My Uber Driver Refused to Take Me to Mcdonalds - Here's what i did about it
Have you been in a situation where a salesperson, vendor, or retailer is flatly refusing to honor what you believe is your legitimate and reasonable request? In this video, Social Strategist Barron Cruz lays out a strategy to successfully work through such a dilemma and uses as an example his recent run-in with an uncooperative Uber driver who was unwilling to swing through the McDonald's drive-through lane. The natural tendency is to react to this type of dispute by getting angry, blowing up and defining the issue as a test of wills between you and the other party. This escalates the predicament to a defensive battle of egos, and the result is unsatisfying, even if you get your way. Instead, these steps should be followed in pursuing a quiet, yet positive resolution: ---Maintain a calm, confident, yet thoughtful demeanor and voice tone. ---In a low-key, matter of fact manner, discuss the specific action you intend to take if their refusal continues; for example, you will have to review the matter with the supervisor, or report it to the corporate office as a formal complaint, or even contact the Better Business Bureau. ---This demonstrates that you do have leverage in the incident, and you do not intend to let it drop. ---Always acknowledge that the decision is in the hands of the employee, but reiterate that they do have options. The best and most logical option would be to satisfy you as the customer. ---This will allow you to exert influence on the situation without creating a field of conflict with the other party.
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My Uber driver refused to take me to McDonald's after picking me up from John Wayne Airport
in OC.
Can you believe it?
For four hours flying back from Des Moines to OC, the double cheeseburger had been dancing
in my head, and he told me, "No, you can't have it."
In this video I'm going to tell you about the story, tell you how I handled it, and
then I want to know more specifically how would have you handled it if you were in that
situation.
What happened was I've had a great experience with Uber for years.
You're traveling internationally, it's incredible, you don't have to worry about exchange rates
or language barriers or anything like that.
But this instance, this guy picked me up and he was moving.
The minute he picked me up he was talking a 100 miles a minute, throwing stuff all around,
clearly in a big hurry.
I said, "Man, we're going to be going by McDonald's on my way home.
Would you mind pulling in?"
He said, "Nope, sorry, I can't do that.
I'm not a car service."
I'm not used to that because usually Uber drivers will do that.
Now they don't like it because they make less money when they're sitting there.
They make a certain amount of money as the time passes, but they make more money when
they're moving, so they don't like doing that necessarily, but it's still something that
most of them do.
Now I don't think in the contract it says they have to do it or they don't have to do
it, but this is the first time I've had somebody actually turn me down.
As opposed to getting really mad and worked up, which I felt doing, because I'd be on
a flight for four hours telling myself, "You can wait until you get to the ground to get
something to eat," I kept my cool.
What I did was just explained to him what I'm thinking in a very rational way.
Because I could already tell he was rocking a mile a minute.
His brain's going, going, going.
His defensiveness is going to go to 100 right away.
The minute he said that I knew he was already there.
I said, "Okay, why don't you want to stop at McDonald's?"
That's when he said, "I'm not a car service."
I said, "You are a car service.
Uber's a car service."
I said, "I got to tell you, to be honest man, we rate each other at the end of these rides."
I said, "If you won't be willing to stop, that's fine.
It's your decision.
I don't have any control on that, but I am going to give you a low review."
What did that do versus me being like, "I've been on a flight for four hours.
I'm starving.
Just stop, dude.
Quit being a jerk.
Why won't you stop?"
Because what's he going to do if I do that?
He's going to be totally defensive.
I want him to hear logically my argument.
Because I'm in the situation, I actually do have a little bit of leverage.
We both have leverage because we both rate each other at the end of the trip.
If you don't know, that's how it works.
You rate each other on a scale of one to five stars, and then that goes into an average
rating.
It's kind of important because as a driver, if your rating drops too low, you have to
take a class and Uber won't let you drive at some point.
As a rider, they'll actually kick you off the platform.
Nobody wants to have low reviews.
I did have a little leverage but I felt like the best way to bring that up would be to
be very cool and very chill and very low key.
That's how I presented it.
My tone was exactly the way I told it to you.
I understand.
I got out in front of it saying, "You've got the choice.
I know, man.
I'm not trying to threaten you.
This is completely your choice."
Now think about this.
As opposed to me saying, "No, you're going to stop.
You better stop," if he does stop at McDonald's, what does that do?
He lost.
He submitted to my request.
Now, since there's a battle of egos and he's a little bit defensive, he's not going to
do that.
Even if he decides it is best to stop at McDonald's, he's not going to do that because he doesn't
want to take a hit to his ego when I present it like that.
I got right out in front of him and said, "Man, listen, it's your choice.
Clearly you're the driver.
You don't have to stop, but I do want to tell you this is what's going to happen.
This won't be good for you.
If it happens I'll give you a bad review and you'll probably give me a bad review too,
but I just want you to consider your options and consider what's going to happen at each.
If you stop at McDonald's you're going to be in the drive-through for five minutes and
you're not going to be making as much if you're going 80 miles an hour on the interstate with
your next fare, but you're going to have five stars from my review.
If you don't stop, yeah, you're going to make a little more money, maybe what, $1, $1.50
for that five minutes that you could be going really quickly, but you're going to have a
lower review and that could come back to haunt you."
By presenting it that way, very logically, very chill, putting him in control, giving
him the options, I'm not telling you what to do, man.
I'm just telling you these are the two outcomes.
What do you want to do?
It's up to you.
Because I presented it that way he kind of thought about it for 30 seconds and he's like,
"Yeah, all right."
He's like, "I'm willing to stop."
Cool.
I got what I wanted and it wasn't something that at the end of the ride either one of
us were at each other's throats like, "You dirty son of a ***.
How did you do this?
Why did you make me do that?"
It wasn't like that.
I kept the escalation from going up and from defensiveness from coming out by saying, "Yeah,
man, I get it.
You're in control.
It's your choice completely.
It's your choice.
Here's what's going to happen on both ways."
It was a great way to exert influence without a lot of people thinking the way to exert
influence is you always be the biggest, strongest alpha man.
"You listen here buddy.
You're going to stop or else I'm going to give you a one-star review and you're going
to have to go to the Uber class."
You think that would have worked?
What would have you done?
I want to know, after listening to what I did, leave me in the comments below exactly
what you would have done to deal with the situation.
By the way, if you feel like your social skills in general are anything less than a perfect
10, do yourself a favor.
Grab the social invincibility cheat sheet.
You can touch or click up here in the right corner and I'll give it to you for free.
You're going to get five hacks to get your social skill to the highest possible level,
so next time you run into a situation like this, you're confident in the way
to act.
