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No tipping means better business

tastefulventures.com

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Re: No tipping means better business

#221

Post by j2bax »

bradleyankrom wrote: post #205

Anecdotal, but there's a supermarket chain in the Southeastern U.S. (Publix) that pays their employees a living wage, provides health coverage, and makes a point of letting the customer know that staff (even the folks that load your groceries into your car) doesn't accept tips. The food costs are a little bit higher than, say, Walmart, but closer to that end of the spectrum if Whole Foods is the opposite end. I don't…

I think to some extent, this compensation method puts the ball in the waiters' court and requires a lot less performance management on the businesses part. I'd be interested to know if service is better/worse/same in non-tipping countries.

Re: No tipping means better business

#222

Post by misja111 »

MrQuincle wrote: post #43

From personal experience (just anecdotal) I would say service in the US is much better than for example in the Netherlands (my own country). I think you'll have to think of other things than service to make this happen. Other options: + Start with clear signs to indicate for other businesses (cabs, hairdresser) that tips are not expected. + I will assume that you pay the 20% to your personnel anyway. So basically you…

I'm from the Netherlands but have lived in Finland and Switzerland as well, and in both those countries service is better than in the Netherlands.

In Finland nobody gives tips so it has nothing to do with that, just that, generally speaking, the Dutch don't seem the most service minded people.

Re: No tipping means better business

#223

Post by pzh »

bradleyankrom wrote: post #197
wjossey wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is something I've also experienced during my travels to Europe, in particular in Paris. I will say I've found this to be a "feature", not a "bug". In addition, it's uncommon for the check to be presented without it first being asked for, whereas in the US, once you "pass" on desert, you're given a check. I'd love to see a non-tipping culture organically rise up. I'd choose restaurants that pay a living wage for…

I would imagine that the restaurant considers it closer to a bug than a feature because its tables are finite. Parties that come in looking for a table aren't necessarily going to be queued up, most will just go somewhere else.

Precisely that! But apart from the inability to predict table occupancy (for which you could theoretically come up with some ML solution), the other issue is that from a strict economic sense, having people occupy a table for 3 hours vs 1 hour while paying the same amount of money is a singificant opportunity cost to the business. In essence, from the perspective of the restaurant, people who are having a 3-hour meal and a long conversation are using a resource for which they're not paying, while other potentially paying customers are being turned away.

A nice side effect of the tipping culture in the US is that this inefficiency is eliminated. That's why I find it hard to believe that businesses will find it in their best interest to eliminate tips.

Re: No tipping means better business

#224

Post by bradleyankrom »

cmdrfred wrote: post #213
bradleyankrom wrote: post #205

Anecdotal, but there's a supermarket chain in the Southeastern U.S. (Publix) that pays their employees a living wage, provides health coverage, and makes a point of letting the customer know that staff (even the folks that load your groceries into your car) doesn't accept tips. The food costs are a little bit higher than, say, Walmart, but closer to that end of the spectrum if Whole Foods is the opposite end. I don't…

Id like to support businesses that pay their employees a living wage but as a consumer it is difficult to find that information. I'd like to see a sign in each store along the lines of "our lowest paid employee makes X/hr, has X days of paid vacation, and is eligible for health insurance" this might be something the market could correct for if the information asymmetry was removed.

Short of ordinances requiring that information be displayed, you're right, it's probably not ever going to be easy to find. It's enough for me if businesses that treat their employees well are encouraged to make that information known. Businesses that are hiring will usually list benefits in their "apply now" signage, so that's a start.

Re: No tipping means better business

#225

Post by Amezarak »

okonomiyaki3000 wrote: post #75

Having lived in Japan for a long time, I kind of dread visiting America because of the whole nonsense of tipping (and lot of other reasons, really). There's simply no concept of it here and yet the service is excellent. I don't know what the typical wage is but I know people who work in service jobs and seem to have a lot more disposable income than their counterparts in the US. I also know people who work as servers…

I used to wait tables. They hate the idea of ending tipping because servers almost without exception make much, much more than any of the kitchen staff. Eliminating ripping and raising the base wage would almost always be a pay cut. I worked at a buffet, not anything fancy, and it was easy to make $20/hr. No employer was going to pay that for the work I did.

Re: No tipping means better business

#226

Post by hayd »

throwaway30102 wrote: post #140

I'm astonished by the number of people here who feel some sort of psychological pressure or discomfort from tipping. Just relax, smile and give (or don't) something like 10%. It isn't that big of a deal. EDIT: Apparently I offended someone who is unable to function in the real world.

In the UK or rest of Europe that's fine, in the US 10% is grossly offensive. (Which IMO is insane but it is what it is.)

Re: No tipping means better business

#227

Post by zimzam »

misja111 wrote: post #211
bradleyankrom wrote: post #205

Anecdotal, but there's a supermarket chain in the Southeastern U.S. (Publix) that pays their employees a living wage, provides health coverage, and makes a point of letting the customer know that staff (even the folks that load your groceries into your car) doesn't accept tips. The food costs are a little bit higher than, say, Walmart, but closer to that end of the spectrum if Whole Foods is the opposite end. I don't…

I'm from Europe so I'm not very familiar with the tipping etiquette in the USA, but if I understand you properly, you're saying that in supermarkets like Walmart, people give tips to the personell? Like to the cashier? That's quite a culture difference with Europe, here they would think that you were crazy if you would do such a thing ...

In many grocery stores the checkout lane have two people: the cashier and a 'bagger' who will bag the groceries for you and, if requested, will bring them out and load them into your car.

The bagger sometimes gets a tip, especially if they are handling heavy items like cat litter.

(Baggers are common in grocery stores with large parking lots: so they were common growing up in a mid-sized city in the Midwest but I've never seen one in NYC)

Re: No tipping means better business

#229

Post by soneca »

imron wrote: post #196
tjic wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When a person walks into a restaurant in the USA they can waive a $20 bill at a waitperson and say if you do what I want, and if I like you, and if I'm feeling generous, I might give you some of this. So you also dislike bonuses for white collar professionals? Because it's exactly the same thing.

No, because unlike a bonus, tips make up a significant portion of waitstaff's regular income. If they don't get their tips then maybe they don't make rent. It's a completely different situation than bonuses on top of a salary that already covers living expenses.

At some finance companies yearly bonuses are up to 20 monthly salaries.

Re: No tipping means better business

#230

Post by zip1234 »

rbcgerard wrote: post #216

Jobs that have a high component of tip income, generally tend to be low wage (total comp), seasonal, have high turnover, employ younger workers (again, generally), and are transaction oriented. With the above in mind it makes sense to use tipping to align enployees and management in a situation where management can't spend the time developing/micro managing its employees You think the average teenage valet is going t…

I would agree except for the fact that tips have been found to largely not correlate with performance. http://freakonomics.com/2012/12/28/do-we-really-tip-based-on...
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