Remember the first time you were able to rate your Uber driver, you felt empowered. It was the coolest damn thing and for the first 30 or so trips, I would sit there and spend a couple of minutes debating what rating I should give the driver as if I was handing out a fucking Academy Award. Did the driver deserve a 5? No not really, he was speeding like Lewis Hamilton in Monaco but than his braking skills were on point. Okay, so I’ll give him a 4 star rating. Good luck next time buddy!
Now, I have a simple rule. If I get to my destination in one piece, the driver gets a 5 star rating. However, if I feel they didn’t do a good job they get a 1 start rating. I don’t have the time to split hairs between a 2, 3 or 4 star rating. In fact, it got me thinking that Uber needs to ditch the 5 star rating and just have a thumbs up or thumbs down. If you see an Uber driver with a 3.8 or 4.5 rating, do you really give a damn? I can’t really tell the difference nor do I want to spend that time analyzing his driving habits. I took an Uber so I can get some work done or take a nap before I get to my next destination. Thank you Uber, for making it my job to improve your platform!
I started to think about this entire consumer ratings system when I recently ordered a single cafe latte from Swiggy. Half the latte split and I went on Twitter to complain. After the incident, I was presented with 2 ratings, 1 for the Swiggy service and 1 for the restaurant. Again, for the delivery either you are happy or your are not. Why make the consumer rate that on a 5 star scale.
There are a host of rating systems but the grand daddy of them all is the Net Promotor Score (NPS) which is based on a scale of 0 to 10. Leave it to a consulting company like Bain & Company to come up with this beast of a system. About a year ago I got a call from a car manufacture to rate their service experience on a 10 point scale, that experience was so painful I would have rather gotten a root canal then listen to the person explain the difference between a 5 or 6 rating. I hear people always talking about their NPS score when in reality a simple thumbs up or thumbs down would be sufficient.
The 5 star rating is pretty standard across most apps, but again what really differentiates between a 3 and 4.
I recently went to a restaurant and they had a 3 star rating, which was better but then imagine getting a 2. What does that mean as a restaurant owner…people would rather eat newspapers then come to your restaurant?
In this age of liking things and attention deficit disorder (ADD), I personally think the thumbs up or thumbs down is the best system. It’s quick and easy. If you are a business owner, you can tout the number of thumbs up (or likes) you get and if you get a thumbs down you can put a process flow in place to investigate what went wrong – easy peasy.
Getting a score of 1 or 2 is just meaningless on a scale of 1 to 10, clearly the customer is not happy. Why ask them, to rate you on a scale of 1 to 10 for services:
1 = I’m so angry I want to kill you and everyone
or
2 = I’m so angry I want to kill you only
Seems illogical to me. I wish more and more companies would simplify their ratings process and make the consumers life that much easier.
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