8 ms·

Do tips make for better service?

20 points by pavanyara 5y ago

sharmin123 5y ago
tyronehed 5y ago
Tips make for better customers.
- dylan604 5y ago
  That's rubbish. I'm the same customer in the US where wait staff are severly underpaid where I treat the staff with respect and gratitude where tips are expected as I am when I travel abroad with the same respect and gratitude to the staff where tips are not expected. Making of a better customer is as simple as not being an asshole.
  - HWR_14 5y ago
    I think GP was making the statement that, holding literally everything else equal, a customer who tips is strictly better than one who does not. That said, I really prefer the model that tips are rare and employees negotiate with their boss for a real salary.
candyman 5y ago
I don't think so. Almost every time I have seen good service it is either a function of the person (actually cares about doing their job) or the culture of the establishment. I tip generously because in the US wait staff generally get way below minimum wage so you want to make them whole. If you do frequent a place then I think consistently good tipping is a factor but your attitude is probably just as important. At the end of this year I got some extra $100 bills that I gave to bartenders and servers that I have seen many times over the year and wanted to show a little extra appreciation. It's not about service it's about appreciating the people serving you.
- hackama 5y ago
  >I tip generously because in the US wait staff generally get way below minimum wage so you want to make them whole. Ironically, if you didn't tip then they would be made whole by the employer as they would be responsible for making up the difference.
  - wombatmobile 5y ago
    Or else they might experience poverty and/or overwork.
    - kitkat_new 5y ago
      their employer wants you to think that - more money for them
      - wombatmobile 5y ago
        Just curious how you cogitate it?
        kitkat_new 5y ago
        social pressure makes customers pay more money, same goes for prices that seem lower than they are (prices on menus); less taxes
        wombatmobile 5y ago
        How do you personally handle tipping, in a restaurant where you know the owner is paying $tiny/hr? What are the cognitive steps you go through to derive your tipping behaviour in each instance?
  - WheatM 5y ago
  - avianlyric 5y ago
blakesterz 5y ago
The answer given to the headline question in the article is... "The evidence is mixed—and the practice varies widely across the world" "Tipping also passes a chunk of risk from managers to servers, especially when between 20% and 60% of a waiter’s income may be in tips, as is often the case in America" That number seems low, or at least in my outdated experience, it's low. I spent most of the 90s working in restaurants and tips were probably 150% of my income. I was paid very little per hour, and made quite a bit in tips. I then had to claim tips, which was always a smaller number than I actually made. I was paid $3 something an hour, made like $50 an hour in tips, and claimed like $20 in tips. Maybe that's not how it works now?
- menage 5y ago
  I assume they mean 60% of total earnings, not 60% of base wages. Tips can't end up being more than 100% of total earnings.
  - Enginerrrd 5y ago
    They can be more than 100% of claimed income though.
  - hammock 5y ago
    Yes. In which case "150%" would be 60%. (150/(150+100) to save the readers the math)
- patrick451 5y ago
  What do you mean that tips were 150% of your income? If you made $50/hr, and $47 of that came from tips, then tips were 94% of your income, and the wage was 6%.
  - Enginerrrd 5y ago
    It means he claimed $20 in income from tips, and pocketed the extra $30 in tips. You two are just using different definitions of "income".
m000 5y ago
> Perhaps they like to feel, as they step out for a meal, that they are in control. TL;DR: Tips are a power-trip for the plebs. A subtle way to make you feel important, and perhaps suppress social dissent.
boring_twenties 5y ago
Just anecdotes, but I've lived in the US pretty much my entire life, and I don't think I've ever had truly bad service here. Maybe five times ever it's been subpar enough to tip 15% instead of my usual 20%, but certainly never worse than that. Meanwhile, in the few months I've cumulatively spent in Europe, outside of Italy, almost all service was dramatically worse than this, and on quite a few occasions so bad I could probably make pretty good comedy sketches out of them. The only real exceptions have been family-run places and very expensive ones. In Italy on the other hand service has been as good as or even better than back home.
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  As a British person I can't even get a glass of water from US waiters! But what do you want from service? It's probably vastly different from what Europeans want from service. European service isn't 'bad' it's just not what you're used to. US service seems 'bad' to Europeans - it's intrusive, nosey, and rude to us.
  - technothrasher 5y ago
    > As a British person I can't even get a glass of water from US waiters! Really? I'm curious what the breakdown is there. In most US restaurants you'll be asked almost immediately what you'd like to drink and then they typically keep it filled.
