The Tao of Waiters
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This post follows a discussion I was having in the chatroom with Yakuza and Celestias... I've been doing a little bit of research on the psychology of persuasion recently, and some of the more quirky studies I came across showed how waiters and servers could increase their tips by following a few simple principles.
So, for those of you in the restaurant business, here are the 10 rules of the Tao of Waiters:
- Rule 1: smile (Percentage Increase in Tip: 140%)
- Rule 2: Introduce yourself by name, and call customer by name to personalize the relationship (Percentage Increase in Tip: 63%)
- Rule 3: Touch the customer lightly on the upper arm - beware with this one: it has to be the lightest of touches or it could be a double-edged sword (Percentage Increase in Tip: 42%)
- Rule 4: If asked, forecast good weather, no matter what is predicted (Percentage Increase in Tip: 18%)
- Rule 5: Squat down next to the table (Percentage Increase in Tip: between 20 and 25%, depending whether you're male or female)
- Rule 6: Repeat customers’ orders, and mirror body language and voice (cannot remember the statistics for that one!)
- Rule 7: Write "thank you" and draw a happy face or a picture of the sun on the bill (Percentage Increase in Tip: up to 37%)
- Rule 8: Tell customer a joke (Percentage Increase in Tip: 40%)
- Rule 9: If you hand out sweets or mints or chocolates with the bill, put one per person on the bill tray. Turn around and walk away. Then turn back as if hesitating, and hand out an extra sweet to everyone, as if you were doing them a favour against restaurant policy (Percentage Increase in Tip: 21%)
- Rule 10: If you find that your customers are consistently under-tipping you, add a notecard to the bill titled "Suggestions for tipping: most of our customers tip our waiters between (insert a standard range for your country here). We wish to thank our patrons for their support". This plays on the rule of conformity, and clients will hesitate to deviate from the norm and tip less.
References:
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tippingresearch .com
http://tippingresearch.com/uploads/managing_tips.pdf
secondary sources:
"59 seconds" by Professor Richard Wiseman
"Get anyone to do anything", David J. Lieberman
Relevance to pickup:
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As you can see, most of these tips are based by sound, peer-reviewed psychological research, and you will notice a few parallels with the pickup game:
- light kino
- smiling
- using names to make the interaction personal
- mirroring
- the use of humour
Enjoy your new tips!