Men are considered to be the best tippers by restaurant staff, according to a new study. Reported in the International Journal of Hospitality Management, the study examined surveys from 1189 servers in 49 states, and looked at whether servers’ had developed perceptions of their customers’ tipping habits.
Professors Michael McCall and Ann Lynn, the Ithaca College researchers who led the study, say that the servers were found to believe that regular customers and males are the best tippers. They further revealed that teenagers and foreign customers were thought to tip the least.
According to them, the findings were not related to the ethnicity of the server. The researchers, however, said that the sex of the server did play a role, with females believing that certain demographic characteristics of the customer were related to the amount tipped. “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.
He added that the data were aggregated across a wide variety of servers from many service encounters, and offered 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.
{{/usCountry}}He added that the data were aggregated across a wide variety of servers from many service encounters, and offered 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.
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