Tipping Ideas

While not every business allows tipping for their employees, many do, and if your business,especially in the US,involves food, most customers will expect to be able to tip their servers. Tipping, however, isn’t as common as it has been in the past, and if you are wondering what you can do to encourage tips from customers, here are some suggestions:

Offer Excellent Service:
Obviously, the best way to get a good tip is by doing a good job. Smile, greet the customer by name if they provide it and give them what they want in a timely fashion. No matter what out-of-the-box tip ideas you come up with, customers won’t give if the service is poor. Granted, some people will be rude anyway, and others won’t even think about it — that’s the tough part about working in the service industry — but being friendly and professional goes a long way.

Reward Tipping With Something:
The Cold Stone franchise is famous for their tipping policy. Every time someone puts a tip in the jar, the workers have to sing. They have a variety of short songs about ice cream written to the tune of another well-known song, and it’s not uncommon at all for customers to tip just to hear them sing. This also works well to keep customers entertained when the line to get ice cream is long and slow. Keeping your customers in a good mood right up until they pay makes it more likely they’ll offer you a tip of their own.

Tip to Vote:
A recent trend that has taken the service industry by storm is the “tip to vote” method. This involves putting two tip jars side by side on the counter with the cashier. Each tip jar is labeled with a choice, and by putting your money in one jar, you’re voting for that choice. The results from the previous day or week of voting are displayed next to the jar. This could be a long-debated question like Elvis vs. The Beatles, or it could be something customers will see the result of, like next month’s special coffee flavor or what artists should be added to the music rotation.

Ideas like these are just a starting point. Servers and other tipped employees can be creative and come up with ways to encourage people to tip. Not only will this improve the employees’ earnings and make them happier, but it may even draw other people to your business to see what tip-related idea you’re using this week!