Tipping is dead.
At least tip, as you and I understand it. A mandatory 20% tip on every meal at a restaurant? Mandatory tipping for housekeepers, concierges and tour guides? Kiss them goodbye.
And if you want to know why, just ask Gerri Hether.
Like many Americans, she's tired of the idea that all service workers are entitled to a tip. She was exasperated by point-of-sale terminals that demanded a tip before even serving her food. But the final straw was when restaurants started adding automatic tipping to their bills for its “convenience.”
“I don’t tip anymore,” said Hether, a retired nurse from Mesa, Arizona.
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Americans are known for their generosity and willingness to tip for good service. But one recent survey according to USA TODAY's Blueprint, 63% of respondents say too many businesses ask for tips, and 48% are tired of being asked for a tip.
Almost the same number of Americans (62%) in another investigation said they would not give end-of-year advice to service workers, according to digital personal finance company Achieve. The reason? Tip fatigue.
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Why Americans are tired of tipping
A growing number of Americans believe tipping expectations are unfair, said Carla Bevins, a business management communications expert at Carnegie Mellon University's Tepper School of Business. And that has led to a change in public attitudes toward tipping.
“The impetus behind the anti-tipping movement comes from growing scrutiny of the fairness and necessity of traditional tipping practices,” she explained.
Hearing people like Ian Duncan talk about it is a reaction to the widely held attitude that anything is entirely possible in the hospitality industry. These are tip jars at coffee shops, laundromats, and grocery stores. It’s having to pay a tip before even receiving a meal or service.
Duncan, a small business owner from Toronto, recently booked a cruise. However, when he received his bill several weeks before his departure, the cruise line had added more $200 in automatic tips on his bill.
“That did it for me,” he said. “I canceled the trip and requested a refund of my deposit.”
Duncan said he wanted to decide who and when to tip — or whether to tip at all — and he was unhappy when a business assumed it was entitled to a tip. He also doubts staff will receive an automatic gratuity added to their bill, which is a legitimate concern.
Even etiquette experts say now is the time to talk about tipping.
“Tipping changes over time and it’s high time we re-examine the legal and social standards for how employees are paid,” said Jodi RR Smith, etiquette expert at Mannersmith Etiquette Consulting. “Expecting individual consumers to tip generously all the time is not a plan for long-term economic success.”
Even service workers agree it's gone too far
Even those who rely on tips understand that things have gone too far. Mike Aguirre, a blues guitarist who performs in the Caribbean, blames new terminals for trying to extort a tip from customers before they receive their meal.
“Leaving a tip before receiving your order seems premature: no service has yet been rendered, but there is a palpable element of guilt involved,” he said.
In fact, it's even worse. In some places abroad, restaurant servers come to your table with a handheld payment system and ask you to enter a tip. while they watch. Talk about pressure!
But people like Aguirre are likely to suffer from the understandable backlash of the shifts. Many service workers now rely on gratuities to make a living. Extorting a tip from a customer before the meal is served or under the watchful eye of your server is hardly the fault of the employee. However, employees risk paying for these misguided policies.
Even etiquette experts have limited their tips. Etiquette consultant Rachel Wagner said she no longer tips at self-serve hotel snack bars (even when there is a tip jar), at restaurants where you order at the counter, and in airport food kiosks.
“When the terminal shows me the tipping options, I choose 'no tip,'” she said.
She calls these kinds of tips “entitlements” and isn’t worried about how a service worker might react.
“All this person did for me was take my money and place my items in a bag,” she said. “There is no need to tip!”
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How to avoid tipping
The fact is that most service workers still rely on tips, and many think you should always tip. But there are ways to get around this tacit obligation.
- Go to a no-tipping business. Some hotels and restaurants advertise themselves as “no tipping.” The easiest way to avoid tipping – and encourage other businesses to adopt smart tipping policies – is to take your business to these companies. Dine at Thattu in Chicago, an Indian restaurant that pays its servers a competitive wage and doesn't solicit tips. Or Casa Bonita, the Mexican restaurant in Lakewood, Colorado, that doesn't accept tips.
- Get takeout. No reasonable person expects you to tip your restaurant employee when you get takeout. So, one way to avoid tipping is to get your next restaurant meal to go.
- Refuse to tip. You can also message a business about tipping by putting a zero in the tip line. Hether, the retired nurse who stopped tipping, said the reaction from service workers has been one of resignation. It seems like they know the system is broken, but they don't know how to fix it.
The future: tipping based on good service
When it comes to tipping, the future could look a lot like the past. Travelers say they don't think it's fair to subsidize a service worker's salary with a mandatory gratuity. But they like the traditional idea of giving a service technician a little something extra for exceptional service.
Hether said she is always willing to reward good customer service with a tip. But she will never again pay more than 20% of her bill out of a feeling of obligation.
“Tipping should be based on exceptional service,” she said. “It’s not a right.”
Christopher Elliott is an author, consumer advocate and journalist. He founded Elliott's Plea, a nonprofit organization that helps solve consumer problems. He publishes Elliott Confidentiala newsletter on travel and Elliott Report, a customer service news site. If you need help with a consumer problem, you can contact him here or send him an email to chris@elliott.org.
