While Uber is hearing pleas from its employees to correct its internal work culture, the ride-hailing giant is not turning a blind eye to the needs of its consumers and drivers. In lieu of the same, the company has today debuted a couple of handy new features that’ll aid everyone using the platform — be it you or the driver coming to pick you up. And these will lead to improvements in user experience, with a reduction in frustration levels.
The first feature, we’ll agree, is one of the most-requested and has actually been awaited for the longest time. You must be aware that Uber doesn’t allow you to change your pickup location once you’ve requested the ride. This was quite annoying as you weren’t able to modify the same and had to either call the driver to intimate him of the change or book another ride after canceling the current one. It has been described in a similar manner on the official blog post:
It often begins with a phone call and ends with a canceled ride. A small miscue leads to a frustrating situation where riders aren’t riding, and drivers aren’t earning.
But, Uber is finally altering this feature within their app to make it easy for the driver as well as the consumer to connect without any hiccups. The company will now enable users to change their pickup address by hitting the “EDIT” button next to the pickup location. Only slight adjustment, between a radius provided by Uber, is only possible using this feature.
But, it would surely be enough to point the driver to the correct, new pickup point. The driver is then updated with this new location and they can re-route accordingly. The company has already tested the feature in a handful of regions and touts that it leads to fewer cancellations and headaches for both drivers and commuters alike. Currently, this feature is only being extended to iOS users in the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada. This follows pursuit to changes to the complete app and navigation system for drivers.
Talking about this feature update, the official blog post says,
The pickup is a core part of the Uber experience and we’re always looking for ways to make it as painless as possible for both riders and drivers. This simple fix gives riders more control over their pickup experience and saves everyone time and avoidable headaches.
As mentioned above, this new feature will reduce headaches and lead to fewer angered commuters on its platform. But, Uber had to deal with such customers who complained against the drivers because they weren’t able to fulfill their duty and complete the ride due to one or other reason. This adversely affected the driver’s ratings, as well as compensation, thus Uber has decided to introduce some changes to their customer support policies in the US and Canada. It will give drivers more wiggle room and say in such concerns. The company is debuting the following changes:
[mks_accordion] [mks_accordion_item title=”Rider Complaints”] Uber is shedding its one-size-fits-all approach and is now looking to judge rider complaints about poor driving on the basis of driver’s ride history. This means a driver with three complaints and 100 completed rides will be treated differently as compared to one with 10,000 rides.[/mks_accordion_item] [mks_accordion_item title=”Wrong Driver Reports”] Uber will be more strictly employing its existing Realtime ID technology to validate the driver who is currently riding the cab on their platform. This technology will be taken into account when looking into customer feedback for different (or wrong) driver pickups.
[/mks_accordion_item] [mks_accordion_item title=”Wrong Rider Pickups”] The other facet of the problem is also linked to the riders. Earlier, Uber took the rider word and refunded them if they reported that a driver had completed a ride with someone else or without them. It now plans to bring into the mix – technology and driver inputs – to determine the situation.
[/mks_accordion_item] [mks_accordion_item title=”Fare Adjustments”] Uber will pay the drivers fairly. No, they’re not updating their pricing scheme, which has already led to a dispute between CEO Travis Kalanick and an Uber Black driver. But, it is looking to compensate drivers who accidentally cancel the trip, but still continue on the road and drop the rider to their destination. The drivers are previously paid only up to the point of cancellation but they’ll now be paid in full if they dispute the same.
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We were intimated about these upcoming changes in the driver-rider experience at a recent press conference. This involved three of the company’s top females, who’d gathered to shine a light on the allegations of a toxic work environment and what Uber is doing to fix the same. Kalanick was missing from this meeting, as he was busy conducting interviews to bring onboard a new COO. The $68 billion ride-hailing giant also recently published its diversity report, which isn’t much different from other Silicon Valley tech giants.
