Restaurant owners can help their staff earn more tips. Here’s how

What can you do to help your staff get more tips?

With bars and restaurants reopening, a growing number of Brits are eager to help out their waiters by leaving a tip.

Even though we’ve been ranked the second-Worst Tippers In the World by the Tipping Index in 2015, surveys show people across the UK are anywhere from 29% to 50% likely to leave a tip after eating out.

But tips in the UK are anything but mandatory: restaurant goers might need a little push to be persuaded to leave a gratuity to their waiters as a sign of appreciation.

You might think the percentage of tips is determined by the quality of service alone, so you leave it to your waiters to influence tipping behaviours. This is not exactly true: restaurant owners can do a lot to encourage customers to tip more.

Here at sunday, we help restaurants accept payments through QR codes, making their staff more efficient and their clients happier. And we’ve noticed something interesting when it comes to tipping: customers who use sunday to pay their bills tend to leave 40% more tips.

And it’s worth noting that this holds true even for restaurants that use sunday in France… Even though leaving tips is not usual in France (service charges are already included in most restaurant bills).

So how did we do it? Read on and find out.

Cashless tips?

With the number of cash transactions falling by a third in 2020, the UK is moving closer to being a cashless society. Unfortunately, a common misconception is that tips paid by cards will not go to the waiting staff: some UK restaurant-goers might feel uneasy leaving tips by card.

Does it mean that tipping is threatened by cashless payments? A new law passed in September is meant to give the public more clarity around the tipping process: restaurant owners are now banned from keeping service charges paid by credit card.

And we have great news for waiters everywhere: paying by credit cards has been shown to increase the amount of tips. Which means that every time your customers pull out a credit card instead of banknotes, they’re more likely to leave a generous tip.

Why? One explanation is that paying cash is a “painful” experience for customers: they see the amount they’re spending more clearly and have a harder time leaving cash money behind.

Plastic cards, on the other hand, reduce the “pain of paying”, as you’ve probably noticed if you’ve ever been caught in an online shopping spree. There are great days for tipping ahead!

Why help your staff get more tips?

You might be tempted to leave it up to your staff to increase their tips. As a restaurant owner, you can’t claim any part of the gratuity: the money your staff gets doesn’t influence your bottom line at all.

But the truth is, restaurant owners have a lot to gain by helping their team make more tips.

Tips are a good way to keep your staff motivated and satisfied without increasing wages. And employee satisfaction can go a long way: if they’re happy to work in your establishment, your best employees will stick with you.

You’ll be reducing turnover and making sure your waiters do their best. And the better they work, the more they’ll be tipped! It’s a virtuous circle.

The tip: a sign of customer satisfaction

You know that clients are more likely to tip when they’re happy. Theoretically, tips are a reflection of the quality of the service, but concretely, it’s hard to set this one factor apart from the rest of the customer experience.

If a diner is having a good time overall, if they’re happy with the atmosphere, the music, the cooking (or even the company, yes, you can’t do much about this but this is how things work), they’ll be in a better mood and more inclined to leave generous tips.

So the first step to increasing tips is to work on customer satisfaction by making your customers’ lives easier (by accepting payments through innovative methods for instance).

Here at sunday, we think that QR code payment can also make the lives of restaurant owners easier, but it helps out customers too: they don’t have to wait for the bill, to split it among each other, to get their credit card out, etc. They’re happier and show it by leaving more tips.

Suggest And Encourage: The Nudge Technique

You might not know it, but nudging is a hot topic in the world of behavioural economics. You’ve probably already felt the effect of this powerful psychological tool and modified some of your behaviours: you might’ve signed up for travel insurance because the option was offered to you in the booking process.

You’ve been exercising more since you live closer to your gym. Or maybe you’ve used the nudge technique yourself to influence the behaviours of those around you: in your kitchen, you make sure fruit is more accessible than biscuits, to entice your kids to have a healthy snack whenever they come looking for food…

The nudge technique is more and more appealing for marketing professionals: it’s subtler than traditional advertising, and it allows them to influence behaviours by changing people’s perspective and by removing obstacles between individuals and the desired outcome. In other words, by building a “path of least resistance”.

The Technique of the Full Tip Jar

The nudge technique is more efficient when people are under the impression that they are conforming to a social norm.

This is the reasoning behind the technique of the “full tip jar”: some baristas routinely fill their tip jars with bills to give their customers the impression that all other patrons tip, too.

It’s a subtle way to build social pressure, but it works: customers are more likely to add money to a full tip jar, as they’re reminded that they should tip. Certain payment apps that suggest tipping whenever a customer pays the check can have a similar effect.

The Path of Least Resistance

The second step for nudge techniques to work: eliminating obstacles. In other words, making tipping easier! When you know that most restaurant customers are now paying through cashless techniques, tipping methods should follow.

Rather than looking for change in their coats and their wallets, customers will just have to press on “yes” to leave a tip.

Research also shows that when they’re presented with several options for leaving tip percentage, customers tend to leave higher tips. Here at sunday, we knew we had to incorporate tipping into our restaurant payment method.

We’ve made it easier for customers to tip. And we were right! Our partner establishments get 40% more tips, their staff is happier, they’re more loyal to their restaurant, and they do their best to keep customers happy!