TIPPING & SERVICE

Does Tipping Enhance Service Levels?



Does Tipping Enhance Service Levels?

Introduction

Tipping is considered as an economic remuneration which in my opinion tends to improve the level of relationship between the customer and respected employee. However, tipping is not obligatory and do tends to depend upon the free will of the customer. If the customer tends to be satisfied with role of the employee than he or she can applaud the efforts of the employee in the form of economic exchange. Thus many researchers tend to believe that tipping tends to increase the level of service provided to the customer. However, it is important to relate the word employee to those which are eligible to receive any form of tip from the customer. Those who can receive tip includes the bar attendees, waiters, drivers, and many other people tend to serve the customers. Performance of an employee tends to affect the amount of tip that he or she tends to extract from the customer.

Service effort performance and customer satisfaction are all positively related. Therefore it becomes quite clear that service and tip tends to be directly linked to each other although positively (Lynn 2001, p.18). Today tipping is considered as obligatory due to the fact that it has taken the shape of social norm. One who tends to break way form the social norm is not considered respectful in this society of ours. Although there is no fixed amount which should be given in the form of tip. The amount to be given as tip generally depends upon the fact how financially sound the customer is. If the customer tends to have strong financial standing in the society he or she will indulge in the habit of giving hefty amount as tip and if the customer tends to stand on a weak financial standing he or she will not be rewarding the employee in the form of tip with such great intensity.

It is also important to look at the ideas and principles of tipping from the perspective of the service industry (Lynn 2000,p.131).Tipping in the service industry tends to serve as an incentive which allows the support staff to work with great zeal and zest. If the idea of tipping is removed from the service industry the support staff would be left with no other option but to perform only as per their job description. This will also help decrease the level of service and the quality of the service which tends to be provided. This will also limit the growth of the individual who are in any way related to support staff. Incentive is the factor which tends to drive all of us in our own respective fields. However, there are various studies done which tends to support the fact that tip is given according to the quality of the service customer tends to receive; however, it cannot be applied generally (Zeitham & Ajay 2008, p.331).

Whereas some studies tend to show that tips are often given as ...