“I love this job,” said one rideshare driver. “Where else can I meet 20 or 30 new people every night? People that I’ve never met before. I hear the most amazing stories and meet the most amazing people every time I drive.”

Rideshare, restaurant food and grocery delivery are people jobs, and many drivers enjoy that interface. They love providing good Lyft and Uber customer service. On the other hand, passengers and customers can also be a driver’s biggest headache. They can be abusive, argumentative, rude, unreasonable in their demands, and leave scathing complaints on the app that affect a driver’s rating. 

Providing excellent customer service is essential advice for new Lyft drivers and Uber drivers, as well as food and grocery delivery drivers. Even if you are a veteran gig driver, you will find these tips helpful. Topics we discuss include

• why gig drivers should be concerned about customer service
• creating the atmosphere for a positive encounter
• the five tips for great customer service 
• additional things you can do
• making Gridwise part of your customer service formula

Why gig drivers should be concerned about customer service

Two words immediately come to mind: tips and ratings. For rideshare drivers, the latest numbers from Gridwise reveal that tips through the app average about 10% to 11% of earnings, and that does not count the cash gratuities passengers give during a shift. If your average is inching higher, you can likely attribute it to good customer service.

Good customer service also improves your ratings and cannot go overlooked in Lyft and Uber advice for drivers. High customer ratings are often a prerequisite for participating in rewards programs for both companies, and the same is true for restaurant food and grocery delivery. For more information about the value of ratings, see the recent Gridwise post How to Improve Your Rideshare Driver Ratings. 

There is also a more important principle beyond your ratings and tips as a gig driver. Customer experience is the new battlefront, as they say in marketing. As the front line of rideshare and food and grocery delivery, you are the face of the industry. How you treat people and the memories you create remain long after the ride or delivery ends. It’s on the customer’s mind when they consider ordering their next rideshare or meal delivery. 

So if customer service for gig drivers is vital, how can you achieve it every time you get behind the wheel?

Creating the atmosphere for a positive encounter

When you start gig driving, the respective companies are concerned that you understand how the app works and know their policies. Aside from a lot of generalities, Lyft and Uber tips for new drivers don’t include much customer service information. They do have driver ratings, though, so it is obvious that they expect you to deliver excellent service. 

Before you get a passenger into your car, pick up a delivery or drop it off, there are things you can do to set the tone for your interface with the passenger or delivery customer. This is as true for rideshare as it is for restaurant food or grocery delivery. 

A clean car

Especially in major metropolitan areas, your car says something about you. A cluttered, dirty car with empty plastic water bottles rolling around makes a statement—and it’s not a good one. A shiny car with a freshly vacuumed interior makes a different statement: that you value the impression you make. 

If food delivery is your gig, restaurant workers see you pull up to those special parking spaces with a clean car, and they know you take yourself seriously, and that you take them seriously. Translation: they’ll be more inclined to give you quick service with the correct meals (no missing side dishes) and all the condiments the customer expects; grocery store employees will go out of their way to help you find those elusive products; and delivery customers will be pleased to see a clean car pull up to their house. 

Dressing for respect

How often have you been at the airport and seen another rideshare driver in gym shorts, a sleeveless sweatshirt, and sandals? It makes you wince. Slacks and a button-down shirt command respect. The restaurant may have messed up the order, and you’re running 45 minutes late, but a customer is less likely to dump all the blame on you if you are well-dressed, as opposed to wearing cut-offs and a faded T-shirt from a concert you attended ten years ago. 

Good music

This next one is a rideshare-only tip: passengers appreciate good music. Construct a unique playlist using Amazon Music or Spotify. Even young passengers enjoy jazz, big band, and doo-wop. Setting the mood in your car with music often puts passengers into a great frame of mind. They are more likely to tip well and rate high. 

The five tips for great customer service

The reality, however, is that dressing well and having a clean car takes you only so far. At some point, you need a plan. Here are some tips.

1. Have a communication strategy

Names. As a rideshare driver, you have the advantage. Thanks to the apps, you know the passenger’s name. Use it freely, whenever appropriate. Most people love to hear the sound of their name. 

Positivity. Maybe you spent the previous week’s earnings on new brakes for your car, but sharing that with a passenger, restaurant worker, or customer only invites them to remember their own sob stories. Soon everyone is in a bad mood. Use the weather, the smell of a freshly mowed lawn, or even last night’s home team victory to keep the mood upbeat during a ride or while dropping off food. 

Exude calmness. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, the first humans to step on the moon, named their landing spot Tranquility Base. The name came from their landing point in the Sea of Tranquility, where they landed. But it also sent a message to the world that was watching them. Despite the danger of what they were doing, everything would be okay. You can send the same message to your passengers and customers. They might be late, on their way to divorce court, or looking through a food order that is entirely wrong, but your calm demeanor can set the stage for whatever comes next. 

2. Learn how to read people

The signs. There are passengers who outright tell you they don’t want to talk, but others don’t. If someone is speaking on their phone, wearing earbuds, or giving curt, one-word answers to your questions, they’re likely making the same statement—they prefer not to talk or are busy. Respect their silence. 

Enforce the rules. Make sure that passengers have their seat belts buckled. If they grumble about it or say, “But we’re only going a few blocks,” this might be a sign that they will be a problem. The same goes for asking if they can smoke in the car. Enforcing the rules of the car early on sends a message to passengers who are thinking about being a problem. 

