A study said that 60 percent of Uber riders don't tip. Here's what rideshare drivers had to say.

FILE -- Uber signage on a car in New York, April 14, 2019. An study of tips on Uber stated that 60 percent of riders don't tip. Rideshare drivers share their feelings on it. FILE -- Uber signage on a car in New York, April 14, 2019. An study of tips on Uber stated that 60 percent of riders don't tip. Rideshare drivers share their feelings on it. Photo: Jeenah Moon, NYT Photo: Jeenah Moon, NYT Image 1 of / 35 Caption Close A study said that 60 percent of Uber riders don't tip. Here's what rideshare drivers had to say. 1 / 35 Back to Gallery

Tipping in the service industry is the standard social contract that most people have come to accept. From waiters and hairdressers to bartenders and valets, the expectation is that most people will tip as a form of appreciation.

One new-ish exception to that tipping standard, however, is the rideshare driver.

A recent study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that only roughly 16 percent of Uber rides result in a tip, according to four weeks of Uber data that the team looked at.

The more shocking stat, the study found, was that 60 percent of riders never tipped.

Of those who do tip, just 1 percent tipped on every trip. Those who do tip — but not on every trip — were found to tip on only about 25 percent of rides.

But according to Sergio Avedian, a senior contributor for rideshare sites the Rideshare Guy and RideGuru, those figures are actually generous.

"I read a whole bunch of articles that most people don't tip ... that's a fact," Avedian said to SFGATE, mentioning the recent study. "I think the articles actually shot a little too high: I think the tipping percentages are lower."

Lilly Kenyon is the head of operations at RideGuru, a website that does rideshare fare comparisons and serves as a forum for rideshare drivers and riders to discuss rides. For Kenyon, part of the reason riders don't tip is a lack of accountability, something which you felt when you were in, say, a taxi (something which the study also notes).

"People can kind of get away with [not tipping] and you don't have that peer pressure or guilty feeling you get in a taxi," Kenyon said. "If you're handing over cash, you have to hear the driver grumble, or mumble that you didn't tip. This way [with rideshares], you literally leave the car and they don't even know if you're tipping or not.

"By the time a lot of people do go to tip, it might be even a couple hours later when they're taking a return Uber or Lyft home, and at that point, you click to open [the app] and [it prompts you to] rate your driver and tip — and again, if you don't have the accountability, I feel like some people just don't do it."

Kenyon said that based on what drivers were saying on the RideGuru forums, drivers were stating that 30 to 40 percent of riders on Lyft were tipping, while Uber hovered around 10 to 20 percent.

From Avedian's experience as both a Lyft and Uber driver in Los Angeles, when driving for Lyft, customers would tip him 30 percent of the time; for Uber, Avedian said, "If I'm lucky, maybe I break 10 percent."

"I think tipping comes down to ethics and society," Avedian said. "If you go to somebody that's a tipper, they're going to tip; it doesn't matter if it's in the app or if it's cash. You go to a bar, the guy opens your beer, you tip him; you go to a valet, the guy brings your car a hundred yards, you tip him. Taxicabs, you tip. You go to Vegas, the guy opens your door, you tip him. I don't know why rideshare drivers don't get tipped more often, to be honest with you, because we're keeping you safe and taking you from point A to B."

There are some theories as to why the Uber figures seem low. Based on what she was seeing on the site's forums, Kenyon said she felt Uber's late adoption of allowing riders to tip has stifled the amount of tips that drivers receive.

"I think Uber's very strong stance from the beginning, being a no tipping platform [at first], really sort of created this culture that allows riders to get away with not tipping and not really feeling bad about it," Kenyon said. "Even though they have swung the pendulum and now they say, 'Oh no, you should tip' or, 'We have tipping in the app' — I don't think it really matters, because I think their strong [anti-tip] stance just gave riders this out. So now riders, even though they know maybe they should be tipping now, I think they feel like they can get away with it."

A few forum posts from drivers about tipping seem to agree with that — one driver bemoaned the fact that a rider recently mentioned that he thought Uber drivers aren't supposed to take tips. That idea is a holdover from Uber's no-tipping days, which was changed in June 2017 when Uber allowed tips through its app, but is still somewhat permeating the rider mindset.

