Some customers are notoriously hard to please but does that mean that their ratings should be hidden from view?
That is the position that grocery delivery company Instacart took by revamping its ratings systems so that those who consistently rate their shoppers below five stars are filtered out.
The delivery app, which launched out of San Francisco in 2012, has customers pick the grocery items they want delivered and their "shoppers" run to put orders together from different grocery stores and deliver them.
As with any delivery platform these days, shoppers can rate the quality they receive in a five-star rating system.
As common practice is to give any order that was delivered on time and in full five stars, Instacart recently announced that shoppers will need to maintain a 4.7 rating average or above for "batch prioritization."
The term is what Instacart calls orders that require shoppers to put together items from different stores; those who are prioritized will be able to get their order quicker.
Who's Getting Deprioritized?
"It's incredibly important to us to nurture a community built on best intent — deepening the trust between shoppers, customers, and all of us at Instacart," John Adams, vice president of shopper and fulfillment at Instacart, said in a statement.
"By delivering on shopper feedback to make the customer ratings system even more fair, accurate, and reliable, we're taking another step in ensuring that shoppers feel heard and supported through their experience."
Other changes include removing ratings from customers who consistently give their customers below five stars from the shoppers' profiles.
It is also being more lenient toward removing ratings that were low for reasons outside of the shoppers' control such as traffic or lack of a product at the store.
The reasoning, the delivery platform said, is to make the platform more "helpful, informative, and fair" for shoppers who depend on it for their income.
The company did not specify how many low ratings a customer needs to give in order to be deprioritized, but did say that a few low ratings would not affect a customer's experience on the app.
When deciding which order to assign, the Instacart algorithm also considers factors such as distance from the shoppers and how many stores are needed to get the desired products.
While everyone will get their order eventually, having a higher spot in the prioritization chain can help "top customers" get their order faster.
The Instacart App Will Also Look A Little Different
The biggest change is that top customers are no longer determined solely by their rating but also by how they rate the shoppers.
"Our reimagined ratings system was developed in close collaboration with the shopper community to better support their needs," Adams said.
Along with the ratings overhaul, Instacart also launched a "your stats" feature that shows users their rating, how they rated orders and the price and content of past orders.
Shoppers now have a similar section where they can see a record of past orders and how accurate they were.
Those changes are not likely to have a huge effect on one's Instacart order but are part of the delivery platform's attempt to protect workers after a number of complaints over customers treating them unfairly.
Last month, it also promised to cover tips in cases where the buyer offers a large one, making the shopper more likely to do the order, and then pulls it back when the order is complete.
