Dining Out: Manipulated Into Paying A Bigger Tip

[jeffrey]

Sometimes you know when you're being charmed. But it's not always so apparent.

Take the experience of eating out. I always thought I tipped the wait staff based on the quality of service they provided. But apparently, that's not all that's influencing my thinking.

A recent report by Michael Lynn, an associate professor at Cornell's School of Hotel Administration, shows that certain techniques employed by a waiter or waitress have been shown in various studies to increase their tips.

Some, however, are baffling since they seem either to be annoying or just plain silly.

Most of the studies Lynn cites were all conducted in low- to mid-priced casual dining restaurants such as Applebee's, Cracker Barrel, Olive Garden and Outback Steakhouse.

He acknowledges that if some of these techniques were employed at more formal, refi-your-house-to-pay-for-dinner restaurants, they might actually decrease tips.

But in the restaurants they were tested in, each of the moves below had the effect of raising the average tip by anywhere from 10 percent to over 100 percent... [read more at money.cnn.com]

To read how to reduce your costs while eating out, read the SavingAdvice.com article Restaurant Savings