The Psychology of Tipping
15 September 2005
I came across some interesting links via kottke.org on the subject of tipping that explain some of the psychology behind this unusual activity. Essentially, it seems that the size of the tip is based much more on how much the customer liked the server, than the actual quality of their service.
Tip percentages are only weakly related to customers’ ratings of service quality in restaurant settings. This finding suggests that restaurant tips are poor measures of customer satisfaction with service and that they provide weak incentives for delivering good service.
All this seems to contradict with the common belief that tipping is necessary to ensure a high quality of service. As this NY Times article suggests, perhaps it’s time for the US to do away with the current tipping system in favour of a flat service charge.
Of course all of this is largely irrelevant to me, as tips are few and far between in New Zealand. At work we joke that there is a sign at the airport that tells arriving passengers not to worry about tipping. Still, I downloaded Michael Lynn’s guide to getting bigger tips anyway. You never know…
