桑迪来袭，Uber陷入舆论风暴

    面对一片声讨，Uber发表了长篇累牍的博文，用来阐释市场机制。这种观念本身不赖，但在此情此景下，其实错得离谱。它的逻辑也许是正确的，但却丢掉了人文关怀。普通人听到的只是飓风过后Uber向纽约市民漫天要价。我发现，以前在我和谷歌就有争议的话题进行沟通时，谷歌也常犯这种错误。谷歌的态度是：数据和逻辑表明我们没错，所以我们就再多为你提供些数据和逻辑，或是描述我们的思路。我们是用事实来面对情感的。可是，在情感面前，数据是无法与之沟通的。不管说得多大声，多缓慢，有些人就是不愿意领会。实际上，这么做只会惹得他们火冒三丈。

    目前对Uber大加挞伐的人主要是来自(a)阳光明媚的西海岸以及(b)认为一些无良的首席执行官/投资人正在幕后操纵，乘人之危盘剥纽约人。作为了解Uber团队的人，我可以肯定地说，他们是一群不错的人，工作环境艰苦，正在努力使叫车服务更准确便捷。对这样一家初创企业来说，不管他们获得了多少正面报道或良好机遇，他们仍是一家正在成长、不断改良业务模式的小公司。

    假如总结过去这一周里的话，Uber的团队会写这么一本“灾害应急措施大全”手册。我敢说这本手册会包含如下内容：

    •分公司总经理可与总部同步宣布“紧急情况”：在此期间，Uber不会再收乘客的钱，通过回馈那些平时绝大多数时候支持公司的乘客，能有效增加司机人数。

    •应用可在“峰时价格”信息之后显示附加信息：设想一下，如果在“峰时价格，费用翻番”后出现这样一条信息，情况就会明朗得多——受桑迪影响的人们请注意：在此非常时期，我们需要额外收费以满足需求，这样才能召集更多Uber司机上路。Uber不会收取任何费用。所有收费都将付给司机。我们希望能确保您安全、干爽并快速地抵达目的地。

    •公关至上，经济学理论留待日后再谈：要有一套常用问题和更佳解答，这样才能让Uber呈现有人情味的一面——别光谈自己的员工，也要说说司机和乘客的故事。现在说这话时要加倍小心，别再怪罪司机（比如什么“别光看着我们，是这些司机想多赚点”）。

    我看到有些有意思的微博称，要让受飓风侵袭以外的Uber群体为峰时价格提供补助。不过我不太相信这些人真的会掏钱。但这些话题都离题甚远——Uber无论生死，靠的都是算法。可以拿Uber过去这一周的表现和公寓交换平台Airbnb公司比比看，对于受灾地区成千上万的订单，后者几乎是第一时间免掉了所有预订费。一年前，Airbnb也碰上了重大危机。当时有个房东回自己公寓才发现，家里已被租客洗劫一空，还遭到大肆破坏。当时Airbnb的第一反应也是基于事实进行回应（也就是碰到这种情况的客户是极少数）。不过其团队很快就意识到，公司表现出“任何客户都会碰到这种情况，所以就能安之若素”的态度十分不妥。他们随后迅速行动起来，提供了更好的沟通信息、客户支持和其他保障条件。

    而Uber刚好才遇上自己的“公寓被捣毁危机”。我也可能会猜错，不过我想他们下次碰到这种情况会做得更好。

    汉特•沃尔克是谷歌公司的产品管理总监。

    译者：清远

    In response to the criticism, Uber published lengthy posts explaining the dynamics of marketplaces. Right idea, but oh so wrong. While the logic was true, the humanity was missing. The average person just heard that Uber was charging New Yorkers more post-hurricane. I used to see Google make this mistake frequently in our communications on controversial topics. Data and logic told us we were correct and we'd just keep showing you more of it, or describing our thought process. We greeted emotion with facts. In the face of emotion, data can be a foreign language. It doesn't matter how loudly and slowly you say it, some people don't understand. In fact, all you're doing is pissing them off.

    The people who are piling on Uber are largely doing it from (a) sunny West Coast and (b) imagining that some unethical CEO/Investors are pulling strings to exploit NYC. Knowing members of the Uber team I'm comfortable asserting that you basically have good folks, working under incredible circumstances, trying to make the right call for a startup that, no matter how much good press and fortune they've had, is still a small business growing and evolving its model.

    Assume that coming out of this past week, the Uber team will write a "what to do in disasters" playbook. Here's what I bet it includes:

    •Local GMs can work with HQ to declare "emergency:" During this time, Uber won't collect money on a passenger fare, effectively helping to increase supply of drivers by giving back to the passenger community which supports the company during the 99.9% of the year which is normal.

    •App can show messages next to surge pricing info: Imagine how much clearer it would be if next to the "Surge Pricing in Effect 2x" it said "To those impacted by Sandy: We need to charge more to meet demand during this challenging time in order to get more Uber drivers on the road. Uber will not take any fees. All proceeds go to the drivers. We hope you are able to stay safe, dry and get to your destination quickly."

    •Public Communications Which Leave the Economic Theory for Later: It will have a set of FAQs and better responses which help to put a human face on Uber - not just employees but driver and passenger stories. Now it needs to be careful to do this without blaming the drivers (i.e., "don't look at us, these drivers want more money."

    I saw some other interesting tweets about allowing the Uber community outside of impacted areas to subsidize surge pricing. And I wondered if sponsors would subsidize. But both of these are kinda red herrings - Uber is going to live and die by the algorithm. Contrast Uber's week with Airbnb, which immediately waived booking fees on tens of thousands of listings in impacted areas. Airbnb had its crisis moment a year ago when someone returned to a trashed apartment. Airbnb's initial response was fact-based (this happens to very few people). Its team soon realized that it wasn't okay to appear they were comfortable that this happens to ANY of their customers and put better messaging, customer support and other assurances in place.

    Uber just had its trashed apartment moment. I could be wrong, but my guess is they'll do better next time.

    Hunter Walk is a director of product management at Google.