Waiters busted by cashless tip service

If a couple of years ago most Muscovites tried to have at least some cash with them in order to leave tips in cafes and restaurants, now this problem seems to be solved – many establishments offer to leave non-cash tips using a QR code or a special terminal. It sounds convenient, but in practice the plan turned out to be flawed: according to the waiters, many customers are simply too lazy to mess around – it was much easier to put a couple of hundred-ruble bills on the table.

Muscovites, despite the crisis, do not refuse to visit cafes and restaurants – in most establishments in the evenings, full boarding, and you can’t take a table without a reservation. To the question “cash or card?” before paying the bill, everyone is already used to it, but now this issue is becoming relevant for tips as well.

“We are watching customers,” shared a waitress from one of the establishments on Bolotnaya Embankment. – You can often see how companies fuss: they say, people, who has how much cash, who can leave a tip? Already used to it. But when the QR code appeared, a new problem arose: people are too lazy to mess with it! I see: first they scan, they start to drive in information – and then they give up and leave! No time.

This happens when a QR code is not relevant for a banking application, but transfers to a site where you need to manually enter the card number – this is not the information that is remembered by heart. And of course, few people want to reach for a card at the end of dinner and carefully retype the data. Although the initial idea seemed convenient: they say that fewer people today carry enough cash with them, find themselves in an awkward situation when there are no small bills to leave for tips, but the QR code should solve these problems.

We don’t see major changes. Most tip in cash anyway. By the way, someone simply asks: can I transfer by phone number? This option is also popular. This is not necessarily the personal number of the waiter – in our bar, for example, there is a special number for tips. The main thing, of course, is that the client is comfortable, otherwise laziness prevents you from leaving money, – continues the interlocutor of MK.

There is another option – sometimes a QR code is pre-configured for a certain amount, a percentage of the invoice amount. Then the client is offered: do you want to keep 7%, 10% or 15%? It also sounds convenient, but many guests, according to the waiters, are confused by non-round amounts.

Although the rules of etiquette dictate that tips should be 10% of the bill, most Muscovites are not ready to calculate so meticulously. They usually leave the banknote that is at hand – 100-200 rubles after an order for a couple of thousand rubles, 500 rubles if they ate 5 thousand or more, well, 1000 rubles if it was a plentiful dinner for 10-15 thousand rubles . In any case, the amount of the tip is determined by the client himself.

There is an important psychological moment here. If, say, a 10% surcharge is included in the default service bill, the person may not notice it. Well, if he is offered to leave exactly 536 rubles in advance, for example, he may consider this an imperative, says psychologist Anastasia Aleksandrova. – Maybe he was counting on a small tip, 100 or 200 rubles, but a large amount was not included in his plans. This is a kind of trap, but it is inconvenient for the waiters: such a client could leave 200 rubles, but in the end will leave nothing.

Observations of waiters confirm that few people adhere to the 10% rule.

“One morning I was counting: which of the guests left how many tips? The numbers turned out to be very uneven: one table left 9%, another – 9.5, another – 15%, then – 7%, 13% … The maximum that morning was 30% of the bill – a young girl left. The minimum is only 5%, ”one of the experienced waiters, who maintains his own thematic blog, shares his observations.

Of course, a tip of 30% is an unheard of generosity, but the comments under the publication confirm that sometimes it is precisely the lack of small bills that turns into such generosity. One of the users of the social network, for example, told how she once put a thousand-ruble bill as a tip, although the bill was for 3,000 rubles. “It was a momentary weakness, of course, but I didn’t have smaller bills, and it seemed unacceptable to me to leave without a tip at that moment. It so happened that she had dinner alone on the eve of her birthday, the mood was appropriate, ”the girl explains.

The most elegant way out of the situation was in one of the bars on Krasnaya Presnya: next to the terminal for paying for the order, another one was installed – for tips. It already has several buttons: 50, 100 or 150 rubles. The gesture takes a couple of seconds: put the card – and voila! The option used by delivery services is also very popular – immediately after paying the bill, the terminal automatically offers to leave a tip, naming the options in rubles or as a percentage, and the client only has to press the button.

According to one popular non-cash tipping service, 12.5% ​​of a check is tipped online on average.

Published in the newspaper “Moskovsky Komsomolets” No. 28995 dated March 23, 2023

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Tea is not online!