Tipping is dead.
At least tipping, as you and I understand. A mandatory 20% tip on all restaurant meals? Must-have tips for housekeepers, concierges and tour guides? Kiss them goodbye.
And if you want to know why, just ask Gerri Hether.
Like many Americans, she is tired of the attitude that all service providers are entitled to a tip. She was exasperated by point-of-sale terminals that requested tips before even serving her food. But the last straw was when restaurants started adding automatic gratuities to their bills for their “convenience.”
“I don’t tip anymore,” said Hether, a retired nurse from Mesa, Arizona.
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Americans are known for their generosity and willingness to tip for good service. But a recent USA TODAY Blueprint survey revealed that 63% of respondents say too many companies are asking for tips and 48% are tired of being asked for gratuities.
Nearly as many Americans (62%) in another survey said they wouldn’t give holiday tips to service providers, according to digital personal finance company Achieve. The reason? Tip fatigue.
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Why Americans are fed up with tipping
A growing number of Americans believe tipping expectations are unfair, said Carla Bevins, a business management communications expert at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business. And this has led to a change in public attitudes towards gratuities.
“The impetus behind the ban-tipping movement stems from growing scrutiny over the fairness and necessity of traditional tipping practices,” she explained.
Hearing people like Ian Duncan talk about this is a reaction to the widespread attitude of entitlement in the hospitality industry. There are tip jars in coffee shops, laundromats and supermarkets. It’s having to pay a tip before you even receive a meal or service.
Duncan, a small business owner from Toronto, recently booked a cruise. However, when he received his invoice several weeks before his departure, the cruise line had added more than $200 in automatic gratuities to his account.
“That worked for me,” he said. “I canceled the trip and asked for my deposit back.”
Duncan said he wants to decide who and when to tip — or whether to tip at all — and resents it when a business assumes he is entitled to a tip. He also doubts employees will receive any automatic bonuses added to their account, which is a valid concern.
Even etiquette experts say it’s time to talk about tipping.
“Tips evolve over time, and it’s time to review the legal and social norms around how employees are paid,” said Jodi RR Smith, etiquette expert at Mannersmith Etiquette Consulting. “Expecting individual consumers to tip generously at every turn is not a long-term plan for economic success.”
Even service providers agree it went too far
Even those who rely on tips understand that things have gone too far. Mike Aguirre, a blues guitarist who performs in the Caribbean, blames new terminals that try to extract tips from customers before they receive their meal.
“Leaving a tip before receiving your order seems premature – no service has been provided yet, but there is a palpable element of guilt involved,” he said.
It gets worse, actually. In some places abroad, restaurant waiters come to your table with a portable payment system and ask you to enter a tip while they watch. Talk about pressure!
But people like Aguirre will likely suffer because of the understandable backlash. Many workers in the service sector have come to rely on bonuses to make a living. Squeezing a tip out of a customer before the meal is served or under the waiter’s watchful eye is hardly the employee’s fault. However, employees are likely to pay for these misguided policies.
Even etiquette experts limited their tips. Etiquette consultant Rachel Wagner said she no longer tips at self-service hotel cafes (even when there is a tip jar), at restaurants where you order at the counter and at airport food kiosks.
“When the terminal shows me the tip options, I choose ‘no tip,’” she said.
She calls this type of tipping “entitlement” and isn’t worried about the service provider’s reaction.
“All this person did for me was take my money and put my items in a bag,” she said. “No need to tip!”
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How to avoid tipping
The fact is that most service providers continue to rely on tips and many believe that you should always leave a tip. But there are ways to get around this unspoken obligation.
- Go to a business that doesn’t tip. Some hotels and restaurants advertise themselves as “no tipping.” The easiest way to avoid a tip – and to encourage other companies to adopt sensible tipping policies – is to give these companies your business. Dine at Thattu in Chicago, an Indian restaurant that pays its waiters a competitive salary and doesn’t ask for tips. Or Casa Bonita, the Mexican restaurant in Lakewood, Colorado, that doesn’t accept tips.
- Get takeout. No reasonable person would expect you to tip the restaurant employee when ordering food. So one way to avoid leaving a tip is to take your next meal to the restaurant.
- Refuse to tip. You can also send a message to a company about tips by placing a zero in the tip line. Hether, the retired nurse who stopped tipping, said the response from service providers has been to fire them. It seems like they know the system is broken, but they don’t know how to fix it.
The future: Rewards based on good service
When it comes to tipping, the future may look a lot like the past. Travelers say they don’t think it’s fair to subsidize a service provider’s salary with a mandatory bonus. But they like the traditional idea of offering a service provider a little more for exceptional service.
Hether said she is still open to rewarding good customer service with a bonus. But she will never shell out more than 20% of her bill again out of a sense of obligation.
“Tips should be based on exceptional service,” she said. “It’s not a right.”
Christopher Elliott is an author, consumer advocate and journalist. He founded Elliott Advocacy, a nonprofit organization that helps solve consumer problems. He publishes Elliott Confidential, a travel newsletter, and the Elliott Report, a customer service news site. If you need help with a consumer issue, you can contact him here or email chris@elliott.org.
