A new kind of rage in hospitality
Those of us, who drive a vehicle or ride a bike, have at some time or another, succumbed to road rage in some form or another. This could include expressing anger at a fellow road user by sounding the horn or yelling, gesticulating excessively to tailgating or dangerously overtaking to going the extreme - physical confrontation. Mostly though, we deal with our anger in a constructive way, so that it doesn’t turn into aggression, thus putting oneself, passengers and fellow drivers at higher risk. Road rage is something then that nearly everyone understands.
There is however, more recently a different type of rage that is emerging and surprisingly it is occurring in the world of hospitality. In the US, the debate “to tip or not to tip” appears to have taken a new turn…perhaps for the worse, leaving some customers furious with some of the practices put into place to enforce customers to leave a tip. One might well ask “how did this come to pass?”
Since of late, many Americans have begun to stop tipping. This has led to cafes, restaurants and hotels in the US to adopt wily methods to forcefully extract tips. For example, some payment terminals are holding customers to ransom by demanding a 30 percent tip before you get a takeout meal. Thankfully, no one has yanked a payment terminal out of the wall and thrown it at serving staff – not yet!
One customer called it a day, when the operator of the coffee shop, she frequented blocked the “no tip” option on the payment terminal, requiring her to leave a gratuity before they served her coffee. Talk about rewarding loyalty. To cut out the unreasonable demand for tipping, she now makes her coffee at home or seeks out other venues that do not resort to ways of extorting a tip or gratuity.
The President of an accounting firm in New York was astonished to see a tipping option after booking an airfare online. He required no help from any person. The site presented the option of a $1, $6 or $9 gratuity – which is also mystifying. Is the $1 gratuity applicable for an online booking that is easy and straight forward to navigate and the $6 and $9 options applied for those who struggle to overcome the bottlenecks and obstacles thrown at them, by the system at different levels, when making the online booking?
What on earth are we coming to? There seem to be more situations than there used to be where customers are expected to tip. The day convenience stores, supermarkets and perhaps even funeral directors, who designate pall-bearers, begin to ask for a gratuity doesn’t look to be far away. Getting hit around for tips all the time and in unreasonable circumstances is maddening Surely that’s going to the tipping point where one might be forgiven when surrendering to tip rage.
In my book, leaving a tip or gratuity should be done when receiving service that goes beyond ‘good’ and because one wants to. No one should be forced to leave a tip or gratuity because they have to. Honestly, if I’m quoted a price, it should carry every cost including labour, that’s exactly what I should pay – nothing more nothing less and, period. I resent the fact that customers are expected to carry a further burden of topping the salaries of under-paid staff. Nor will I feel guilty about not doing it…especially when I receive shoddy service.
Ilzaf Keefahs is a freelance writer who enjoys focusing on hospitality related matters that he is passionate about, and likes to share his views with hoteliers and customers alike. He delves into the heart of hospitality to figure out both customer service and consumer trends that impact the industry
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