Tipping will raise the bar on service

Staff and owners welcome reward when customers show gratitude, reports ROSEMARY ROBERTS

 

Tipping is crucial to raising the bar on service, so please, Air New Zealand, stop telling in-bound travellers "we are not a tipping nation".

This was the unanimous view of Northland bar and restaurant owners surveyed last week on how they are handling the tipping issue - especially during the Rugby World Cup. The collective view is that accepting tips is not selling your soul, is not demeaning and should be viewed as an indication your business is on the right track.

But there is no consensus around what happens to the money - systems range from telling wait staff "take it, it was for you" to "tips are shared here, take it, and we'll regard that as stealing".

Brad O'Connell, owner of Tonic Bar at Whau Valley in Whangarei and Soda Cafe in Kamo, pulls no punches. The hospitality industry needs all the help it can get to raise standards, he says.

"The standard of service is often absolutely shocking. The industry needs a real shake-up. Tipping is a barometer of service".

He says he has worked hard to retain skilled staff by paying as well as he can and most of his employees have been with him over seven years, but by and large it's a low-paid industry. Prices should be higher so the industry can attract good people but the current economic situation makes that unlikely.

Poor wages meant people had no incentive to stay and upskill. "I just can't find new wait staff who have the right manner, the right dress, the commitment to learning."

He said even though he and his staff had years of experience they still regularly analysed what they were doing. Bosses had to have the right way of training staff - "you don't just stand there and dress them down".

"The bottom line is that it is sales and service and if you are not interested in getting to know what your client requires you are not going to have happy customers and they are not going to be happy to give you their money. The secret is good value for money. But nobody should be targeting tables as potential tippers.

"I pay the staff well on the understanding they will do the job to the best of their ability. We don't encourage people to tip, it's a bonus. A tip for good service is quite an incentive for staff though."

He said tipping was "really hammered" at some places at the Viaduct in Auckland and he knew a waiter who had made $1000 in tips in a week - "an extreme example, it happened during the America's Cup".

"Tippers" at Tonic are both local and overseas clients. Tips could be up to $100 in a busy week. Locals might have a favourite wait person they liked to acknowledge - "what they probably don't realise is that tips are shared equally between the wait staff".

Summer Grant, manager of Vinyl Restaurant & Bar in Whangarei, says there was an upswing in overseas customers when the RWB games were being played in the city but not in tipping. "I got the impression they might have taken on board the Air New Zealand message." Normally there was more tipping in the festive season. Tips put into the jar on the counter were shared; tips handed directly to wait staff were theirs to keep.

A representative of the family-owned Janit's Diner at Kaeo said customers tipped quite often but he got the impression some Americans were quite relieved not to feel obliged to tip. A client sometimes tipped at the counter if they had been impressed by the eatery's generous helpings.

Rick Codlin, manager of the Settlers Hotel in Whangarei, says "we generally decline tips and say 'it isn't really the Kiwi way' but if they are really persistent we would take it because we certainly don't want to offend people."

Anonymous restaurant worker: "Tippers are mostly overseas people. Do we accept? Yes! Do we keep it for ourselves? Yes! There is no set percentage. The biggest tip I ever got was $100 for dinner service at a hotel in the Far North."

Yann Easton, manager of The Fat Camel in Whangarei, says about 15 per cent of customers tip. Anything under $2 gets a smile and a thank you; higher amounts, a smile and a piece of Turkish Delight. Kiwis only tip if they are very happy, he says. The money all goes in a jar to be shared, or maybe used to buy a lottery ticket - "because it wasn't just the waiter, what about the person who cooked your meal?"

Lex Armitage of Kamo Hotel says some overseas customers tip and tips are accepted. The person given the tip had the option of keeping it or putting into a collective "pot". "Because they don't get tipped very often we feel they should be able to choose what they do with it."

Tipping is nothing new, says Mrs Armitage. "When I started working in the hospitality industry in Auckland 30 years ago some of the wait staff were getting huge tips - from New Zealanders."

Clare Armstrong of Mozart Cafe & Restaurant says tips are sometimes given for service above and beyond the call of duty, like being able to supply information on tourist attractions. "The money goes to the wait staff - which is me!"

At Pear Tree Restaurant & Bar at Kerikeri, Neil Brazier puts all tips into the frog-shaped jar on the counter. "Unless it's a special case, for a specific person for a very specific reason, we run the thing strictly - if someone was caught taking the tips we would consider it stealing.

"The tip might be handed to the wait person but he or she couldn't have done their job without the food and the back-up of the kitchen staff including the washer-upper. It's a very team game. We share the money very scientifically, it's split between the team based on how many hours they work."

Neil Brazier has no objections to tipping. "If you have supplied good service and people feel they have been very well looked after ... the staff appreciate it and it makes them work harder, most definitely, that's human nature, but we would never ask for it. And you should never get worse service if you don't tip."

A UK emigrant who has been in Northland for 10 years, and owned The Pear Tree for two, he describes overseas tipping cultures that horrified him, like clients being told they have to tip, or 15 per cent "tipping" surcharges were added to the bill ("which is ridiculous"), or tipping bar staff to get bigger shots or even having to tip to get safely out of the building. Or where refusing to tip a certain amount will mean you can never go back.

But he acknowledges that the wages are so low in many places overseas tipping is the only way to achieve a living wage.

David Sinclair, co-owner of Killer Prawn bar and restaurant in Whangarei, says he is a big fan of tipping for good service.

"It gets your staff to really understand who is paying their wages - it is the customer, not me.

"Our staff do quite well out of tips here which are mostly between two and ten dollars. We are seeing more and more New Zealanders tipping, possibly because so many of us spend time living overseas."

Staff working on the floor get to keep their tips. Sometimes they might use the money to buy a round of drinks for colleagues.

After years in hospitality both here and overseas, he says the biggest tip he has ever had was in Killer Prawn, $600 from a tuna boat skipper. The mariner had ordered a special seafood dinner for 15.

"We certainly did go the extra mile. The crayfish was sourced in Totara North and I rode all the way up there on my motorbike to collect it."

He would hate to see tipping mandatory or even routinely expected, but as a salute to "doing the job right", "I think it's a good thing, absolutely".

What do you think? Leave a comment.