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We don't have Uber here in my country. But I find it interesting that almost everything I read about Uber's customer experience is positive. People seem to lik

by eknkc 11y ago

We don't have Uber here in my country. But I find it interesting that almost everything I read about Uber's customer experience is positive. People seem to like Uber rides. Meanwhile, every other news about the company itself implies that it's a tasteless company with shitty tactics. I wonder if it's the ultimate capitalist success path. Just a complete outsiders observation. I don't personally have a single experience with them.

SyneRyder 11y ago
I think some of the genius of Uber was identifying an industry where the quality was so incredibly low, and yet customers tolerated it anyway. I used to catch taxis every week, and one taxi driver spent the trip explaining to me why he believed Hitler had the right idea. Another taxi driver lectured me on the religious immorality of nightclubs & drinking alcohol before letting me out of his car. Another driver spent the trip talking to his girlfriend on the phone, forbidding her to take a job she had been offered because he believed a woman's place was in the home. Uber is soooo much better, but the quality bar is so low that it isn't difficult to be better. It's just that no-one had dared to compete before (because government regulations prohibited anyone from doing so).
- thearn4 11y ago
  Agreed. I had to take a cab from O'Hare to Skokie a few months back (because I can't expense an Uber w/the gov't travel system). Smelled like fresh urine, and the guy had no idea where he was going. I had to direct him with my phone. And he still expected a tip.
  - ewzimm 11y ago
    With the most recent taxi I took, the driver didn't know how to program his GPS, so he handed it to me to program and then ignored it, so I had to also program my phone, which he also ignored, so I had to call out every turn several times, which he also ignored, backtracking, extending the route, and asking where we were, to one of the main streets in the city. Next I tried Uber twice, and the drivers showed up immediately, were friendly, and offered a tour of interesting spots in the city as we went and made suggestions about favorite places to visit around town. Also, the same trip was 1/10th the price. If that's even sometimes typical, I don't see how Uber can lose. I do hope the company can act responsibly and keep up that kind of service.
- jzwinck 11y ago
  I have found a fairly frequent distinction between taxi drivers and Uber drivers as well. Taxi drivers must be at least 30 years old, which may skew it slightly, though young Uber drivers are not the norm either. Uber drivers tend to shoot the shit more, talk informally about business, about their day jobs, maybe about politics or what restaurants are nearby. Taxi drivers tend to talk about the past, about passengers they've had, or about how bad other drivers are. Maybe this is because a lot of Uber drivers are only part-time, so their life experience has more facets. Maybe it's because of the age bias. Or perhaps it's because feedback about taxi drivers is rarely registered. In any case, the expected value of conversation is higher with Uber than a taxi. I suspect it's likely to level out over time; I hope taxis drivers will up their game rather than Uber ones lowering theirs.
- _yosefk 11y ago
  It took me a while to decide to drive my own car, and one of the incidents prompting me to do it was when a taxi driver, having arrived at the destination (in this instance, the building where I worked), had walked out to urinate, right there on the sidewalk, in plain sight. It's kinda sad how without personal accountability, that's the service that you get, and on the other hand, how Orwellian many of the ways to make workers accountable are.
- bunnymancer 11y ago
  There's something to be said about an industry where the bar for "good" is the service employee just not talking to you at all for an extended period of time.
  - wavefunction 11y ago
    I like to talk to my taxi drivers. They've mostly been immigrants and I ask them about their home country, their family, what they think about America. It's been great every time.
    - harlanlewis 11y ago
      In addition to the nice things you said, I've found out about lots of incredible ethnic food I never would have heard about otherwise. A ride with a Tajik driver led to an incredible Afghan restaurant (which is apparently as close as the Bay Area gets to Tajikistan's cousine). Drivers in general are in one of those very interesting roles that interacts with a broad swatch of the population. Even aside from their own background, they are one of the stirring sticks that mixes a place's cultures together.
twoodfin 11y ago
While I am sure Uber has played fast and loose, much of this kind of coverage has felt like a well-executed PR strategy by Lyft.
stegosaurus 11y ago
I think you're just describing how our economy works. People love cheap clothing stores, cheap items off Amazon, quick delivery, etc. That's the impact on them. How it happens is immaterial. You can do it via magic 3d-printing device, 8-year old slaves, minimum wage workers, hamsters running on a wheel with a dog as foreman, none of that matters to the customer. What matters is firstly the actual experience, and secondly your presentation - because most customers won't research it, and if you get to Uber size, whether you're lying is immaterial unless the authorities become interested in you. I don't think this is limited to capitalism. It's just realpolitik. Consider that many of my comments on Hacker News have some up votes. That can be considered rewarding my comments. The utility to others has been in reading them. Funny, informative, whatever. Maybe I've employed an army of unpaid interns to produce my comments whilst whipping them twice weekly. It doesn't matter (to my up vote count), because no-one cared enough to research it, and even if they did, most people viewing the comments wouldn't know, and even if they did, of that group even fewer would care enough to prioritise an alternative. The ultimate hope here is that the benefit to the customers outweighs the negative to the workers. Which in the case of Uber, is probably true, at least in the short term. Whether it's beneficial longer term for larger portions of the economy to tend towards lower incomes for more work remains to be seen. But can we even do anything about it anyway? Not sure. such world.
gambiting 11y ago
If you want some bad experiences, then I can offer you some. I live in UK, Newcastle to be specific. I've had several Uber rides and not going to use them again. All the drivers I had spoke barely any English, they had no idea where they were going(road to the airport was closed, the driver had no idea how to get there without looking it up on google maps), and the worst thing is that you can't pre-book a ride. I'm just going to stick with local taxi companies, thank you.
Spooky23 11y ago
It's an empire builders success path. People and companies rarely betray their true nature. The customer focus will be there for as long as it needs to be, no longer.

