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How Do Driver Ratings Work? A Comprehensive Guide

How Do Driver Ratings Work A Comprehensive Guide
How Do Driver Ratings Work A Comprehensive Guide
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Are your drivers delivering your parcels to customers with extra care and priority? Are they friendly and polite? You won’t know until you have a driver app and customers can give feedback with driver ratings. 

Think of it as short but powerful clues left to the business to follow up on and track where the company can improve. That “food was a bit late, but the driver explained the restaurant is busy” message can help your business direct your drivers to improve their service. 

How else would you know if customers are having a bad experience if you only hear about it after it has already escalated to the point where it’s now been rated on Google as “terrible service, stay away!”

If you receive a few bad ratings with comments like “food was cold,” you stand a better chance of speaking to the kitchen that day, correcting the problem, and moving on swiftly before it impacts the brand name over the long run.

What are driver ratings?

Driver ratings help with quality control and customer satisfaction. 

It’s feedback (good or bad) following the completion of a delivery at the customer’s preferred address. Typically, they are star ratings and written feedback. 

Driver ratings help to measure customer satisfaction with a set of examples of how to correct what has gone wrong based on customer feedback. 

Typically, it’s a start rating of between one and five. 

It helps a driver and businesses to improve their service and upgrade their skills. 

Why are driver ratings important?

Driver ratings create a direct link between performance and the customer’s perception of the brand. 

Do you really want a customer to think badly of your brand without you ever finding out and without standing a chance to correct it?

Ratings are a reflection of the operational efficiency. It’s a diagnostics report to help your business find software to eliminate the problem. Here are a few problems identified through the feedback from customers and what can possibly solve it.

  • Problem: Need to improve communication 

Solution: Real-time tracking software

  • Problem: Driver takes too long to reach customers

Answer: Route optimization software

  • Problem: Customers complain about the condition parcels arrive

Solution: Proof of delivery software

  • Problem: Customers call non-stop to inquire about when parcels will arrive

Answer: Delivery management software

  • Problem: Drivers miss their delivery windows when it rains

Solution: Fleet management software

If you want to keep customers coming back to enjoy your service, despite the ups and downs as you improve deliveries, driver ratings will help to identify the problem in a short space of time.

How does the driver rating process work?

Here are ten steps to show you how a driver rating process works and how your businesses can benefit from it. 

Step 1: Customer receives the delivery 

The driver arrived at the customer’s delivery address, and the parcel was handed over. Instinctively, the customer looks at the parcel, and first impressions are important. 

No customer will be pleased if the carton box is soaking wet or the corners are damaged. Worse, the tape has come off, and the item looks like it’s about to fall out. 

What are the customers looking out for? They are focused on whether the parcel arrived on time, the overall impression, and professionalism. 

Checklist for drivers during the phase: 

  • Was the delivery on time?
  • How was the interaction with the customer?
  • Were any special instructions followed?

Step 2: Feedback is requested

Now this is the moment of truth. The delivery is completed and the customer is prompted to rate the experience. This can be done through a number of ways.

It could be an app, email or SMS, depending on what platform the business uses and the way it’s been communicating with the customer during the process.

Usually the star rating system follows between one to five starts. One being terrible service and five exceptionally good. 

It will be followed with additional comments. This could look something like ‘Driver was polite’ or ‘Delivery was late.’

Step 3: Customer submits ratings

The important part is to get the customer to respond to the delivery as soon as it’s completed. If the timing is too late, customers might not want to participate anymore. 

In that moment of unhappiness, it’s best that the driver rating gives an appropriate platform for the customer to vent and help the business resolve it in a professional way. The last thing you want is not to provide such a platform and indirectly push a customer to turn to social media.

Some systems also ask for a follow-up question to get more details. This could be something like this:

  • Did the driver handle the goods carefully?
  • Was the communication (updates and delivery status) accurate?

Step 4: Ratings are captured by the system

Now we want to figure out how the data is processed and how it all fits into a bigger picture. 

The ratings and feedback are recorded in the business’ delivery management or customer feedback system. 

This data is stored for each individual driver. At the end of the day, you’ll have a full report on each driver to see if it’s a problem that needs to be resolved with the specific driver or the team or if it is a problem with the product itself. 

There could be isolated incidents that can easily be addressed but don’t require much of your time to deliberate on. 

Step 5: Collecting data and analysis with driver ratings

Let’s say you’ve been collecting driver ratings and feedback from customers for the last three months, varying from loyal customers to first-time buyers. 

You now have a comprehensive set of opinions and experiences that is based on each driver’s output and performance. 

This gives your customer a comprehensive view of the drivers, which are:

  1. Consistent high performers
  2. Drivers who might need more feedback.

With enough data in the system, it can now start identifying and flagging frequent issues and figure out which customers are constantly complaining about drivers’ communication and quality. 

