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Somehow the "tip culture" is spreading over here too, especially in touristy areas, even the POS terminals now ask you for a tip.
by ajsnigrutin 1mo ago
Somehow the "tip culture" is spreading over here too, especially in touristy areas, even the POS terminals now ask you for a tip.
- arjie 1mo agoInteresting. What POS terminals are common there? I am curious about culture spreading through technology defaults and wonder if it's effectively driven by whatever Square chose and whomever else decided to ape the incumbent or whatever.
- ajsnigrutin 1mo agoThere's a bunch of them, but the tip offers are usually on the newer touchscreen (probably android based) ones. The old ones (never seen the tip option on those... for now): https://www.simple-shop.si/en/pos-terminal-tcpip-en https://www.simple-shop.si/en/pos-terminal-tcpip-en and eg https://www.unicreditbank.si/si/podjetja/upravljanje-z-denarjem/pos-terminal.html#posterminal https://www.unicreditbank.si/si/podjetja/upravljanje-z-denar... The new ones: https://www.sumup.com/sl-si/karticni-citalec-terminal/ https://www.sumup.com/sl-si/karticni-citalec-terminal/ and https://besteron.com/si/pos-terminali/ https://besteron.com/si/pos-terminali/ (both support tips) + many other in similar designs (full front touchscreen) I don't think square supports slovenia for now, but POS vedors add the tip option, and our restaurant owners enable it, because it doesn't cost them anything, any many (especially foreign) guests "feel bad" for choosing the zero on the screen.
- arjie 1mo agoThank you.
- jorvi 1mo agoYou them everywhere. Most insane are the bars where you have to walk up from your seating to the bar to order, the bartender plops the drinks on the bar and immediately moves on to another customer, and the terminal still displays default tip amounts and you have to do custom → €0. What the hell am I tipping you for? At this point I'm waiting for supermarket self-checkout to add a default tip amount.
- Scaled 1mo agoSelf service checkout in some airport shops do have tip option already, unfortunately
- arjie 1mo agoHahaha, I was surprised by one of those in Newark/EWR. I can't believe it's real haha. Who gets the tip? I just tipped the self-service worker in cash ;)
- manarth 1mo agoI've seen this (UK), albeit "round up to £x.00 and donate the change to charity", which <supermarket> will use to announce "We've donated £X million to charity".
- GJim 1mo agoAh, the charity donations. Esso petrol stations routinely ask for this, and the staff member ALWAYS clicks the 'no' button before you can offer your card. Source: Somebody who drives around the UK a lot for work.
- manarth 1mo agoB&Q are on the naughty list too (and the cashier also frequently clicks the 'no' button).
- account42 1mo agoInterestingly I haven't seen the charity thing seen here in Germany for a while. I guess its because they all are asking if you have a customer loyalty card now (sometimes for both the chain-specific one and wider programs) and there is only so much they can ask for before the cost from lower throughput becomes significant.
- Symbiote 1mo agoIt's configurable on any terminal that supports it — obviously the terminal is designed so it can be used in a restaurant, or for paying in a shop, or paying a fee to the government. (To give an example of where even Americans don't tip.)
- yuye 1mo agoI'm not American, but from what I've heard about the wait times at the DMV, I'm sure many would love the option to tip 20% for faster service.
- account42 1mo agoThen they would be shortsighted because before no time you would need to tip 20% minimum to get even the quality of service you get now.
- arjie 1mo agoIt would be pretty neat to actually have the thing funded through a revenue neutral ticketing scheme. i.e. you just auction off tickets for 4 week blocks. That will allow people who are time-sensitive to appropriately select, and if you make more than you need you can just rebate participants proportional to their spend. Might be a pretty good way to allocate the scarce resource.
- yuye 1mo agoThe cynic in me would say that's just allowing market forces to set the price by supply/demand. But obviously, a government service should give fair and proper service to everyone.
- woadwarrior01 1mo agoIt's widespread here in Ireland. POS terminals have 5%, 10%, 15% and 20% tip options with a tiny and hard to reach dismiss button.
- GJim 1mo agoI doubt whoever thinks installing this US software on UK/Irish POS terminals has done their homework. Its simply one way to piss off the customers and embarrass the staff.
- yuye 1mo agoDismiss button? From what I've seen, it's a "Custom" button, where you then have to explicitly type in 0.
- account42 1mo agoJust walk away and dispute the charge if it ends up being higher than the menu price.
- mcv 1mo agoI often tip generously, but never when they start out expecting one. If the terminal asks for a tip, I don't tip.
- chung8123 1mo agoIt is because you are leaving money on the table if you don't ask for more money. The hyper maximizing money is what needs to stop.
- account42 1mo agoThe only way its going to stop is if there are consequences for asking too much.
- socalgal2 1mo agoBecause from the restaurant's POV it seems like free money. If no one tips, they perceive no harm. If someone tips, then free money. It's also more money to the company providing the payment system so they are incentivized to tell every restaurant to turn on tips. I hate it. I don't know how to fight it except to try to start a movement big enough that everyone who goes to such a restaurant gives it 1 star and not not return, until it becomes unacceptable for business to do it. Like many things that is unlikely to happen without some major awareness campaign.