Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi has come up with the idea of 'going undercover' as a driver for his own company to understand what his own employees are going through and try to find out why the company is having trouble hiring more drivers. In this process, the Iranian-American businessman has discovered not very encouraging things: for example, many uncomfortable situations that his drivers have to live through because of the behavior of their clients.
As Khosrowshahi himself explained in a Wall Street Journal report, Uber has traditionally focused on improving the experience of its users. However, the CEO assures that the company also needs to win the "hearts and minds" of the drivers so as not to lose distance with respect to rival companies such as Lyft.
To do this, the CEO of the company, Dara Khosrowshahi, bought a Tesla Model Y and signed up for the application to transport passengers around the San Francisco area under the alias "Dave K". As he explained, during his experience as a driver from Uber, Khosrowshahi has been disappointed to experience how rude some customers can be.
To give some examples, Khosrowshahi has related that he felt slighted seeing how some of his passengers openly talked about personal problems or work problems as if they were alone in the vehicle. The businessman also worked as a bicycle delivery man, and he also experienced some unpleasant situation: many customers promised much more tip through the application than they finally ended up giving during the delivery.
After more than 100 journeys and deliveries made, Dara Khosrowshahi has achieved a 5-star rating, thanks to gestures such as offering mobile phone charging cables to her customers or creating multiple Spotify playlists to suit users.
This Khosrowshahi experience is part of an operation called 'Project Boomerang', whose objective is to get drivers who have left Uber to go to work for the competition to return to work for their company.
Following this experiment, Uber has decided to create a single record for both rides and deliveries, as well as allow drivers to view delivery locations prior to pickup and increase financial bonuses for their work.
