Uber and Lyft have used a rating system since launch to improve overall service and weed out the bad apples. It’s pretty simple — riders rate drivers once their trip is complete, while drivers also rate riders.
However, only drivers are able to see what they’ve been rated by passengers. As a rider, finding out what your rating for a particular ride or your overall rating itself was either impossible or requires a separate email to the company’s support line.
Now, though, Lyft is offering up more information to riders — but it seems for now that only the well-behaved have access to their ratings.
After taking a Lyft Line ride on Thursday, my colleague Blair Hanley Frank received both an email and a mobile notification from Lyft letting him know that his driver gave him a 5-star rating.
Other Lyft riders seem to be receiving similar messages, some dating back to February:
So apparently I have a perfect 5-star rating on @lyft. I'm THAT good at sitting quietly in the backseat of a car.
— Laura (@onbeingalaura) February 27, 2015
Is it bad I feel accomplished & proud because our @lyft driver gave us a 5-Star rating?
— Mark Owens (@marko6262) March 12, 2015
Woah – @lyft now tells riders their star rating?! #happyrider pic.twitter.com/WPPHEpU5IY
— Shanna (@ShannaSCook) April 11, 2015
Hey @lyft can you stop using notifications to advertise? (i.e. You got a 5 star rating, see if you can do it again!) Just ride info please.
— Jacob Brady (@polyfish42) May 8, 2015
There are also some Twitter users who shared what looks to be an automated tweet on May 1 in reference to their ratings from April:
In April I took 17 rides with @Lyft, bringing my lifetime total to 370. My passenger rating: 5 stars. #LyftStats
— Carolina Madrid (@CarolinaMadrid) May 1, 2015
https://twitter.com/taytaygurrrrl/status/594244033859358721
https://twitter.com/iblogalot/status/594319077457338368
It appears that Lyft is only notifying passengers who have 5-star ratings. We’ve reached out to the company for more details, and will update this story when we hear back. Update: A Lyft spokesperson confirmed that only some passengers who receive a 5-star rating will receive the notification. “It’s one of a number of ways we are looking to engage with passengers in markets across the country and applies only to five-star rides,” the company noted.
Uber, meanwhile, said last month that “we’re exploring ways to show the rider’s rating in the next generation of the app, but in the meantime, a user’s rating can be obtained by simply asking the driver or contacting support.”
On a related note, Lyft announced in March that it was adding optional profiles for drivers and passengers with information like hometown or music tastes to help “personalize” the ride experience.
Passengers are not able to see their rating, but we are letting some passengers in select markets know when their driver has rated them five stars. It’s one of a number of ways we are looking to engage with passengers in markets across the country and applies only to five-star rides.
Editor’s note: The headline was changed to reflect that only 5-star ratings are shared with some passengers.
