Should Restaurants Do Away With Tipping?
Its early morning in New York, I don’t like the crowd. So you get my pain when I say it’s hard for me. Beyond this city’s buzzing, is my sanctuary, a low-key coffee shop. This place is ornamented with “fast, free internet access, organic oatmeal cookies, soy shakes and really good tea” as Seth Godin, a big fan of the place recalls in his extraordinary book — All Marketers Are Liars.
The Soy Luck Club is so low-key; many people pass by and don’t even notice. Now the people that do notice, and make the mistake of trying out the place have not ceased coming, they have caught unto to something. They have seen that the place is “their sort of place”. And they wouldn’t mind paying more for service at this small but alluring place. The Soy Luck Club has a story.
The said people that come in and are enthralled were not converted, or stupefied by this unique business from ground-up, rather they had their expectations met. They had been in a hibernating mode waiting for the right restaurant or the right coffee shop to do the right thing. So it was not, ever a matter of the price. It was about the story, and that low-key coffee shop had a damn good one.
What Do You Mean By Stories?
Stories are the type of feeling, satisfaction, extravagant promises told and met, when a customer uses your product. When a customer uses your product what unique way do you make him feel for Nike, it’s easy to answer, the wearers feel cool, friends will “feel” your new Jordans and you are on top of the world, satisfaction and meeting expectations; there is this delivery service that delivers my food in 30 minutes from ordering time and I think that feeling of being sure that it will take only 30 mins, or less not 31 mins, 35 mins is bliss. It is meeting my pretty high expectations.
Fedex — Delivery in 24 hrs.
Forky — Food Delivery in 30 mins (Link here) by Michalis Gkontas
Amazon Prime — Amazon Free Delivery
Domino Pizza — Pizza Delivery in 30 mins or a Free Pizza
What all these companies have in common is a story, not just stories, but stories with expectations to be met, Therefore for a story to be thorough, for it to be whole it require two ingredients;
1. An extravagant /high promises to the customer
2. A product or service that meets that promise
Why Don’t We Tip Air Hostesses?
I want to divert a little and try to resolve the fuss about tipping hostesses. We use hotels, patronize taxi drivers, and in fact indulge the waitresses of our favorite restaurants. But when it comes to Flight attendants we snub them, it’s either you have thought of this and didn’t know to do in similar situation or you have never thought about it (since you are reading this you are not so innocent anymore).
Stephen Dubner co-author of Freakonomics and SuperFreakonomics tried anyway and his effort in trying to tip a flight attendant ended up being an embarrassment, the flight attendant didn’t take it well, she even said something along the lines of “I am a flight attendant, not a waitress!” And that dear reader is why we don’t tip them, our answer lies within the pained sentence of that flight attendant.
Flight attendants have told themselves a story or maybe even the companies employing them have, and now they believe it, they bought into it. Now it is more like a culture for flight attendants. There is no “rationalizing” tipping a flight attendant, the same way there is no rationalizing many of the products we consume, it’s already a culture.
Should Everyone Have A Voice?
We have agreed on a lot since the beginning of this article, but this is the most controversial topic yet, because it goes against the common sense that everyone can have a share of success, there is a kind of thinking that says, for a group of people to be successful in an economy, then a group of people have to be taken from, that is, some people have to get poor for others to get rich, in relation to our restaurant economics, the statement will go like this, for some restaurants to be successful some restaurants will have to lose customers and then eventually lose on every side. So a firm believer or someone who is inclined to think that theory is true will ask, “If every restaurant starts having stories who will win, who will lose?” So should every restaurant have a story? Well yes.
If everyone has a story then they would have the little but dedicated audience needed to make them successful enough. Now as a business owner, a CEO or a restaurant owner there should be a successful enough. The problem with that question is the kind of thinking that creates such, the answer doesn’t necessarily matter, it doesn’t change a thing, so here is it, if you were to meet a business veteran (for me, anyone who has run his business for two decades, has seen businesses come and go, still remaining successful and loyal to his audience) he will tell you that the “story” is just a part, it’s a fundamental part, but I promise he won’t forget to tell you this too that “there are so many problems that can make a business fail too”. Asking that question only suggests that you are choosing to turn a blind eye to the other important parts of a business. For me I’d like to see innovative stories and new companies spring up and take their places.
Conclusion
And this is to answer the mother question, Should restaurants do away with tipping? Answer is yes, what if you can calculate, predict and add up the highest possible tipping into the price of your product or service and ask for a premium price, you have the audacity to do this because you have a told a good story and have met up to that story, enthralling your client. I know not many times are we enthralled by products, but do we remember when email first came out or now when you can get food delivery in like some minutes, or when new apps enchant us with their awesomeness, there will always be remarkable products and we are usually willing to pay the price. Even if it means waitresses will soon have flight attendant attitude.
