Customers too lazy to mess around
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 — putting a couple of hundred-ruble bills on the table was much easier.
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 question is becoming relevant for tips.
“We are watching customers,” shared the waitress of 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. 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! There is 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.
< p>We don't see major changes. Most tip in cash anyway. By the way, someone just 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 the QR code is pre-configured for a certain amount, a percentage of the bill. 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 bill 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 he will not leave anything.
Observations of the waiters confirm that few 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 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 that delivery services use 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 just needs to click on the button.
According to one of the popular services for non-cash tips, 12.5% of the check is tipped online on average.