    - chrisseaton 5y ago
      It’s a joke - they never understand the pronunciation ‘water’ it baffles them - you have to put on an American accent and say ‘warder’ and then they understand.
- wombatmobile 5y ago
  Sounds like you are comparing the experiences of an American eating out in America with the experiences of an American dining in foreign countries. Some of your experiences were negative, and others positive. But none of your foreign data used a native diner, so, it’s difficult to correlate the results with the topic of this discussion, which is about the effect of tipping on service.
hammock 5y ago
There is another aspect of tipping that rarely gets discussed: they are a way to compensate for being a bad guest. I have heard from many servers that they will happily put up with a "bad table" if they know they are going to be tipped well at the end. So not to excuse bad behavior, but if you know you have been a difficult table, tipping process gives you a formal opportunity to atone.
- mulmen 5y ago
  I had to do this recently because of a now-ex-friend. He crashed an Omakase dinner six courses in, loudly demanded a menu and when he was refused tried to order a beer. The wait staff managed to get rid of him. As a party we tipped 100% and stopped returning his calls.
- dfxm12 5y ago
  How do they know how well they're going to be tipped at the end?
  - musingsole 5y ago
    They don't know. But a culture of tipping leads the average server to have faith that such things will balance out in the end.
- cronix 5y ago
  That just sounds like a microcosm of society in general. If you have money to throw around, odds are you can get away with more.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- buscoquadnary 5y ago
  I'll throw out I don't try to be a bad guess but occasionally very rarely my kids and I end up going to a place like IHOP or something and I often try and tip extra to compensate for being a "bad table" not because I was bad but events outside my control made the table bad and I want to make it better to the waiter.
throwawaysea 5y ago
If tips are a social default then how can they make better service? For them to serve as an incentive, there has to be an expectation that the top percentage will vary.
cryptoboid 5y ago
https://archive.md/pMrre https://archive.md/pMrre
DangitBobby 5y ago
> For all its drawbacks, Americans are keenest to retain the practice: in a survey 60% of them said they preferred tipping to a modest service charge. I would imagine people working for tips make up the majority of this number, because they understand how much better tips are for them than the alternative which is paltry wages. It's people who don't work for tips (especially those who mistakenly believe people don't like working for tips) who would seek to abolish the tipped wage.
- seibelj 5y ago
  Plus no one pays taxes on cash tips regardless of what the tax authorities say.
- 8n4vidtmkvmk 5y ago
  i just realized that i get tips. when i complete a project at work, i usually get a small bonus
Ekaros 5y ago
If tips do improve service why aren't they for example used with judges, police officers, immigration and toll, tax officers and so on? Should everyone be ready to give bit to this poor people so they can provide more personal and better service?
- jazzyjackson 5y ago
  I suppose once you are improving the service of a government official we call it a bribe
egypturnash 5y ago
My experience is that tips certainly make for better repeat service. "Oh hey it's that nice lady comes in every week or two and always tips" gets a little extra something pretty regularly.
jimmyvalmer 5y ago
He tried handing punters a playing card Dunno why the author had to denigrate the diners like that.
reese_john 5y ago
Maybe a bit off-topic but, I feel like variable, merit-based compensation makes for a better service. I work in finance, although not in the US, end of the year bonuses more often than not effectively doubles your total comp, even for software engineers. Your bonus is, of course, very much tied to your performance reviews. This has created a certain type of "carrot-chasing" culture. Granted, sometimes it can be toxic and is not for everyone, but most of my co-workers are extremely hard-working, focused and willing to go out of their way to help you
- halostatue 5y ago
  Commissions for salespeople — the most studied example of "merit-based" compensation — don’t work. They’re _expected_, but they don’t produce the results expected. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-paying-sales-people-bad-business-jacques/ https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-paying-sales-people-bad-b... The other reality is that what you think is merit-based is…not. There are lots of studies showing that there’s substantial bias in pay against women and racialized minorities.
DavidWoof 5y ago
The cumulative effect of tipping shouldn't be ignored either. Individual tips may not incentivize a server to do a better job, but the cumulative effect of tipping makes restaurant server a fairly well-paying entry-level job that attracts a very wide talent pool.

