Once an IT professional, always an IT professional. During my 3 weeks driving as an Uber driver, I came across a few usability issues, “nice to have” features, and some questions, which I decided to submit as feedback to Uber. Although I haven’t used the most professional tone (was having fun, taking a career break, didn’t feel like being professional), and didn’t really receive any response, I felt quite pleased (and annoyed at the same time), that I was still thinking of user experience, and customer experience as a good IT professional with quality as a state of mind.
Passenger Comfort and Safety:
As much as I like to earn money, and do back to back trips, I hate it that I get bells and whistles alerting me to forget about the customer in hand, and his/her safety, switch apps, click a button, switch apps again to get that back to back trip, to earn that $10/- (or more). I value and respect each customer who pay me. I would prefer if the back to back feature didn’t have to happen while another customer is in the hands of the driver.
Driver Safety + Reinventing the wheel:
Please work with Waze or an already proven maps app by Uber drivers and come up with a final solution that involve less of driver phone interaction. Isn’t it bad to drive and text? So how can it be good to click so many buttons? Please don’t reinvent the wheel, let’s take it to next level. And trust me, voice commands aren’t the next level. I hate it with a passion. If the programmer who gets this ticket can’t understand this bug, get him to drive Uber for a week.
This could be my ignorance:
I would like to have one contact (phone number) dedicated to Uber, to “allow” calls and texts from Uber or passengers, and send all other alerts quiet/voicemail. My phone has a feature to do this, but I need a list of numbers Uber use. Can you please provide this to me?
Feature Request
Take a break while customer is with driver, who ever chose that pays (E. G. I’m on back to back trips, my windscreen gets a bit muddy, I’m an excellent driver, but I don’t want my customer to feel unsafe, so I want to wash my windscreen by getting permission from my customer, and assuring they will not be billed while I “pause” the trip.) For security reasons, we can get both rider and driver to confirm. If one requests, the other authorize. This bug/feature request is pretty clear if your Uber technical Engineer doesn’t understand this, fire him please.
Feature Request
Sometimes I drive quite a bit to pick a passenger up, only to get a small amount. I understand not billing the customer. But if I have a full log book made available that indicates actual kilometers travelled to earn that money rather than only the kilometers where the passenger was in the car, I can claim expenses during tax time. (E. G. The full distance I travelled from the time I accepted a trip, till the time I dropped off the passenger. Currently we have the distance travelled from the time I picked up the passenger, until dropped off. But here I am driving a lot more, while thinking about the passenger comfort and making my way to pick that passenger, no one pays for. At least let me pay less tax.)
Question
Is it legal to accept a cash tip? Can we make a feature in Uber rider app, at the time of giving feedback, to ask a customer if he/she wants to tip the driver and how much, so that it is a possibility? I prefer cash tip due to obvious tax reasons. But most of customers don’t have cash, and no one is sure about tips these days. So if it’s illegal, sorry (but not really), I accepted 2* AUD 5/- cash tips so far. Let the one who wants to give, give to the one who deserve to be given.
I LOVE UBER.
Meanwhile, the compliments I received from passengers:
A Moment with Nim! 