Tipping has a powerful advantage: it aligns the incentives of customers and servers almost perfectly. Because tips aren’t capped, waiters are motivated to go above and beyond to satisfy each guest. Without tipping, the server’s motivation often drops to providing only adequate service—more in line with the restaurant’s interests than with each individual diner’s needs.
You can see this difference in customer experience worldwide. Nowhere delivers consistently attentive service quite like the US. By contrast, many European countries, especially those where tipping is uncommon (such as the Netherlands), often provide service that feels efficient but impersonal.
That might make sense... until they ask you to tip before you receive the service! When I order a coffee at a small shop, and the card terminal asks me to select a tip (displaying the default choice of 20% centered and in bold), how am I supposed to know whether the coffee will be good or not? As a regular customer, sure, you'll have an idea of what the general level of service at this place is like. But the expectation these days is to always tip, even if I've never been there before and I have no way of accurately judging the quality.
I never tip before receiving the service. Always hit zero. It feels a bit weird to begin with but you get used to it and i've not been treated any differently. A tip is generally not required for coffee or to-go/counter service.
That's anectdotal. There is literally zero alignment or correlation between tipping and good service.
You want to have a stress free experience the waiters tries to upsell you at every corner.
If you mistake upselling for attention then you're part of the tipping complex already.
Good service comes from good training and experience not the assumed money left over in your wallet. That's the businesses goal of not leaving any money on the table. So the alignment is between the business owner and the employee if anything, not between employee and customer.
I would make an exception for bars, but that's about it.
>That's anectdotal. There is literally zero alignment or correlation between tipping and good service.
The correlation is simple. The better the perceived service from the customer, the bigger the tip is.
>You want to have a stress free experience the waiters tries to upsell you at every corner.
In the vast majority of restaurants the server has little interest in upselling you. The exception is, perhaps, at a place with an expensive wine list (and regardless of tipping, businesses will be looking to upsell that wine list).
>Good service comes from good training and experience not the assumed money left over in your wallet.
Speaking as someone with industry experience, this is honestly just funny to read.
Training? For a server? Lol!
These are by and large scrappy people (and I say this lovingly). Lots of cursing, dubious substances, people working hella long hours in other jobs, people who are just planning on working for a few weeks and then leaving, etc. Yet when a big table comes in, they button up and act perfectly, despite cursing about the customers in the back, and the incentive is not "up selling" (servers care about seat count and nothing else - that's how the hierarchy of the seating pecking order is structured) it's about tip money.
Good service doesn't come from experience either. The newest servers will basically give the best service (they're nice to everyone), while often the most experienced servers are the most jaded and cranky. It's a rough job to be part of long term and it breaks you down a bit.
Also, regulars who tip well are truly appreciated by the service staff, and the staff really does go out of their way to make sure they get good service. This is because of the steady, predictable income stream. I don't know what to tell you other than, yes, the tip money absolutely does play a large part in the customer experience, and there is a correlation.
> Nowhere delivers consistently attentive service quite like the US.
I have found this to be true in pretty much all interactions (on average), regardless of whether the person is on a tipped wage.
Americans value salesmanship and customer service in ways that few other countries I've been to do. They market better, they sell better, they make customers feel better, in pretty much all types of businesses.
Source: someone who's lived in three major US metropolitan areas, and two in the EU.
Here the other thing - sometimes I don't want extra service, I just want my food and that's it. But the waiter will try really hard to impress me with something I don't want.
Then I'm the bad guy for refusing to pay for something I didn't want in the first place.
No. You still have the right to not tip.
Personally, I could do without hyper-attentive wait staff.
Dining out in Italy is phenomenal for many reasons, a laid back serving culture is just one of them.
As a Dutch person I despise fake smiles and servile attitude.Especially when it is bought with money.
In US I got exaggerated smiles with *winks* from waitresses. No, they were not genuinely flirting with me.
> Because tips aren’t capped, waiters are motivated to go above and beyond to satisfy each guest. Without tipping, the server’s motivation often drops to providing only adequate service—more in line with the restaurant’s interests than with each individual diner’s needs.
Do people tip their accountants? Their nurses and doctors? Their dentist? Their mechanic? The cashier at the grocery store? The clerk at the shoe store who fetches the shoe in the size/colour I want?
Perhaps people should just do their jobs properly because that is what they're paid to do. And if they're not doing their jobs such that the restaurant/business suffers in its reputable they get fired and replaced by someone who will. (Kind of like how I have to do the job I'm paid to in IT or the company will act accordingly if I do not.)
No, but if you gave these people extra $ to pay attention to you - on average, they would.
Before my Lyft trip to the airport I got a notification from the app: “Add a tip before your ride.
Make your driver’s day, they’ll see your tip before they accept your ride”
It's getting harder to get the drivers to accept rides in some situations. Recently, I watched some Uber driver accept my ride and then drag their heels to pick me up in the hope that I would cancel. They didn't like my destination.
This reminds me of the old Soviet union where the rates were fixed by some central committee. In order to get a cab to pick you up, you would hold up fingers that represented how much extra you would tip. The more fingers, the more likely the drivers would actually stop.
Does Japan have a strong tipping culture ?
If you consider strong tipping culture to mean "severely insulted", then yes!
Good to know.
But why exactly ?
I believe it's because tipping implies they need a money incentive to do a good job. Essentially insulting their professionalism.
What you’re describing is how it _should_ work. Instead every server feels entitled to 20% regardless of how bad their service is and it is frequently atrocious.
Besides, I’d rather have efficient and impersonal than (at best) fake nice.
Living in rural Spain service is chill. Am used to it by now. Went to an upmarket restaurant in France other day and it took me ages to realise the waiter was vibing me the whole meal for a tip. Such a weird transactional space. Person literally smiling and being agreeable for money. Insane.
>Person literally smiling and being agreeable for money. Insane.
And you think other hourly service workers aren't being that way to some degree? Lol.
> And you think other hourly service workers aren't being that way to some degree? Lol.
Like plumbers, electricians, mechanics, carpenters/framers?
“Insane” is probably a bit strong
> Nowhere delivers consistently attentive service quite like the US.
This paragraph reads like it was written by someone who’s never been to planet earth but has diligently read documentation on how it works.
FWIW, it matches my experience in the three countries I've lived in and the dozen others I've traveled to.
Or it just matches your own cultural preference.
I personally _hate_ American service with passion.
I prefer to be left alone most of the time in restaurants or not being talked to like the best friend I haven’t seen from the high school.
I also have an expectation that the waiter is not in a desperate position to rely on a tip for their living and is fairly compensated by their base salary.
No, it matches my experience.
My preference isn't necessarily for American-style service, that's just an assumption you'd be making with zero information.