20 points by pavanyara 5y ago

sharmin123 5y ago

tyronehed 5y ago

Tips make for better customers.

dylan604 5y ago
That's rubbish. I'm the same customer in the US where wait staff are severly underpaid where I treat the staff with respect and gratitude where tips are expected as I am when I travel abroad with the same respect and gratitude to the staff where tips are not expected. Making of a better customer is as simple as not being an asshole.
- HWR_14 5y ago
  I think GP was making the statement that, holding literally everything else equal, a customer who tips is strictly better than one who does not. That said, I really prefer the model that tips are rare and employees negotiate with their boss for a real salary.

candyman 5y ago

I don't think so. Almost every time I have seen good service it is either a function of the person (actually cares about doing their job) or the culture of the establishment. I tip generously because in the US wait staff generally get way below minimum wage so you want to make them whole. If you do frequent a place then I think consistently good tipping is a factor but your attitude is probably just as important. At the end of this year I got some extra $100 bills that I gave to bartenders and servers that I have seen many times over the year and wanted to show a little extra appreciation. It's not about service it's about appreciating the people serving you.

hackama 5y ago
>I tip generously because in the US wait staff generally get way below minimum wage so you want to make them whole. Ironically, if you didn't tip then they would be made whole by the employer as they would be responsible for making up the difference.
- wombatmobile 5y ago
  Or else they might experience poverty and/or overwork.
  - kitkat_new 5y ago
    their employer wants you to think that - more money for them
    - wombatmobile 5y ago
      Just curious how you cogitate it?
      - kitkat_new 5y ago
        social pressure makes customers pay more money, same goes for prices that seem lower than they are (prices on menus); less taxes
        wombatmobile 5y ago
        How do you personally handle tipping, in a restaurant where you know the owner is paying $tiny/hr? What are the cognitive steps you go through to derive your tipping behaviour in each instance?
- WheatM 5y ago
- avianlyric 5y ago

blakesterz 5y ago

The answer given to the headline question in the article is... "The evidence is mixed—and the practice varies widely across the world" "Tipping also passes a chunk of risk from managers to servers, especially when between 20% and 60% of a waiter’s income may be in tips, as is often the case in America" That number seems low, or at least in my outdated experience, it's low. I spent most of the 90s working in restaurants and tips were probably 150% of my income. I was paid very little per hour, and made quite a bit in tips. I then had to claim tips, which was always a smaller number than I actually made. I was paid $3 something an hour, made like $50 an hour in tips, and claimed like $20 in tips. Maybe that's not how it works now?

menage 5y ago
I assume they mean 60% of total earnings, not 60% of base wages. Tips can't end up being more than 100% of total earnings.
- Enginerrrd 5y ago
  They can be more than 100% of claimed income though.
- hammock 5y ago
  Yes. In which case "150%" would be 60%. (150/(150+100) to save the readers the math)
patrick451 5y ago
What do you mean that tips were 150% of your income? If you made $50/hr, and $47 of that came from tips, then tips were 94% of your income, and the wage was 6%.
- Enginerrrd 5y ago
  It means he claimed $20 in income from tips, and pocketed the extra $30 in tips. You two are just using different definitions of "income".

m000 5y ago

> Perhaps they like to feel, as they step out for a meal, that they are in control. TL;DR: Tips are a power-trip for the plebs. A subtle way to make you feel important, and perhaps suppress social dissent.

boring_twenties 5y ago

Just anecdotes, but I've lived in the US pretty much my entire life, and I don't think I've ever had truly bad service here. Maybe five times ever it's been subpar enough to tip 15% instead of my usual 20%, but certainly never worse than that. Meanwhile, in the few months I've cumulatively spent in Europe, outside of Italy, almost all service was dramatically worse than this, and on quite a few occasions so bad I could probably make pretty good comedy sketches out of them. The only real exceptions have been family-run places and very expensive ones. In Italy on the other hand service has been as good as or even better than back home.

