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2023 New Zealand Driver-Partner Advisory Forum 1

29 May 2023 / New Zealand

Last 27 February, we held our first bi-annual Driver-Partner Advisory Forum in Auckland with 14 driver-partner Advisors from across New Zealand to discuss driver-partner Support and earner model preferences.

During the day-long session, Advisors provided context and real-life examples on:

the quality of service that Support staff deliver when driver-partners contact the Help Centre
difficulties in accessing Uber Support (phone, chat, and email)
Support seems to favour riders over driver-partners

Members of the Uber operations and leadership teams were present to listen to this feedback and are now working on recommendations for changes which will hopefully improve the Support experience for all driver-partners.

Report on the Have Your Say Survey

We want to thank the 130+ driver-partners who shared their views on driver-partner Support via the Have Your Say Survey which ran from 16-23 February. Your insights drove the discussion and helped us better understand the challenges you face and what we can work on to improve the support experience.

Feedback from the Have Your Say Survey revealed that:

Driver-partners feel that accessing support in-app is a major pain point and would like to have easier and additional ways to contact the support team.

“I would like to discuss that there must be a phone call availability so that if we have any issues we can straight discuss with Uber”*
Driver-partners feel that support quality needs to be improved. They mentioned that the support team doesn’t possess enough local knowledge to help with a lot of issues and that it takes a while for a resolution to be made.

“Better support. I often ask a question and the response has nothing at all to do with the question I asked.”

“The fact that every time you call you almost need to start again and you get a different person each time.”
Driver-partners feel like the Uber Support team always takes the riders’ side in disputes (unfair ratings, complaints, and more).

“Customer support appears to be rider/passenger centric. […] We, in NZ, are regularly mistaken as being Australian.”

“Make sure to hear the side of the driver-partners and not only the customer […] Opportunity to discuss is the first thing to do for the driver-partners”

*Quotes have been edited for clarity and brevity.

Forum discussion on driver-partner Support

The Have Your Say Survey results helped shape the discussion on the topic of “driver-partner Support”.

To address these issues, Advisors suggested the following solutions:

Providing more training exercises for support agents would improve the Uber support team’s service quality. Familiarising themselves with the Uber app and using a problem-solving approach would be more helpful to driver-partners
Making the Uber Phone Support number visible in-app would make it easier to reach Support
Providing more education to new driver-partners to reduce the need for Support
Providing a “call back” service so that driver-partners can speak to someone about their issues at a time suitable to them
Providing mentoring opportunities to driver-partners

Forum discussion on earner model preferences

Advisors discussed their preferences on the current earning model. They raised the following points for discussion:

Flexibility is important to driver-partners
Any changes made to the current earning model should be optional. Driver-partners should be given an opportunity to have their say through surveys, roundtable discussions, and advisory forums.
Uber should be doing more to engage driver-partners in order to provide adequate representation of their interests, especially in advocating for driver-partner flexibility.

Other points discussed:

The advisors also raised the following points during the discussion:

Requesting a review of the lost and found process to assess how driver-partners get paid for their efforts to return lost items
Recognition for driver-partners who have a 5-star rating and who have been driving with Uber for a long time
Work with local government more to enable driver-partners to utilise more spaces to pick up and drop off passengers
Provide incentives for people with Electric Vehicles, and
Create more partnerships with with vehicle service providers to enable driver-partner discounts

Positive Changes

We want to thank all the driver-partners that participated in the first Forum, from the Advisors who engaged with us in the Forum to driver-partners who provided their feedback during the Have Your Say survey.

We are developing further recommendations based on the discussion points to help improve the driver-partner experience. As an example, we were able to correct the error that showed driver-partners the Help Centre for Uber Eats delivery people. Driver-partners across New Zealand who were affected by this error are now able to access the correct one.

We plan to share updates on our progress through The Pit Stop, a quarterly newsletter that focuses on the actions we’ve taken to address feedback from you.

Be part of the next Advisory Forum in September 2023!

There are two ways to get involved and provide feedback on your experience with driving with the Uber app: talking to an advisor via Open Hours and answering the Have Your Say Survey. Instructions on both have been sent to your Uber Driver app inbox.

Results from these two feedback channels will help shape the next Forum discussion.

Learn more

Posted by Uber New Zealand

Category:

Driver feedback

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