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Weekly UpdatesAlthough many limited tests have indicated that certain actions increase servers' tips, the concept needed to be tested in a relatively large and heterogeneous sample. This study, which drew more than one thousand restaurant employees to participate in an internet-based survey, represents such a test. All thirteen of the tested actions affected tips, but certain actions seemed to be more effective than others, depending on the server and the restaurant. The most experienced servers focused on the following four actions: call the customer by name, upsell, tell jokes or stories to customers, and squat next to the table. While these tip-enhancing techniques seemed to be effective in upscale restaurants, certain actions were rarely reported by participants in the study.
In a 1996 article in Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly, Michael Lynn introduced the idea that restaurant managers could increase their servers' tips, and thereby reduce turnover, by training the servers to engage in one or more of seven tip-enhancing behaviors. Since then, the list of tip-enhancing behaviors has expanded, and a manual was produced to help managers train their servers in the use of these techniques. However, empirical support for the effectiveness of these behaviors rests on only a few studies that typically involve only one or two servers at a single restaurant. This study involves an internet survey of 1,066 restaurant servers from across the United States. Results indicate that servers who more frequently engage in the tip-enhancing behaviors report larger tips relative to those of coworkers. These findings support the effectiveness of the behaviors at increasing tips for a variety of different servers working at many different restaurants. Thus, restaurant managers are encouraged to train their servers to engage in these behaviors.
Keywords: restaurant management; human resources; tipping
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Employee retention is a major concern in the restaurant industry. According to a leading restaurant news publication, People Report, the average turnover rate among hourly restaurant employees was greater than 107 percent in 2006, based on data collected from one hundred companies that operate more than eleven thousand restaurants with overall sales exceeding $42 billion. Put into perspective, at this rate, this particular group of companies will likely need to replace more than seven hundred thousand employees and nearly fifteen thousand managers at a cost that exceeds $1.8 billion (Berta 2006). Coauthor Michael Lynn (1996, 2003, 2005) has argued that one way restaurant managers can reduce turnover among their wait staff is by increasing their servers' tip incomes. This suggestion is consistent with academic hospitality research supporting the important role of compensation in employee motivation and retention (e.g., Boles, Ross, and Johnson 1995; Lynn 2002; Simons and Enz 1995). It is also consistent with studies finding that servers who earn larger tip percentages think about quitting less than those who earn smaller tip percentages, and restaurants with larger average tip percentages report lower turnover rates than those with smaller average tips, especially among restaurants with lower sales (Lynn 2002, 2003).
Research conducted by coauthor Lynn (1996, 2003, 2004, 2006) has suggested that managers can increase their servers' tips by training the servers to take some or all of fourteen different actions (listed in the accompanying sidebar). These server tactics are thought to increase tips for a variety of reasons. For example, giving guests after-dinner candies is thought to make customers feel obligated to return the favor (Strohmetz et al. 2002). Smiling, drawing pictures, entertaining guests, and forecasting good weather are believed to elevate guests' moods (e.g., Rind and Strohmetz 2001). Finally, introducing yourself by name, touching customers, squatting next to the table, and thanking guests should increase the server's rapport with guests (Lynn 2006). Studies testing the effects of these actions have found that they increase tips around 20 percent on average, with some actions increasing tips by 40 percent or more (see Lynn 2003, 2006).
Although the effectiveness of the tip-enhancing techniques has been supported by research, those studies have focused primarily on small samples of one or two servers who were usually employed at a single restaurant. Consequently, it is not clear how well the results from these small-scale demonstrations generalize to a larger population of servers working at diverse restaurants. In particular, as Lynn (2004) acknowledges, many of the behaviors advocated seem inappropriate for upscale restaurants and may not increase tips at those types of establishments. In addition, there is reason for believing that the effectiveness of these tip-enhancing techniques may be limited in other ways as well. For example, Rind and Bordia (1996) reported that drawing smiley faces on the backs of checks increased the tips received by waitresses but not those received by waiters, while Leodoro and Lynn (2007) reported that squatting down next to the table increased tips from white patrons but decreased tips from black patrons. The study described here was designed to address this issue of generalizability by testing the effectiveness of the techniques among a broader sample of servers and restaurants.
Data Source
Current and former restaurant servers completed an online survey about their experiences on and opinions of their job. Participants were recruited by sending invitations to students, as well as to members of commercial consumer lists (DataCorp) and panels (Zoomerang) who indicated that they were servers, and to people on Facebook.com and Myspace.com whose profiles indicated they were servers. We also asked for recruitment help from industry managers, websites that attract servers (e.g., waiterrant.net), and survey respondents. For this study, observations were excluded from analysis if the respondent was not from the United States (n = 295) or had not waited tables within the past year (n = 580), leaving 1,606 observations for analysis. Due to missing values for some variables, however, sample sizes vary for some analyses. (1)
Survey Questions
Participants were asked to indicate the frequency with which they engage in a series of behavioral activities when serving their customers. Each of these behavioral items was derived from prior empirical research and has been summarized in several academic and managerial hospitality publications (Lynn 2003, 2004, 2005). Specifically, respondents were asked how frequently--(1) never, (2) sometimes, (3) often, (4) all the time--they engaged in the following thirteen activities, most of which are drawn from the fourteen activities listed in the sidebar:
1. Wore or carried something unusual (e.g., button, pen, or piece of "flair")
2. Introduced yourself by name to your customers
3. Tried suggestive selling
4. Squatted next to the table or sat at the table when interacting with customers
5. Touched your customers
6. Told your customers stories or jokes
7. Repeated customers' orders back to them when they were ordering
8. Called your customers by their names
9. Drew pictures on your customers' checks
10. Gave your customers big, openmouthed smiles
11. Wrote "thank you" on the backs of your customers' checks
12. Told your customers that the weather forecast for the next day is favorable or good
13. Complimented your customers on their food choices
In addition, respondents were asked to indicate how their tips compared to those earned by coworkers at the restaurant using a 7-point scale (1 = much larger than most others' tips, 4 = about the same as most others' tips, and 7 = much smaller than most others' tips). This variable was reverse-coded so that higher values reflect larger tips. Finally, the survey asked a series of questions about respondent demographic characteristics (i.e., sex, race, age, and number of years' experience as a server), employer characteristics (i.e., restaurant name, average per-person bill size, and geographic location), and other issues not examined in this article. (2)
Results and Discussion
Sample Characteristics
The respondents to this survey ranged in age from 16 to 66 years, with a mean age of 28 years. Ninety-two percent were white, 70 percent were female, 74 percent were currently employed as servers, and 26 percent had been employed as servers within the past year. They came from every state and were well distributed among U.S. Census regions, as follows: West, 18 percent; Midwest, 25 percent; Northeast, 23 percent; and South, 34 percent. Their experience waiting tables ranged from less than 1 year to 50 years, with a mean of 7.5 years. The servers worked at a variety of independent and chain restaurants, with a wide range of check averages (from under $5 to over $100, with a mean of $27.48). To prevent outlying values from biasing the results, we recoded ten values of per-person bill size under $5 and four values over $100 as missing values. We considered these extreme observations to be questionable.
Frequency of Service Behaviors
As summarized in Exhibit 1, few servers regularly engaged in the thirteen tip-enhancing service behaviors that we tested. That is, a majority of servers never or only sometimes engage in the following actions: drawing pictures on the check, touching customers, forecasting good weather, wearing flair, squatting next to the table, calling customers by name, writing "thank you" on the check, and telling jokes or stories. Only suggestive selling is practiced frequently by 70 percent or more of the servers. Thus, managers do have an opportunity to increase these behaviors among their wait staff.
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