In all retail settings, employees work with the expectation of getting more than just their base salary. The ‘something extra’ that doesn’t break their budget – which makes their day. Emblematic of customer confidence at a good job done. A psychological motivator like no other. Let’s get deep into POS software.
A Word on the Dynamics of ‘Tips’
And in America and elsewhere, the market does reciprocate.
Seen in people’s unspoken commitment to make their appreciation known through tips. Small tokens that many consider an obligation to pay. Tributes that the takers, similarly, expect to take.
In repair servicing, these giveaways are nowadays mediated through repair shop software. Through a particular payment processing feature, to be precise, that mitigates the awkwardness. Making the exchange of currency an altogether smooth affair.
Sole Reliance on Automation = Disaster in the Making
Still, there are many potential roadblocks that occur during the day-to-day payments exchange. Impediments that require something more than the one-click resolution offered by software. A set of ‘best practices of tact’, more like, practiced by the merchants in the know.
Stratagems that can really spell the difference between a deal gone awry and not.
In this piece, I’ll list 5 of my experiential go-tos for alleviating the said snags. Advice guaranteed to fill your tips accounts early.
So here goes…I’m assuming you’ve got your pen and paper handy.
My 5 Commandments – if you will
Just a small note before I go.
Don’t think of these pointers as being set in stone. They’re perfectly malleable – so go ahead and tweak to suit your situation.
1. Keep the Tips Jar on Front
The best place to place the shaker – full-stop – in my opinion.
Here, walk-ins are hard-pressed to ignore the taker. Making the jar (or your preferred contraption) ideal for coin collection. Or the cultivation of loose change; which clients are always willing to spare.
There is a psychological incentive, even, for customers to splurge in this way.
Centered on ‘conformity’ in Behavioral Economics, the urge to popularly resonate makes people happy. Feel accepted – as being part of the larger community. Engaged in a practice indulged in by everyone else. Go headlong with the easy current.
The tips receptacle should also be an easy reach. No narrow opening necks or other obstacles that would deter the customer’s hand. Keep them wondering if the alternative course – of not giving – were better. Even for a little instant. Reflex thoughts you don’t want them to ever experience.
2. Make a ‘Highest Tippers’ Board
A giving stoker like no other.
A ‘Highest Tippers’ board is a common customer recognition vehicle placed in sales settings. Geared to play with clients’ ego, it increases tips’ incomes by a factor of 3 (my personal take!).
Why?
Because everyone wants their name and picture on it.
And even when they don’t, it still serves a referential purpose. Clients interested in tipping can look at it and gain an idea of how much they should divulge. Sort of like a benchmark for the figures that are acceptable.
Over the years, I’ve seen too many customers walk into my computer repair shop software business. Many of these high tippers have become something like a community. A family dynamic that has served to bolster the hype around each store. Indicating – to me, at least – that the acknowledgment goes a long way.
3. Do NOT become overbearing
Word to the wise cashier or other direct customer engaged: Just don’t!
Know that at the end of the day, your tips are at the clients’ discretion. There’s no binding legal requirement involved.
Unfortunately, this is the point where a lot of the recipients become overbearing. Always hovering in the background to showcase their presence. Sometimes, even verbally accosting the customer – now irate – to loosen the purse strings.
Based on common sense and the lived experience, this is a horrendous strategy like none other. Almost inspired, as it were, from a bad Hollywood flick.
If taken far enough, this pressuring stance can quickly become counterproductive. Resulting in conflict – the clients’ forsaking the purchase altogether.
So just keep the ‘ask’ under control.
4. Get Gaming with an Instant Cashier’s Review
A fun way to entice customers to tip is to go ‘all game’ on them.
What I mean by this is that you draw them into a quick review by the payments counter software. Have them encircle a range of options describing particular likable cashier attributes. These lists present a neat opportunity to ask for tips by numbers – say 50 cents for attitude, 60 for service, 70 for helpfulness. And the like.
These pointers turn the tips-taking experience into an intuitive affair. A situation where the giver isn’t forced to think much – just dispense.
This tactic, again, draws on certain psychological insights pertaining to neuronal energy expenditure.
Simply put, the brain’s circuitry follows those pathways that require lesser cognitive thrusts. In other words, the actions – occurring in related pairs – that don’t warrant much minute thinking bursts.
This is made possible in scenarios where the solutions to complex problems are already given. Resulting in the brain’s analytical machinery not having to make a big deal out of the puzzle.
The end result of this ‘default solution placement’ is bliss. Characterized by high serotonin and dopamine release. A state which, in real terms, imparts the customer with a sense of ease.
5. Practice Diplomacy like the Ancients
In tough, real-world situations, nothing beats conflict-resolution quite like good diplomacy. Especially in the overtly emotive yet beguilingly rational form practiced by the Socratics. Try this software if you want to salvage a customer argument going downhill – and perhaps even score a gracious tip on the way.
Here, you want to acknowledge the problem or query posed by the customer.
By validating their concern, you’re sending powerful signals of intellectual recognition; from which follows emotional reversal.
Meaning that a client en-route to exhibiting some angry upheaval gets their emotional high nipped in the bud. Substituted, as it were, by a pleasant vibration per the sophist’s subtle mechanization.
In this way, you might stand the chance of actually working brewing conflicts to your advantage.
How about that?
So there you have it – my five prescriptions for garnering tips via your point of sales software (or not). You’ll have noticed I give equal, if not more, importance to the human side of the equation. Relinquishing all primary reliance on algorithms to get you by.
Let me know how they fare in your POS context – and how happy they make your point persons’ loose pocketbooks! ?