Step 6: Reviewing driver ratings

Now that you have all the data, managers need to regularly review the ratings to assess the overall performance of the team, fleet, and delivery quality. 

You will start noticing certain patterns, like a low performance from drivers just before lunchtime or towards the end of their shift. 

Other problems like late deliveries can also signal other problems within the logistics system that can lead to allocating fewer stops to certain drivers.

Key things to look out for:

  • Are certain drivers repeatedly receiving poor ratings?
  • Do low ratings correlate with delivery delays or high-demand periods?

Step 7: Adjusting business performance based on ratings

Knowing about all the stumble blocks in the business would be useless if you don’t try to fix them. 

Let’s face it: some will require more time and energy and can be seen as a long-term project. 

Try to identify the small problems, with a significant immediate impact. Like addressing a driver who is constantly recieving bad ratings for poor communication. This is an ideal opportunity to send drivers for training or refresher courses.

However, the same goes for the other side. Drivers with consistently good ratings might be rewarded. It could be a bonus or extra work opportunities to make more money. 

Let’s recap on what action you can take:

  1. Providing additional training for underperforming drivers.
  2. Personalized coaching or mentorship.
  3. Reward top performers with a bonus.
  4. Top performers can be rewarded with driver incentive programs
  5. Optimize delivery routes based on common delays.
  6. Address operational bottlenecks

Step 8: Customers see improvement

Be patient! It could take longer for customers to notice an improvement than what you would like to see. 

Over time, customers will start noticing better and improved service and will start talking about it in the feedback sessions. 

This could be improved timing of deliveries, or better communication, or even just a friendly driver. This could lead to higher overall customer satisfaction and better driver ratings. 

Step 9: Customer loyalty improves because of driver ratings

When drivers receive an impressive rating, it reflects well on the business. It enhances customer loyalty and improves the brand reputation. 

When other potential customers see improved customer satisfaction, it has the potential to drive others to become more loyal to the brand, too. 

By providing an appropriate channel for customers to raise their concerns and make suggestions, there will be fewer negative comments on social media. 

Step 10: Ongoing feedback

It never stops. You might think you know how your customers feel about your service, but it’s a consistent flow of feedback that makes a great company an exceptional one. 

Regularly monitor your drivers’ ratings and see which action can be taken to improve customer satisfaction. Don’t forget to give customers feedback once you have improved or acted on their suggestions. It makes customers feel listened to and stay loyal to the brand. 

How to improve driver ratings

When things go wrong, it’s not always easy to see them written down in black and white by customers. Some managers know how to handle conflict like a pro, but others find conflict with disruptive customers challenging. 

So, if your driver ratings are not looking on the bright side, how do you handle it?

First, proactive communication can turn a negative experience into a positive one. By giving drivers access to their driver ratings, gives the power back to them to change it immediately. 

They have the potential to resolve the issue in real-time, if it has something to do with their communication, friendliness or timing. 

However, not all customers will understand; for those bigger issues, a business can consider offering a discount or free item as a gesture of goodwill. 

Although it might have been a poor experience for the customer, the business’ and the driver’s response can determine whether the person becomes a loyal customer. 

How does real-time tracking help driver ratings?

As earlier discussed, real-time tracking allows you to share your trip status and live location using a single link to let them know where you are and when you are going to arrive. 

GPS tracking software continuously monitors the target and provides location data. The delivery drivers use a mobile app that shares a live location with the customer. 

This way a customer knows exactly when a driver is embarking on the last mile delivery en route to their address. It gives customers a sense of control. 

This helps to avoid frustration and unrealistic expectations. When customers know there is a delay, they tend to show more compassion than when left in the dark with no communication. 

At the end of the day with better transparency through tracking, customer trust and satisfaction is boosted, leading to better driver rating. 

The future of driver ratings in logistics

The future is all about artificial intelligence (AI), making simple automated tasks easier. AI can help predict delivery issues based on other problems experienced in the past. These suggestions will help to make improvements before customers can complain. 

Delivery rating systems are likely to be shaped by advancements in technology, data analysis, and changing customer expectations. 

The future is very focused on personalizing the customer experience. With tailored rating systems, future rating systems could allow customers to rate specific aspects of the delivery. This personalized approach could provide more granular insights.

In a busy world where everyone is playing catch up, some customers don’t want to be delayed by being rated as a driver. With the rise of smart speakers and wearable technology, customers may soon be able to provide ratings through voice commands and even gestures. This will make the feedback sessions shorter and easier on the go. 

NOW READ: What is last-mile delivery, and why is it so expensive?

About the author

Mia Lindeque

Mia is a multi-award-winning journalist. She has more than 14 years of experience in mainstream media. She's covered many historic moments that happened in Africa and internationally. She has a strong focus on human interest stories, to bring her readers and viewers closer to the topics at hand.

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