chrisseaton 5y ago
As a British person I can't even get a glass of water from US waiters! But what do you want from service? It's probably vastly different from what Europeans want from service. European service isn't 'bad' it's just not what you're used to. US service seems 'bad' to Europeans - it's intrusive, nosey, and rude to us.
- technothrasher 5y ago
  > As a British person I can't even get a glass of water from US waiters! Really? I'm curious what the breakdown is there. In most US restaurants you'll be asked almost immediately what you'd like to drink and then they typically keep it filled.
  - chrisseaton 5y ago
    It’s a joke - they never understand the pronunciation ‘water’ it baffles them - you have to put on an American accent and say ‘warder’ and then they understand.
wombatmobile 5y ago
Sounds like you are comparing the experiences of an American eating out in America with the experiences of an American dining in foreign countries. Some of your experiences were negative, and others positive. But none of your foreign data used a native diner, so, it’s difficult to correlate the results with the topic of this discussion, which is about the effect of tipping on service.

hammock 5y ago

There is another aspect of tipping that rarely gets discussed: they are a way to compensate for being a bad guest. I have heard from many servers that they will happily put up with a "bad table" if they know they are going to be tipped well at the end. So not to excuse bad behavior, but if you know you have been a difficult table, tipping process gives you a formal opportunity to atone.

mulmen 5y ago
I had to do this recently because of a now-ex-friend. He crashed an Omakase dinner six courses in, loudly demanded a menu and when he was refused tried to order a beer. The wait staff managed to get rid of him. As a party we tipped 100% and stopped returning his calls.
dfxm12 5y ago
How do they know how well they're going to be tipped at the end?
- musingsole 5y ago
  They don't know. But a culture of tipping leads the average server to have faith that such things will balance out in the end.
cronix 5y ago
That just sounds like a microcosm of society in general. If you have money to throw around, odds are you can get away with more.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
buscoquadnary 5y ago
I'll throw out I don't try to be a bad guess but occasionally very rarely my kids and I end up going to a place like IHOP or something and I often try and tip extra to compensate for being a "bad table" not because I was bad but events outside my control made the table bad and I want to make it better to the waiter.

throwawaysea 5y ago

If tips are a social default then how can they make better service? For them to serve as an incentive, there has to be an expectation that the top percentage will vary.

cryptoboid 5y ago

https://archive.md/pMrre https://archive.md/pMrre

DangitBobby 5y ago

> For all its drawbacks, Americans are keenest to retain the practice: in a survey 60% of them said they preferred tipping to a modest service charge. I would imagine people working for tips make up the majority of this number, because they understand how much better tips are for them than the alternative which is paltry wages. It's people who don't work for tips (especially those who mistakenly believe people don't like working for tips) who would seek to abolish the tipped wage.

seibelj 5y ago
Plus no one pays taxes on cash tips regardless of what the tax authorities say.
8n4vidtmkvmk 5y ago
i just realized that i get tips. when i complete a project at work, i usually get a small bonus

Ekaros 5y ago

If tips do improve service why aren't they for example used with judges, police officers, immigration and toll, tax officers and so on? Should everyone be ready to give bit to this poor people so they can provide more personal and better service?

jazzyjackson 5y ago
I suppose once you are improving the service of a government official we call it a bribe

egypturnash 5y ago

My experience is that tips certainly make for better repeat service. "Oh hey it's that nice lady comes in every week or two and always tips" gets a little extra something pretty regularly.

jimmyvalmer 5y ago

He tried handing punters a playing card Dunno why the author had to denigrate the diners like that.

reese_john 5y ago

Maybe a bit off-topic but, I feel like variable, merit-based compensation makes for a better service. I work in finance, although not in the US, end of the year bonuses more often than not effectively doubles your total comp, even for software engineers. Your bonus is, of course, very much tied to your performance reviews. This has created a certain type of "carrot-chasing" culture. Granted, sometimes it can be toxic and is not for everyone, but most of my co-workers are extremely hard-working, focused and willing to go out of their way to help you

halostatue 5y ago
Commissions for salespeople — the most studied example of "merit-based" compensation — don’t work. They’re _expected_, but they don’t produce the results expected. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-paying-sales-people-bad-business-jacques/ https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-paying-sales-people-bad-b... The other reality is that what you think is merit-based is…not. There are lots of studies showing that there’s substantial bias in pay against women and racialized minorities.

DavidWoof 5y ago

The cumulative effect of tipping shouldn't be ignored either. Individual tips may not incentivize a server to do a better job, but the cumulative effect of tipping makes restaurant server a fairly well-paying entry-level job that attracts a very wide talent pool.