3. Late-night driving and recognizing a problem 

Dealing with intoxicated passengers. Late-night driving means dealing with the bar crowd and passengers who have been drinking. If they have friends with them, those friends probably know how to handle them better than you do. Let the friends step in first.  

Canceling on passengers who look like a problem. It’s happened to lots of drivers. You pull up to a popular nightclub and see your would-be passenger vomiting in the gutter, arguing, or looking as though they were in a fight. Lyft and Uber’s terms of service allow you to cancel any ride you feel uncomfortable with. Take advantage of that option, and send a follow-up text through the app. 

Learn more about dealing with troublesome passengers in a Gridwise blog post titled How to Deal With Drunk Uber or Lyft Passengers. You can also check out another Gridwise blog post on problem passengers, How to Protect Yourself as a Rideshare Driver. 

4. Learn how to create positive interactions

Play games. A Lyft driver in Los Angeles, prior to the pandemic, found the dynamics created by a shared ride frustrating. “I could be having a great conversation with the first passenger,” he said, “and as soon as the second passenger got in, all talk stopped. It was like no one wanted to be judged.” His solution was an icebreaker he learned in a previous job, called Two Truths and a Lie. Each person in the car would tell three things about themselves: two true and one a lie. Everyone else in the car got a chance to identify the lie. “My most interesting person was a young lady who spoke six languages,” the driver recalled. “She was legit, too. Another passenger in the car spoke three languages. That was a memorable ride for everyone, and I got tips all the way around. That’s rare in a shared ride.”

Be a good listener. One of the interesting things about being a Lyft driver is the anonymity. Passengers don’t expect to see their rideshare driver again, so they’ll often reveal their most intimate secrets. “I’ve been married long enough,” said one driver, “that I know when my wife tells me her problems, about either friends or work, she doesn’t want me to solve them. She just wants me to listen. I do the same with my passengers.”

5. Create memorable experiences

Sometimes it’s a matter of thinking fast on your feet. 

Develop problem-solving skills. This ability is handy for restaurant food delivery drivers and, to a lesser extent, grocery delivery drivers. What do you do when the restaurant makes a mistake on the order, or the deli worker at the grocery store gives you turkey pastrami instead of beef pastrami? Remember Tranquility Base. If you are an oasis of calm in a sea of chaos, you can discover solutions no one has considered. Maybe the restaurant needs to correct their error and send an employee out with the replacement order. Both restaurants and supermarkets understand the value of customer service. They too want to please the customer. 

People always remember the last thing you do for them. As a gig driver, even if everything went wrong with a passenger or a delivery—you had a flat tire right after you picked them up, the food was cold—if the last thing the passenger saw was you trying to cobble together a solution, it makes a positive impression. 

Additional suggestions

Here are some more tips for Uber drivers and Lyft drivers about how you can create a lasting memory of a memorable rideshare or food delivery. 

• For rideshare drivers, charging cords are always good for passengers whose cell phone battery has run down. Always keep a few extra, too. These items have a habit of growing legs and walking away. 
• Candies and mints are also popular with rideshare passengers. When you pick up a business traveler at the airport, they will thank you for mints to cut the breath they have from those airline peanuts. You get extra points, by the way, for toothpicks. You won’t get many requests for them, but a passenger with a piece of food stuck between their teeth will remember you. 
• Don’t forget water and hand sanitizers. 
• Drivers who service major airports can make a positive impression by helping with luggage.
• As a rideshare driver, you also discover the secrets of your local airports, positioning you to give passengers general directions on where to go. 
• Helping to load groceries when you pick up a passenger at the supermarket, and then helping to unload them when you get to their home, is another service that doesn’t go unnoticed, and it also gets you back on the road and to your next ride quicker.  
• The best grocery delivery drivers understand that their market is primarily women. They express their thanks to these online users by including thank-you notes along with their deliveries. Some staple a packet of seeds to the note or slip in a small box of crayons when they see that kids are in the home. 
• Whatever gig you are involved in, remember that clothes make the person and get you noticed. Robert Woldhuis earned more than $100,000 as a Shipt grocery shopper in the Detroit area, and part of his schtick was wearing wacky costumes. Wearing red on Valentine’s Day, a touch o’ green for St. Patrick’s Day, or festive colors for Christmas or other holidays makes an impression. 

Make Gridwise part of your customer service formula

Gridwise helps you to provide great customer service to passengers and food and grocery delivery customers. The app removes so much of the busy work of gig driving off your shoulders so that you can focus on priving a great service.

The Gridwise mileage tracker allows you to keep exacting records of the miles you have traveled, a great thing to have when it’s time to determine your maximum tax deductions. 

The Gridwise app also allows you to monitor all your gig driving activities and quickly determine which are most profitable. You can also see vital data such as

• event information, including starting and let-out times
• an up-to-date schedule of flight departures and arrivals
• an expense tracker that, like the mileage tracker, helps you keep accurate records 
• deals and discounts on everything from gas to car maintenance, healthcare, and insurance—and many other benefits that are difficult to come by as a self-employed gig driver 

Visit the Gridwise website today and see everything available to you. 

And have fun out there.