People are being asked to tip in more places than ever, and the suggested amount has increased. And customers have noticed.
According to an annual survey, 41% of Americans say “tipping culture has gotten out of control.”
Rob Waiser is an associate professor of marketing at the University of Kansas, and co-authored an article in the Harvard Business Review, “When Tipping Becomes a Customer Experience Problem."
He said a mix of new technology adoption and COVID lifestyle changes — where customers began to order delivery for even more items, while more people took up gig work to make ends meet — are to blame for the expanding tipping practices.
“Categories that didn't used to be tipped categories become tipped categories because we're interacting with them differently,” Waiser said. “And I think maybe the biggest one is technology changes, right? So tip screens.”
Waiser said tipping should be based on three principles.
- Distinctiveness: a service element distinct from the product you’re already paying for
- Visibility: the ability to observe the service and its quality
- Proportionality: the ability to tip based on the service and its quality
“In a perfect world, we would have a system where people feel like… they can sort of increase or decrease their tips according to the service they received,” Waiser said.
“But in reality, the guilt, the sort of the way the system is structured, and the social pressure and so on, really takes away some of that proportionality.”
- Rob Waiser, assistant professor of marketing, University of Kansas
