An article by American news channel CNBC reports of an increase in tipping within some service businesses since the introduction of mobile payments.
Restaurants are reporting that they have seen an increase in the percent value which has been given as a tip when paying for their meal since they installed mobile payment systems within their businesses.
Since London restaurant La Patagonia began using the Zapper™ mobile payments app – which allows users to pay with their smartphone by scanning a QR code printed on the receipt – tips have risen by 4%.
“We are offering better service because now they (customers) don’t need to wait so long to pay…they can pay straightaway…so we have improved our service,” Mila Salvatierra, general manager at La Patagonia, told CNBC.
It is also likely that the increase is due in part to customers having easy access to their money – with such apps, gone are the days of realising you don’t having enough cash on you to provide a respectable tip when leaving a restaurant.
Another mobile payments app mentioned in the article is the London based Cake app which allows users to split the bill between them. The app allows restaurants to set a default minimum tip amount such as 5% of the bill, but, says Cake co-founder Michelle Songy, customers are often paying more than the minimum.
As smartphones with mobile payment compatibility become ever more popular, it is expected that the use of such apps to make payments instead of traditional payment methods, such as cash or card, will rise quickly.
Watch the Zapper™ commercial to hear how it works:
