Check the numbers, it's true: People really like Lyft over Uber, even before #DeleteUber
Before #DeleteUber was even a twinkle in Twitter's eye, people really, really liked Lyft.
The ride-sharing company not marred by a cascading series of scandals recently surveyed users on how they use and perceive the onetime underdog ride-hailing app. And what do you know: People like Lyft more than they like "other rideshare programs."
Lyft users described the company as friendly, welcoming, cool, and trustworthy by margins of 53 percent, 46 percent ("cool"), and 42 percent ("trustworthy") for the last two descriptors.
"All other rideshare programs" only got described as friendly by 22 percent of riders, welcoming by 31 percent, friendly by 22 percent, cool by 19 percent, and trustworthy by 22 percent.
In mid-October, the research firm Ipsos (on behalf of Lyft) surveyed 1,000 ride-hailing app users, who'd used one of the apps in the six months prior. Ipsos added to those users an extra 687 ride-sharing customers who definitely used Lyft.
At the time, Donald Trump hadn't even been elected president, so no one could be upset over Uber CEO Travis Kalanick serving on Trump's council of business-world advisors. There was no Muslim ban, so Uber couldn't yet appear to break a New York City taxi strike against it. No one had seen Kalanick berate an Uber driver as they argued over fare decreases. And the full extent of sexual harassment at Uber's corporate offices hadn't yet surfaced, either.
Meanwhile: Lyft still had its old glowstache logo, before switching to a sleeker amp in November.
Survey respondents also told Lyft what they liked most about the app: Friendly drivers, its good treatment of passengers and drivers, and a feeling of safety and security when using the app.
And guess what? They didn't feel quite as good about those qualities in other ride-sharing services. The percentage of respondents who thought Uber and their ilk had friendly drivers—and also treated drivers and passengers well—dropped from 41 percent for Lyft on both counts to 28 and 26 percent for others.
Lyft also collected some data about how people use its app, and ride-hailing services more broadly.
If people used its app in the past six months, they were likely to have used it within the past week, too.
In October, most people used Lyft classic —not the cheaper carpool service, Lyft Line.
And 97 percent of Lyft riders said they'd recommend Lyft to their friends. Among Americans who haven't used Lyft, seven in 10 said they would use Lyft in the future.
Another set of data from the firm 1010data found that Lyft got an extra 3 percent bump in users attributed to #DeleteUber in February—post-Trump, but pre-sexual harassment.
Time to survey again?
Emma Hinchliffe is a business reporter at Mashable. Before joining Mashable, she covered business and metro news at the Houston Chronicle.
