How Mobile Apps are Affecting the Income of Employees?

Dubai; The Smart City of the Future

Nowadays, living in Dubai has become a very exciting prospect as we get to witness how it is becoming one of the world’s first smart cities. Almost every government authority in Dubai is already on the App Store, providing many services through Mobile Apps — at the click of a button. Any and all services;you name it! Be it the telecom, tourism, education, public safety, healthcare or transportation industry; most of them have taken to the internet to provide better services to the increasingly tech-savvy population. This has made the lives of locals and residents simpler as it offers them convenience through the effective utilization of technology.

So, it is safe to say that brands in Dubai are “smart-challenged”. All of them want to be online and provide their services on mobiles apps to make it easier for their clients to reach out to them and provide them with business.

They all want a piece of the pie so to speak! Each and every process has become automated and as a result, has become more streamlined and organized.

Don’t get the time to pay your bills? Use mPay to rid yourself of any outstanding payments in a heartbeat. Want to book tickets to go watch the latest blockbuster with your family and friends? Use the Reel Cinemas or VOX Cinemas apps to do that while in your office or in the comfort of your home. Don’t feel like going out to eat? Use Zomato to make your favorite food come to you. Find grocery shopping to be a burden? Now you won’t because the El Grocer app will do it for you while you spend quality time over the weekend, doing the things that you love to do. Oh, and the latest one! Now, you don’t even have to take out cash or your credit card at the petrol station. All you have to do is use Beam Wallet’s ‘Pay Cool. Stay Cool’ and voila! No need to shout out your credit card pin for all to hear!

The Problem

However, it doesn’t take long for things to go south. Most businesses fail to understand that the lack of a single feature in their mobile apps might hurt them in the long run, that is the option to tip the service representative.

This is only relevant to the brand apps (which provide services) in comparison to the government apps, which have no need to add such a feature. In my previous article titled “This is your Most Important Client”, I discussed that your employees are your most loyal clients, primarily because they know your business inside out and they are always trying to make the company achieve better results. Therefore, you should always motivate them and take significant steps to reward their efforts. When their efforts are not rewarded, they get de-motivated and stop performing well. This may lead to a poor service delivery and ultimately result in different sorts of problems.

Some of your employees, especially waiters, delivery men, handymen (plumbers, painters and technicians) are poorly paid. The fact that they don’t complain is largely because they manage to earn a fair bit in the form of tips while servicing clients for the company. Now, with all brands becoming “smart” and depending on apps to provide their services, they should keep in mind that consumers are no longer giving tips; or not as much as they used to before the availability of this facility.

I, myself, have recently noticed that I’m no longer tipping my taxi driver because I’m ordering a driver through Uber or Careem and I’m paying for their services through the apps. The same thing applies to when I’m ordering grocery, food or even a plumber or a technician. We, the consumers, are becoming increasingly dependent on our apps to pay for the services we require; so much that we rarely have cash on us to tip the employee of the company for the services we are getting.

The Solution

Now that this issue has been brought to light, I strongly urge brands and platform providers to find a solution to this problem. A possible one could be to add an option within the mobile apps (maybe a ‘Tip’ tab) where consumers/users at least have the option to tip and add the amount they want to tip before the payment is processed. Brands and services could even add a default option on checkout (a tip amounting to 5%-10% of the amount of the order or maybe a certain amount of money) that will be given as tip to the driver, handyman, delivery man or any other service representative.