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Is tipping getting out of control? Many consumers say yes

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Re: Is tipping getting out of control? Many consumers say yes

#641

Post by ranieuwe »

jacktribe wrote: post #565
mnky9800n wrote: post #527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The review feedback program sounds like over engineered nonsense. You get metrics which you think represents customer experience which you can use to evaluate and motivate your employees to act a certain in this coffee fueled skinner box designed to train baristas. But the data won't represent that, the interaction with a barista is only a small fraction of what makes a coffee shop good (first should be good coffee,…

While profit sharing may work as an incentive for shift managers or store managers, in the absence of tips most baristas will expect some other immediate bonus pay, preferably based on a measurable metric that doesn't depend on factors beyond the barista's control, such as cost of goods sold, supply chain constraints, rent hikes, recessions, etc. If you occasionally ask the customer in-app "how was your service today…

Wouldn’t you be measuring the interaction with the ordering device? How can I rate the experience if I didn’t interact with the Barista yet?

One of my general problems with tipping is that I have to tip before someone makes the drink. Then end up with burned coffee I tipped for. This feels the same.

Re: Is tipping getting out of control? Many consumers say yes

#642

Post by Freak_NL »

4gotunameagain wrote: post #524
dang wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should write a longer piece about your coffee shop! and the process behind it. If you do, you should submit it to HN - and if you do that you should email us (hn@ycombinator.com) because we might put it in the second-chance pool ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998308 ).

I love how one person opened a coffee shop which basically operates like every single coffee shop in the world apart from the US , and you guys need a detailed write up, charts, flow charts, tips for the secret sauce :)

> like every single coffee shop in the world apart from the US

I very much appreciate being able to amble into a coffee shop, order a coffee from a human being (perhaps doing my best in a foreign language I'm not all that proficient in), and paying cash should I so desire. Like you can in most coffee shops around the world.

Re: Is tipping getting out of control? Many consumers say yes

#644

Post by philliphaydon »

jacktribe wrote: post #481
kqr2 wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guessing it's this: https://awakening.bar/

Yep. Didn't want to share it because it's embarrassing how taped together that page is, but I had to put something up in an afternoon, because in the absence of a website people were taking photos of the menu on the iPads to take home.

Dude. You have NOTHING to be embarrassed about.

It's a breath of fresh air to have such a nice clean site that loads fast and has nice photos, clear description and price.

I wish more sites were like this.

(only issue I can see is some descriptions are truncated despite space being available for the rest of the text on my desktop)

Re: Is tipping getting out of control? Many consumers say yes

#645

Post by tomcam »

bmitc wrote: post #339
barbariangrunge wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish you would take cash. Every other method of payment gets tracked and is used to profile people

That is a pretty fringe worry of tracking that places a major burden on the business. While I am no fan of the amount of tracking going on, I'd say this is pretty far down the list. You're still tracked when you pull out cash. Credit cards have quite a bit of protection on them.

> You're still tracked when you pull out cash.

How?

Re: Is tipping getting out of control? Many consumers say yes

#646

Post by kelnos »

datatrashfire wrote: post #237
jacktribe wrote: post #99

I've just opened a coffee shop in Los Angeles last month, and we don't take tips. We only use self-ordering iPads (I've custom coded an iOS app w/ Stripe Terminal for it), and we don't accept cash either. We've had a few customers baffled by the no-tipping policy, and still insisting that they leave a tip. Some even left cash on the counter or on the table. We had to chase a few of them down to return their money. Al…

As someone who was in a service role and subject to an opt in post interaction survey, I don't believe systems like this are effective. They select for Karens with unreasonable demands. They use the survey to retaliate against the employee by leaving bad scores.

Yeah, I think the ridiculousness of the Uber/Lyft rating system (anything but a 5 means the driver should be fired) tells us that customer feedback of this sort is less than useless.

Re: Is tipping getting out of control? Many consumers say yes

#647

Post by jandrewrogers »

4gotunameagain wrote: post #524
dang wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should write a longer piece about your coffee shop! and the process behind it. If you do, you should submit it to HN - and if you do that you should email us (hn@ycombinator.com) because we might put it in the second-chance pool ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998308 ).

I love how one person opened a coffee shop which basically operates like every single coffee shop in the world apart from the US , and you guys need a detailed write up, charts, flow charts, tips for the secret sauce :)

Context matters. The dynamics of the business are fundamentally different because many employees prefer tips to the alternative, and they have have many options where to work. Employees have a lot of leverage due to a chronic labor shortage.

This dynamic has played out time and again in Seattle, where business owners tried to switch to a "no tipping" model with a 20% mandatory service charge but ultimately had to relent because employees were not keen on earning less money.

Re: Is tipping getting out of control? Many consumers say yes

#648

Post by int0x2e »

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote: post #299
expensive_news wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somewhat of a meta-comment but I’m shocked at how many people are complaining about you not taking cash. Has anyone ever walked out of your coffee shop because they only had cash on them? I can’t remember the last time I paid or even saw someone pay cash for anything.

If a place doesn't accept cash, I leave. Cash is one of our last remaining bastions of freedom. I would gladly pay by card, if those cards were anonymous, refillable with cash. But these do not exist anymore, even for small amounts. They insist they must know your every last $0.50 transaction.

I get your point, and I do think it's great for many people that we don't lose this outright, but I will offer an alternative view - Where I live, there always were a lot of people who don't report their income fully, which means they mostly transact in cash. We have fairly high and progressive taxes, which means that by transacting in cash, some medium to high earners can lower their tax payments significantly. After trying basically everything over many decades, the clear plan by to government is to make cash transactions obsolete as soon as possible. They've been slowly reducing the maximum legal cash transaction size for a while now, but the goal is clearly to get rid of cash.

While I worry about people without access to banking (mostly people without documentation, but also the poor), I think they're on a course to resolve that too, and I for one would be very happy to not have to pay that much in taxes while seeing others cheat the system and reap the benefits...

Re: Is tipping getting out of control? Many consumers say yes

#649

Post by midasuni »

euroderf wrote: post #628
yafbum wrote: post #449

There has been a deplorable profusion of dark patterns in restaurant checkout UIs, such as offering preselected tip amounts set along a 18-20-25% scale (standard used to be 15%), making it quite difficult to leave a custom tip, etc. Add to this various "surcharges" and other mandatory fees added for this or that (my favorite: mandatory "resort fees" for hotels - seriously why is that not just rolled into the price of…

That's one nice thing about living in the EU, that it mandates full price disclosure for some industries. (Anyone got a list?) In particular, when it says your airline ticket is NNN€, you will pay than NNN€. No screwball fees up the wazoo.

Still plenty of restaurants with “service charge” at the bottom of the menu
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