Lyft Series: Mentor Ride
Here is the Lyft Series of Posts:
- Lyft Registration
- Lyft Mentor Ride
- Lyft Dashboard and Hours and Prime Time Tips
- Lyft Daily and Weekly Summaries and Payment
- Lyft Facebook Lounge and Groupme Chat
This step is the most important part of the application process. This is where your car and driving is evaluated. If you don’t meet the requirements, you may not be approved.
The next step in the registration process is to enable your driver mode in order to find a mentor in your area. You can schedule a mentor session any day of the week from 7-6pm (hours vary by season and by city, could be 9-5pm in the winter), which is fairly convenient. They ask that you clean your car and clear the trunk before the mentoring session.
Before you get started, make sure to have your driver’s license, registration and car insurance information. The car insurance should have your name and address, your car’s VIN number and also the expiration date. If you have this, the process will go much smoother.
Once you are in the Lyft app in driver mode and request a mentor, a mentor will request a Lyft from you once a mentor is found. Depending on mentor availability, this may take anywhere between right away and 30 minutes. Even though it can take up to 30 minutes, please wait for the Lyft app to find a mentor. If you don’t, many mentors may get your request and waste their time as you are not on the phone to accept the mentor request.
Tap to accept and drive to where he/she is and you can start the mentoring session. It will be very similar to when you get Lyft request as a driver. It will show you where he is and have two options, call and navigate. I believe on the bottom, it will have a “Start Lyft” Button, which in actuality is the mentor ride-along.
Once you are at the mentor session, he will take a picture of your car and insurance information to verify that it’s the same car as the application, and inspect your car. After this, use the app to start the Lyft. This lyft is the ride-along session where the mentor will evaluate your car and driving and he will give you a few tips as a driver. Now is also the time to ask questions as well. My mentor had some great tips and for me, it gave me questions to ask him. Once you are done with the Lyft, swipe to end the Lyft and that will conclude the mentoring session. I usually field more questions after the driving portion. The mentor uploads everything back to Lyft and it usually takes Lyft a few days to review all the materials.
Tips on how to ace your mentor ride:
- Watch the videos. The videos will walk you through the mentor ride.
- Have your drivers license, registration, insurance policy
- Make sure to wash your car and clean the inside of your car before the mentoring session.
- The outside of the car will be inspected so make sure there are no large dents/scratches/paint issues.
- Be on your phone and accept the mentoring request right away
- If he is too far, be positive and ask if you can try to request a closer mentor. This is possible by the mentor cancelling the mentoring session. The request will go back to the system
- As soon as you accept the Lyft request and drive towards your mentor, you are being evaluated. Your location is tracked so the mentor can see where you are going. If you keep getting lost getting to the destination, this will not be good for your evaluation. Also, if you speak to your mentor before getting there, you are also being evaluated here for your personality. Be friendly and outgoing.
- Use of a GPS is absolutely critical to this job so make sure you can use the GPS very well. It doesn’t matter what it is, as long as you can use it. You don’t have to use the one on your phone but sometimes its more convenient. Once you get your Lyft request, the address will be on the bottom so you can take a minute to put that into the GPS of your choice. If you are using your own GPS, make sure you get the city correct as sometimes there are the same address in different cities, putting you in the wrong place.
- Try to get to the mentoring session quickly. Everyone loves punctuality.
- Be enthusiastic, friendly and outgoing. This is a must for Lyft drivers. Remember, any interaction with your mentor is being evaluated.
- Once the mentor mentions the test drive or any kind of driving, go to your Lyft app and start the Lyft. Very few mentees remember this from the video.
- Once the ride ends, swipe to end and review your mentor as a passenger.
- Most of the evaluation is over at this point but feel free to ask questions. Don’t ask questions that were covered in the video, however.
Once you get an email about getting approved, you can go into driver mode and start driving right away. I had a mentee that was able to log into driver mode without getting an email. This can happen so check your Lyft app after a few days.
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