00:00What's the right choice to make when it's time to pay and you see this?
00:04I hate it because it's so much pressure and the person is looking at you.
00:07I do tip, but I don't like to tip in cafes where it's self-service.
00:11If the service is extraordinary, then I tip.
00:15It depends a bit on the service, but if the service is okay, I think, you know,
00:19the staff aren't making too much wonders.
00:21In the US, it's considered rude not to tip.
00:24But in Germany, tipping isn't a must. It's always been an option.
00:28So it's, of course, a form of appreciation and a form of service performance,
00:35as you can indicate by the amount of tips given.
00:39Usually a 5% to 10% tip if the service was particularly good.
00:43Before COVID, it was usually 10%, now it's 10%.
00:47So why does paying for a coffee in Berlin now feel like grabbing the check at a New York diner?
00:51Well, it has a lot to do with how we're paying.
00:54During the COVID-19 pandemic, more and more businesses switched from cash-only to digital contactless payments,
01:01including the types of services that Germans never really tipped before.
01:05These point-of-service platforms, like SumUp, have the tip requests built into the payment flow.
01:10And here's why that annoys Germans.
01:12Giving these options 5%, 10% or 20% may be perceived as a form of restricted autonomy.
01:23These tip suggestions are the default setting.
01:26The option not to tip is often buried in the design.
01:29Or in the case of Starbucks in Germany, not an option at all.
01:33That is, until it received a formal warning from a German consumer watchdog for having no clearly visible ways to
01:39decline a tip.
01:40The warning was illegal first in Germany, but the app design is everywhere.
01:45Sometimes on these machines, like why would you tip like 30% or something?
01:50So why does it work?
01:51Cash hurts more to hand over.
01:53Researchers call this sting the pain of paying.
01:56Paying by card or tap disconnects the physical loss and in turn encourages higher spending.
02:02These quick taps are also being made while a server is right there watching.
02:05Researchers call what happens next guilt tipping.
02:08Unlike in the US, where some hospitality workers make as little as $2.13 an hour
02:13and rely on tips to make it to the federal minimum wage,
02:16Germany has a statutory minimum wage of €13.19 an hour.
02:20But with rising costs across the board, that wage doesn't stretch as far as it used to.
02:24So if we do a good job and you had a good experience in our bar,
02:29then we are happy to or like we appreciate to get some tips,
02:33but it's also not mandatory and we don't judge anyone that is not tipping.
02:38So if we do a good thing, we don't judge anyone that is not proceeding.
02:39And we're happy for that and we'll be happy for that.
02:39So what's going on?
02:39What's going on...
02:39What are the reasons why this can be?
02:39What kind of activities to our job in entonces and how we're doing?
02:40We're happy for here.
Comments