Image: Uber
Faced with growing pressure from its drivers and from some regulators to add a tipping function to its app, Uber this week caved in and said it will.
A year ago, Uber agreed to let its drivers solicit cash tips from riders. More recently, regulators ranging from the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission to the California legislature started to take steps that could make a tipping app mandatory.
Image: Uber
Uber said this week that it just updated its app for riders in Seattle, Minneapolis and Houston so they can add a tip to their fare. “We’ll be adding more cities over the next few weeks and making tips available to all U.S. drivers and delivery partners by the end of July 2017,” the company said on its website.
When the customer’s ride is finished, he will see the usual option to rate the trip/driver, and a new prompt to click through to add a tip. The app will suggest preset tips of $1, $2 or $5, or will allow the user to enter a specific tip amount of his preference.
And there’s no rush – Uber will give riders up to 30 days after a trip to add a tip.
In April, we reported on the growing pressures on Uber to add a tip function to its app. We also polled our readers on whether they would be inclined to tip their Uber driver if they had an option to do so on the app. Readers were evenly divided, with half saying they would and half saying they wouldn’t.
Drivers with whom I’ve discussed Uber’s resistance to allowing tipping frequently pointed to CEO Travis Kalanick for the hard line against it. With Kalanick on indefinite leave, it now sounds like cooler, fairer heads are making decisions.
How do you feel about tipping your ride-sharing drivers? Please leave your comments below.
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Uber drivers do their ratings right as the ride ends. Once they start the next ride, they are not able to go back and leave a rating for the previous passenger. At the time they do the rating, they won’t know yet whether you’re going to tip or not. Even if they could somehow determine that you won’t tip, half of Uber riders have stated that they don’t plan to tip, so you’ll be in very good company with your rating, and won’t have any problems. Uber makes it very clear that tipping is strictly optional, and the price quoted is the price you pay. You’re just being paranoid.
Nope, don’t like it. One of ridesharing’s big appeals to me is that it’s flat rate. Tipping’s a hassle. Charge me a fair price up front and I’ll pay it. If I don’t tip, or don’t tip well enough, a driver’s going to rate me lower. I don’t want that, so in essence Uber prices have just gone up 15%.