Ken and ucb have covered it. If the kitchen is having issues, communicate that to the customer. They'll give you a break on that more than they wouldn't. If the customer doesn't know why the food is late, your tip will suffer.
I'm confused here, it appears your thinking is all backwards. Tipping a flat percentage provides incentive to push volume. Tipping based on quality of service provides incentive for quality of service rather then volume.
My personal tipping strategy is minimum 15% rounded up to the nearest 5$ as I dislike carrying pocket change. Of course this is also dependent on my ability to do math if I've had more then a couple drinks but I usually aim for the high side.
As for the particular bill, if they did wait a hour after ordering their food that is pretty egregious. I was out for dinner and drinks a few weeks ago with a friend of mine, and the food was taking a really long time, after about 25 minutes the waitress came around and said she just checked and it would be about 2 more minutes. Well it took about 20 more minutes after that, when she brought the food to the table she apologized and said she talked to the manager about it and they comped the appies. That's quality service, honestly we didn't care that thing were running slow because we were just there to chill and hang out but it was nice to see the management took care of both their staff and customers.
I know if I was out for dinner with a group of friends and we had plans after I'd probably be a little irked if we waited an hour for our food to get out. Not stiff the waitress on the tip irked, but probably not go back to the restaurant again.
You can't tell when you seat a table if they will be a good or a bad tipper. The quality of service has very little effect on the size of a tip. If you serve four tables an hour and could instead serve 5 you can get 20% less tip and still break even. So in general provided you can maintain adequate but not exceptional service you are better off pushing tables through and stealing tables from coworkers. It also incentivises stupid things like low cut shirts, touching the arm of the person paying the bill, a smiley face on the bill.
Tipping based on quality doesn't work as the things people blame on the server are rarely in their control. I agree that a server handling the situation well deserves the same tip but most people do not tip like that.
My flat rate tipping is because I don't want to participate in the tipping game anymore. The real solution is for tipping as a practice to end.
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It takes really bad service for me to not tip 15%. If paying in cash, usually I tip 15% and round up to the nearest $1, 2 or 5. If paying by card, I just choose 15%.
Of course, if a server complains about their tip as we are providing it, which has actually happened on a few occasions, I immediately retract any tip and give a $0.
Ken and ucb have covered it. If the kitchen is having issues, communicate that to the customer. They'll give you a break on that more than they wouldn't. If the customer doesn't know why the food is late, your tip will suffer.
Exactly. Even lie to me, I dont care, just tell me something!
I am the most laid-back customer ever, but if you go out with people who arent its uncomfortable when you're waiting for your food and your company is getting angry.
Come to the table, tell us that the cook is behind a little bit because after fending off the alien invasion and saving the world hes had to fight off gremlins who were overcooking the steaks and hes had to start all over again. Fine. No problem.
But otherwise you get people who are going to bitch and moan and being with them as they're bitching and moaning sucks. Tell us something. Anything. I literally dont care what.
Maybe comp them a drink or something for the wait. But some communication is better than ignoring the table because you know they're going to be pissed because they're waiting.
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I recently went to a restaurant in a party of 6. The receipt had just the food and drinks on it, but the waitress added 15% as the base price on the Visa machine. Fortunately she let me know, otherwise I could have added 15% on top of 15%. Seemed odd to me and a little bit sketchy, but I was about to add 18% as the tip, so it ended up being her loss.
I took the family to Frogurt the other day, where you go serve yourself, and bring it to the cashier to pay - there is literally no service than any employee does. However, a tip option comes up on the machine. Why in the world would I tip for that?
I took the family to Frogurt the other day, where you go serve yourself, and bring it to the cashier to pay - there is literally no service than any employee does. However, a tip option comes up on the machine. Why in the world would I tip for that?
Do the toppings contain Potassium Benzoate?
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this is completely asinine and ######ed. why is the % going up? a flat rate going up with inflation and what not is understandable. raising the % makes no sense at all.
^Exactly. I do not get it. Unless base wage is going down vs inflation. But it isn't - it's going up.
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I usually tip between 15-20% based on quality of service and attention paid, if I'm in a restaurant and all you do is take my order and then pick up plates your getting 15, if you continually coming by and checking we're satisfied customers (actually doing your job) I'll tip more. We were at moxies last night and they server we had was just in training but he did such a great job and was really engaging to our kids I tipped him 25%
I tip 15% to 23%. I think this number changed since last I spoke about my tipping habits...
In my opinion, if you want to talk crap about a place to others/friends, you aren't allowed that right if you didn't tip. If you want to complain to management, I think you're on much steadier ground if you put in 15%.
I also "flat rate tip" certain things. Delivery of an appliance is $20 per unit, $30 if it's a heavier one. (Most times, these guys are surprised they get anything at all). A buck or two a day for hotel rooms when I travel. (Again, most times, these people are surprised they get anything at all. If you leave cash on a table, it gets organized a lot. Often, a note HAS to be written before cash is taken)
I have never zero tipped, but mulling towards maybe a $2 policy if service is bad enough to invoke it. "Leave a deuce" sort of thing. But this only works if you leave quietly. To invoke this, I think the server would have to be insanely bad. I have tipped up to 50% on meals that the server completely screwed up and gave us free food/drink. (Which is still less than cost of food without being tipped: ie: $10 on a 20 buck order but received like $15 in free food).
