Is There Such a Thing as an Uber Mentor?
There have been some whispers and rumors for the past month about Uber implementing a similar system as Lyft in terms of having drivers evaluate new driver applicants. For Lyft, they invite highly rated drivers to become Mentors in order to evaluate and teach new drivers during the application process. You can read more about that here in my previous posts about Lyft Mentors:
- Introduction to the Mentoring Program, Mentor Ride and Evaluation
- Mentor Summary and Rating
- Should you be a Lyft Mentor?
A few drivers on Facebook noted that they got an email inviting them to be essentially an Uber mentor. Here is the text of the email:
New Uber Product Interest Form
Fresh from the Uber experiments garage, we invite you to help us test our latest new product!
As one of our very top partners, you’ve been specially selected to help pilot a new program involving the onboarding of new partners. As a participant in this program, your driver profile is tagged for a special feature, but everything else works like normal.
The special feature: you will be able to receive trip requests from new driver applicants and provide an on-demand orientation and vehicle inspection session. You will, of course, be compensated for these sessions.
The steps of this orientation are:
- Say hello!
- Inspect their vehicle
- Take pictures of their documents
- Answer any questions and wish them good luck
This entire process happens right on your same Uber Partner app and will take about 15 minutes! You’ll get paid $20 per trip (no fee to uber) and you can do as many as you want!
Your role in this process is simply to provide an objective review of the applicant’s vehicle, introduce the applicant to some basic Uber information, and complete the steps within the app – you won’t need to keep a connection with the applicant for the future. This exclusive opportunity allows you to make more money and help influence the future of Uber.
There are some subtle differences between the Lyft Mentor session and the Uber Mentor session. Here are the differences:
- Only takes 20 minutes (as claimed by Uber)
- Doesn’t involve a test drive and test Lyft ride
Many of my mentor sessions take at least 45 minutes from start to finish, but usually it is close to an hour once you go through the Lyft with the new driver. I think the differences with the Uber Mentor session can cut it down towards their claimed 15 minute duration. Many of my mentees have questions and those usually take at least 15 minutes to answer.
At this time, it is unclear if the Uber mentoring program will lead to a higher quality of drivers. For Lyft’s own Mentoring program, it started off great but as they expanded rapidly over the past 6 months, it has been harder to maintain quality with so many new mentors every month. There is definitely a good core of mentors in each city but many drivers may get the occasional mentor that may not be as good as they only do one mentor session every other month.
I spoke to a driver who was invited to attend a meeting at the Uber office in his local city to talk about the new mentoring program. It seems hundreds of drivers in select markets across the US got the same email but unsure if a meeting was held in all cities.
I checked with my local Uber office in Boston and there is no such program here yet. This program is still highly experimental so there is no information on if they’ll stick with it and if they will be expanding into all cities.
Have more questions about Uber or Lyft? Head on over to our Rideshare Driver Training Course! Driver Promotions- New Uber Drivers will get up to a $800 bonus after signing up: Sign up for Uber.
- New Lyft Drivers will get up to $800 if you sign up here using this link.
