It May Take Months for Uber Passengers to Start Tipping
The biggest change to rideshare this year was Uber’s announcement of adding the tip option to both rides and deliveries on the Uber platform. Uber passengers can start tipping in Seattle, Minneapolis and Houston as of two days ago and it will be rolled out to drivers nationwide by July. You can read more about this announcement in the below post:
Uber added a tipping option, but it drivers and passengers won’t automatically start getting tips right away. Both passengers and drivers will need to update their applications and agree to tipping, as seen in the instructions below:
How Drivers Can Start Getting Tips
As soon as tipping becomes available in your city, you’ll be notified in the app and by email. Drivers in Seattle, Minneapolis and Houston are able to accept tips starting three days ago. To start accepting tips from riders, you will need to follow these steps:
- Update or download the latest version of the Uber Driver app
- Be sure to close and restart your app
- Tap Accept Tips.
How Passengers Can Start Giving Tips
Riders and UberEATS customers will be required to upgrade to the latest version of the app in order to start giving in-app tips. All riders and UberEATS customers are notified via email that they’ll need to upgrade the app in order to start giving tips.
Why It Will Take Months for Uber Passengers to Start Tipping
Not everyone updates their Uber app when a new update becomes available. The app is 200mb on Android. I’m not going to waste 200mb of my bandwidth downloading an update for a passenger application. I personally don’t update Uber or Lyft applications until I absolutely have to. Typically, you can skip a few updates as a driver before Uber or Lyft forces you to update your driver applications. I turn off auto-update on apps since it usually kicks in at the most inconvenient time.
Uber passengers can only tip with the new application, so it may take some passengers a few months to start tipping. By the time Uber expands the tip option in all US cities in July, most passengers should have the newest passenger application, so they will be asked to tip.
The application is not the issue with tipping on Uber
For the longest time, most Uber passengers believe that Uber drivers already got a tip, which is wrong. In the original UberTaxi, gratuity was added to the bill. Some people confused this language with all of Uber’s other services, so they believe there is a tip included. Most passengers believe they don’t need to tip, which was said and reinforced by Uber’s former CEO. Some Uber passengers specifically use Uber because they know they don’t have to tip, which reduces the stress of tipping.
All of these factors create an anti-tipping culture on Uber. An additional menu prompt won’t get all passengers to tip. Uber will need to create an atmosphere where tipping is encouraged but not required. This will be the only way Uber passengers will start tipping en masse. However, I wouldn’t expect many tips on Uber just because they implemented a tip option.
Tip Jar
There are some drivers who have tip jars in their cars. The addition of tipping in the Uber app may increase tips overall. Drivers with tip jars will continue to get tips and the tipping option on the Uber app will enable passengers without cash to tip their drivers. However, I believe that the tip jar will not be necessary long term as more customers get used to tipping through the app.
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