That's a good point. I honestly haven't thought enough about the virtues of rating vs tipping. One potential issue that comes to mind is that people might be more frivolous with a rating than with real money.
I guess you could do an experiment at a restaurant. Give half the tables standard receipts with tip lines, and the other half a receipt that lets you choose a rating.
> One potential issue that comes to mind is that people might be more frivolous with a rating than with real money.
When you rate someone lower than 5 stars, Uber prompts for an explanation. And if you provide one, it often generates a direct followup from Uber support trying to address the problem; if there was anything seriously wrong, addressing the problem often includes either a full refund or some small credit for future rides, and some indication that there'd be an attempt to solve the problem. I think that's a pretty reasonable way to keep ratings meaningful, and actually address any problems that produced a low rating.
So, I actually feel like there's more connection between a rating and actual action, whereas choosing whether to submit a tip or not seems very likely to correlate with factors other than the quality of service.
wildmusings|9 years ago
I guess you could do an experiment at a restaurant. Give half the tables standard receipts with tip lines, and the other half a receipt that lets you choose a rating.
JoshTriplett|9 years ago
When you rate someone lower than 5 stars, Uber prompts for an explanation. And if you provide one, it often generates a direct followup from Uber support trying to address the problem; if there was anything seriously wrong, addressing the problem often includes either a full refund or some small credit for future rides, and some indication that there'd be an attempt to solve the problem. I think that's a pretty reasonable way to keep ratings meaningful, and actually address any problems that produced a low rating.
So, I actually feel like there's more connection between a rating and actual action, whereas choosing whether to submit a tip or not seems very likely to correlate with factors other than the quality of service.