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How one button changed the customer experience of New York City taxis
When New York City installed credit-card readers in its taxi machines a few years back, part of the good user experience was a touch screen allowing riders to easily add a tip. Three clearly marked buttons allowed the rider to choose a tip of 15%, 20%, or 25%. Thus with a single tap one could deliver the tip (and avoid mental arithmetic calculations) quickly and easily.
A few days ago I got in a cab and saw that the interface had changed ever so slightly, to this:
The 15% tip - standard in New York City - is now unavailable, unless you go through the mental arithmetic and manual entry of the amount. But beyond the annoyance factor, there's the "you've got to be kidding" element. For a commodity service like a point-A-to-B cab ride, what would rate a 30% tip? (Let alone a permanent "30% tip" button in the interface?)
The lesson: details matter. One change to one button in the interface changes the experience from delightful to annoying, leaving the rider feeling taken advantage of.
This is quite sad to see. It exploits foreign visitors who are often bewildered by the American system of tipping.
I had that same experience. I hadn't been in the city for a while, so I thought maybe I was missing something.
And I agree completely.
Also, I need some way to subtract a tip from the cabs that saw me with a suitcase in midtown, and so decided they were out of service and couldn't take me to an airport.
Sorry, that's an unrelated rant.
When 20%, 25%, and 30% are the only choices, I'd pick 0%.
I don't think they're expecting 30 at all, just anchoring the customer high, so that 25%, the middle option, is perceived as reasonable/normal. A little negotiation.
@brendan, but then they could put 15%, 25%, and 35%, as options and still achieve the same effect without removing the standard tip.
Easy way to fix this. Everyone tips 0 and tells the cabbie that they're doing it because there's no reasonable tip option.
Yes and... don't forget- you can always hit "enter Tip" and do your own math.
That is pretty cheeky and off-putting. Mentally calculating 15%, however, is dead easy.
There are several (three I think) different cab software systems in use in the fleet. Some have the screen you depict, while others still offer the 15% option. It has been this way for several years.
It seems odd, but I'm happy to see this UI represent the interests of the driver rather than the owner of the cab/fleet (if not the user).
I think the Simple Options of
$2.00
$3.00
$4.00
Is best, it comes out to way more than 30% in many cases, but doesn't piss people off. 15% on a $6.00 for is only $.90
I would even do a business rule so that when fares are over $15.00, the amount would change to
$3.00
$4.00
$6.00
etc etc etc. Good Experience plus better for the cabbies
@Christopher - there are two credit card UIs in NYC taxis that I'm aware of. One does tips by percentage (used to start at 15%, now at 20%) and the other does tips by dollar amounts ($2, $3, etc.). I'm not aware of any UIs that still have the 15% option.
As a former taxi driver (but in SoCal it's a different world), I'm guessing that a few drivers declared to their companies that they didn't want their tip options limited as much. No driver would've ever complained that the range was too low and thereby too humble, as then passengers would have assumed that low numbers were desired.
Remember peeps..the drivers are not responsible for implementing these machines, the city and Taxi commission are and they get fiscal rewards Im sure that we both pay for, and we lose money to paying an extra fee so you can use this convenient service. Add on the price to rising gas, the fact we have no medical, dental, pension and must work 6 days 12 hours a day and nobody is getting rich by any means...As a yellow taxi driver we are drug tested and background checked with license standards so you are getting professional service...are there some bad apples, yeah, but you still pay your taxes too right ? Peace out peepers.