving for Lyft for a week.

Have a few key accessories in your car

So those accessories are the small little bottles of water. Some gum, some tissue and the last thing is an iPhone charger. I don’t offer those things to every one of my passengers, but I always have them available. Particularly on the longer rides, especially the airport runs I’ll offer water and gum. And a lot of times people they’ll be sniffling, I’ll offer them some tissue, they love that, and a lot of times they need and iPhone charger or an android charger if you’re in an area where more people have androids. In San Francisco virtually everybody has an iPhone, I don’t get asked more than once a year for an android charger.

Listen more than you talk

Ask questions and let the passenger talk. The more they feel like you’re listening to them, you’re providing them a service, the more likely they’re going to respond with, “Wow I had a good experience with that guy or that woman, I’m going to give them a tip.” So ask a question and let them talk. There’ll be time for you to respond, but really people want to talk, so the more you can become a good listener the more chance you’re going to have of getting a tip.

What percentage of your passengers will leave a tip?

So what’s a good percentage of passengers will tip? I went back to the week that I made the $206 and I counted how many people gave me a tip. So out of 220 rides that I gave that week, 70 gave me a tip. That’s approximately 33%, 30% in that area. I think that if you can get one out of four people to give you a tip, you’re doing great. That’s a strong week. One out of four people giving you a tip is a really good number to go for so I suggest set that as your goal and go for it.

It doesn’t take anymore time and you can increase how much money you make by getting more tips. So it’s a really win win for everybody there. If you have a comment, if you can think of something else that could help with tips by all means list it below.

This is Jay Cradeur with The RideShare Guy, thanks for watching and be safe out there.