Newswise — If you receive below average service in a restaurant it may be because your server thinks you will be a poor tipper, according to a new study "Restaurant Servers' Perceptions of Customer Tipping Intentions," published in the International Journal of Hospitality Management, http://is.gd/YQX3.
The study, authored by Ithaca College professors Michael McCall and Ann Lynn, examined surveys from 1189 servers in 49 states, and looked at whether servers' had developed perceptions of their customers' tipping habits. The data suggested that servers believe regular customers and males are the best tippers; teenagers and foreign customers were thought to tip the least. These findings were not related to the ethnicity of the server. The sex of the server did play a role however, with females believing that certain demographic characteristics of the customer were related to the amount tipped.
In 2007, dining patrons left an estimated $20 billion in tips. Servers rely on these tips as a major source of income, and as a general reward for providing good service. Studies have shown that perceptions of others tend to be circular and self fulfilling. "When servers have expectations regarding the tipping habits of their customers, these expectations are likely to influence server behavior and do so in a manner that leads customers to tip accordingly," said McCall (profile: http://is.gd/ZRvX).
The data were aggregated across a wide variety of servers from many service encounters and offer a glimpse into more widespread beliefs that servers hold."From a managerial perspective, restaurateurs might benefit by attending to how these server beliefs are formed and what implications they might have for the very human process of service delivery," said McCall.
Ann Lynn is an associate professor of psychology at Ithaca College.
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