‘Zero tip’ for you: Americans get candid about tipping wait staff in new survey
They’re tipped off.
A new survey has found a majority of Americans — who’ve been pushing back on the pressures of so-called “guilt tipping” — said they wouldn’t pay anything forward if faced with shoddy service.
Fifty-one percent of respondents to a YouGov poll said they would “leave zero tip after receiving bad service.”
This comes as a majority of people have spoken out on being nudged to tip for almost every single service they use, even automated ones. A whopping 75% of Americans have expressed ire over credit card machines and tablets prompting tips so often, another survey showed.
That data found that tips are given 65% of the time in those instances to simply avoid an uncomfortable interaction while standing eye-to-eye with a service worker.
Guilt or no guilt, though, the tips are getting smaller, according to the Pew Research Center.
Last November, the organization found that 57% of diners were tipping 15% or less on their meals — much lower than the socially acceptable 20% threshold.
However, despite the current overtipping climate, Lizzie Post, co-president of the Emily Post Institute and the great-great-granddaughter of its well-known namesake socialite, says not leaving anything behind at a sit-down restaurant is never the way to go.
“It’s a part of the bargain, a part of the game,” Post recently told the Washington Post.
“When you walk into a sit-down service restaurant — where you place an order with a server, they go and deal with it, they bring you food, they take that food away — that in our minds is non-negotiable. You leave a tip no matter what, even if it was the worst service you’ve ever had in your life.”
Instead, she urges irked customers to speak with managerial staff about issues they’ve faced.
“You might learn a couple things as to why things were that bad, and that restaurant probably should have alerted folks to say, ‘Hey, we’re down a chef tonight. Things are going to be a little slow,’” she added.
“I think it’s really important to go and talk about the problem, if the problem was so bad that you don’t want to hold up your end of the bargain.”
The YouGov research also found that 51% Americans over the age of 45 are clamping down on the concept of only offering communal seating.
Dynamic pricing, an in-demand price-gouging ploy being tested by eateries and businesses across the nation, was also shunned by 71% of restaurant regulars who eat out at least once a month.
