Uber’s rating system is getting a couple of updates to make rider ratings easier to find, and to make Uber POOL ratings fairer. Riders can now find their own rating, according to drivers, right under their name. As for ratings for Uber POOL, changes are being made to help keep drivers’ ratings from being impacted by factors that may be beyond their control, like passengers making the ride less than stellar for other passengers, or bad matches being made via Uber’s algorithm. Both of these changes will be rolling out globally on the service, starting on Wednesday.
When you press the hamburger menu icon in the Uber app, the menu that pops up has your name and face at the top. Right near that, you’ll now see your own rating, out of five stars, aggregated from drivers who have picked you up. You can tap on that star rating to get more details on what goes into the rating. The changes to the rating system for POOL are a bit more extensive. For starters, there’s now a menu that pops up when leaving a POOL review, which allows you to specify why you’re rating your trip less than five stars, if you wish. Depending on what the reason is for a bad rating, the rider may see a message along the bottom saying that this rating will not affect your driver. Giving a bad rating for a reason related to other passengers will not reflect on those passengers’ ratings, either, but the information will go to Uber, and they can use it to help create a better experience.
This change comes as Uber competes with nothing short of a crisis on almost all fronts. The company’s relevance is being threatened by its lagging position in the self-driving car development race. Competing in that same race, however, has earned Uber the ire of Alphabet, thanks to allegations that they stole some of the California giant’s own self-driving technology. On top of all of that, Uber is competing with lackluster finances, struggling with former and current drivers over pay and official employee status, and new laws in key territories that propose fundamental changes to its business model, such as a proposed law that would force the company to allow its drivers to take tips.
