 Using a Customer’s Name to Personalize Checks and Increase Restaurant Tipping BehaviorVictoria Paige Adams and Terry F. Pettijohn International Journal of Management Sciences, 2015, vol. 6, issue 10, 491-497 Abstract: The current research investigated how language can be used to communicate with restaurant customers and improve server tip percentage. Specifically, personalizing checks with thank you notes and the customer’s name were predicted to increase tip percentage. A server makes a minimum wage of around $2.13 and after taxes are paid, servers do not have a paycheck. Servers need to make at least 8% off of tips to have enough to break even and have enough money to pay their bills. This research took place at a national seafood chain restaurant in North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Five servers collected data on a total of 103 customers dining during dinner hours. When servers personalized checks by writing a thank you that include the title and last name of a customer, their tip percentages were significantly higher than writing a thank you note with the customer’s first name, or not writing a thank you note at all on the check. Further research should investigate variables such as serving style and personalities of servers to see how they interact with personalizing checks to better understand how these factors influence a tip percentage. Keywords: Tip percentage; communication; personalizing checks; servers (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:rss:jnljms:v6i10p3 Access Statistics for this article More articles in International Journal of Management Sciences from Research Academy of Social Sciences |
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