by eknkc 11y ago

SyneRyder 11y ago

I think some of the genius of Uber was identifying an industry where the quality was so incredibly low, and yet customers tolerated it anyway. I used to catch taxis every week, and one taxi driver spent the trip explaining to me why he believed Hitler had the right idea. Another taxi driver lectured me on the religious immorality of nightclubs & drinking alcohol before letting me out of his car. Another driver spent the trip talking to his girlfriend on the phone, forbidding her to take a job she had been offered because he believed a woman's place was in the home. Uber is soooo much better, but the quality bar is so low that it isn't difficult to be better. It's just that no-one had dared to compete before (because government regulations prohibited anyone from doing so).

thearn4 11y ago
Agreed. I had to take a cab from O'Hare to Skokie a few months back (because I can't expense an Uber w/the gov't travel system). Smelled like fresh urine, and the guy had no idea where he was going. I had to direct him with my phone. And he still expected a tip.
- ewzimm 11y ago
  With the most recent taxi I took, the driver didn't know how to program his GPS, so he handed it to me to program and then ignored it, so I had to also program my phone, which he also ignored, so I had to call out every turn several times, which he also ignored, backtracking, extending the route, and asking where we were, to one of the main streets in the city. Next I tried Uber twice, and the drivers showed up immediately, were friendly, and offered a tour of interesting spots in the city as we went and made suggestions about favorite places to visit around town. Also, the same trip was 1/10th the price. If that's even sometimes typical, I don't see how Uber can lose. I do hope the company can act responsibly and keep up that kind of service.
jzwinck 11y ago
I have found a fairly frequent distinction between taxi drivers and Uber drivers as well. Taxi drivers must be at least 30 years old, which may skew it slightly, though young Uber drivers are not the norm either. Uber drivers tend to shoot the shit more, talk informally about business, about their day jobs, maybe about politics or what restaurants are nearby. Taxi drivers tend to talk about the past, about passengers they've had, or about how bad other drivers are. Maybe this is because a lot of Uber drivers are only part-time, so their life experience has more facets. Maybe it's because of the age bias. Or perhaps it's because feedback about taxi drivers is rarely registered. In any case, the expected value of conversation is higher with Uber than a taxi. I suspect it's likely to level out over time; I hope taxis drivers will up their game rather than Uber ones lowering theirs.
_yosefk 11y ago
It took me a while to decide to drive my own car, and one of the incidents prompting me to do it was when a taxi driver, having arrived at the destination (in this instance, the building where I worked), had walked out to urinate, right there on the sidewalk, in plain sight. It's kinda sad how without personal accountability, that's the service that you get, and on the other hand, how Orwellian many of the ways to make workers accountable are.
bunnymancer 11y ago
There's something to be said about an industry where the bar for "good" is the service employee just not talking to you at all for an extended period of time.
- wavefunction 11y ago
  I like to talk to my taxi drivers. They've mostly been immigrants and I ask them about their home country, their family, what they think about America. It's been great every time.
  - harlanlewis 11y ago
    In addition to the nice things you said, I've found out about lots of incredible ethnic food I never would have heard about otherwise. A ride with a Tajik driver led to an incredible Afghan restaurant (which is apparently as close as the Bay Area gets to Tajikistan's cousine). Drivers in general are in one of those very interesting roles that interacts with a broad swatch of the population. Even aside from their own background, they are one of the stirring sticks that mixes a place's cultures together.

twoodfin 11y ago

While I am sure Uber has played fast and loose, much of this kind of coverage has felt like a well-executed PR strategy by Lyft.

stegosaurus 11y ago

I think you're just describing how our economy works. People love cheap clothing stores, cheap items off Amazon, quick delivery, etc. That's the impact on them. How it happens is immaterial. You can do it via magic 3d-printing device, 8-year old slaves, minimum wage workers, hamsters running on a wheel with a dog as foreman, none of that matters to the customer. What matters is firstly the actual experience, and secondly your presentation - because most customers won't research it, and if you get to Uber size, whether you're lying is immaterial unless the authorities become interested in you. I don't think this is limited to capitalism. It's just realpolitik. Consider that many of my comments on Hacker News have some up votes. That can be considered rewarding my comments. The utility to others has been in reading them. Funny, informative, whatever. Maybe I've employed an army of unpaid interns to produce my comments whilst whipping them twice weekly. It doesn't matter (to my up vote count), because no-one cared enough to research it, and even if they did, most people viewing the comments wouldn't know, and even if they did, of that group even fewer would care enough to prioritise an alternative. The ultimate hope here is that the benefit to the customers outweighs the negative to the workers. Which in the case of Uber, is probably true, at least in the short term. Whether it's beneficial longer term for larger portions of the economy to tend towards lower incomes for more work remains to be seen. But can we even do anything about it anyway? Not sure. such world.

gambiting 11y ago

If you want some bad experiences, then I can offer you some. I live in UK, Newcastle to be specific. I've had several Uber rides and not going to use them again. All the drivers I had spoke barely any English, they had no idea where they were going(road to the airport was closed, the driver had no idea how to get there without looking it up on google maps), and the worst thing is that you can't pre-book a ride. I'm just going to stick with local taxi companies, thank you.

Spooky23 11y ago

It's an empire builders success path. People and companies rarely betray their true nature. The customer focus will be there for as long as it needs to be, no longer.