The figures from the NBER study are perhaps the best window into how much Uber riders, specifically, tip. The group helped Uber with starting its tipping option, as The Verge noted, getting its data from over 40 million trips made in 2017. Uber and Lyft both declined to provide further data on tipping for this story when requested; however, in a statement, Lyft said drivers generally currently receive $2.36 per hour on average. For Uber, a spokesperson said both its drivers and Uber Eats delivery partners "have received nearly $2 billion in tips — on top of their earnings."

There are some exceptions to these tipping percentages, however, but reaching the upper echelons of tipping is part personality-dependent, part-psychology. As two local drivers shared with SFGATE, they've had as much as 70 percent of their riders tip, but acknowledged that they are the exceptions to the (low-tipping) rule, sharing how they manage to make better rates.

Deco Carter of San Francisco became known as the "Hip Hop Lyft Driver," chatting with riders and quizzing them on hip-hop trivia for prizes, a sort of "Cash Cab" for the rideshare crowd. He has an online presence (@hiphoplyft) and plenty of customers have raved about his friendly conversations, encyclopedic hip-hop knowledge, outgoing nature and music. Carter attributes his success to his rules — keep the car clean, make sure it smells good, help people feel comfortable — but he does also take his customer service seriously, even while his trivia and personality aren't so serious.

"You have to remember we're in the customer-service business," Carter said. "It's not about what you like all the time. Sometimes, I get an old couple in my car: I know they're not gonna be down with hip hop and all that, so I slap some Beatles on, I put some Bob Marley on — something I can relate to. I'm not trying to force hip hop on every passenger that gets in my car. We're in the customer-service business, whether you like it or not, that's what the ratings are for."

Despite some riders saying they prefer silence on their drive, Carter said he usually tells other drivers not to be silent.

"I recommend for drivers not to drive in silence," Carter said. "Come on, play your podcast or something, you gotta be able to listen to something. Give a passenger a little something else to think about like, 'Wow, this Lyft driver is really listening to some crazy music right now, but it's cool though.' It's just different ways to lighten the ride a little bit. [Again], it's not about you as the driver, it's about customer service. It's relating to people and giving people what they want, and the last thing people want is silence."

Uber driver Tia Starr takes another approach to driving around Santa Rosa and Sonoma County. Starr said that she has a background in psychology and behavior, and said that while she's a friendly driver, she is also pretty good at reading whether her riders would like to chat. Among the ways that drivers can stand out to customers, Starr also pointed out music choice as a way drivers can be accommodating to their customers.

"Driving is a really fun experience, but you also have to have the mindset for anything that can happen," Starr said. "If you bring positivity, you get what you put in, in that regard. If you're positive, you're accommodating within reason, you're actually going to pump up your tip average more than complaining about the culture of tipping, or anything like that."

Starr, however, said that while she does agree that riders should tip more often, she doesn't agree with the drivers who get angry over not receiving tips.

"I don't think drivers should expect tips," Starr said. "I hear a lot of expectations with tips and [drivers] getting very angry about that. One, that's silly. And two, I think that that kind of energy is felt by the customer and kind of decreases your likelihood of getting tipped anyway. I don't go into any shift really worrying or thinking about the tip, just at the end of the week, I see how much I made in the in-app tip [section] and go, 'Oh, cool that covered whatever water I might have bought, or whatever supplies' and I just keep going."

In the end, however, it's all about whether you consider rideshares to be a service, and how you feel like compensating them for that service. Just don't promise to tip when you won't — the drivers do remember.

"I look at tips like the 'Forrest Gump' thing: It's a box of chocolates, you never know what you're gonna get," Avedian said. "Sometimes I have no vibes with a passenger and I'll see a nice tip, and then sometimes, I'll have the best ride and I'll go, 'Oh yeah, definitely getting tipped' — and then nothing.

"One thing I have learned over the years," Avedian said, "is that if I had a dollar for every time a passenger said, 'I'll take care of you in the app,' I would be rich by now. Because those are the ones that never tip."

Dianne de Guzman is a Digital Editor at SFGATE. Email: dianne.deguzman@sfgate.com