One way that restaurants can encourage big tips from customers

While tipping culture in the UK isn’t nearly as heavy-handed as it is in the States, things like automatic gratuity and being asked for tips via card readers have made it a more common occurrence than in yesteryear.

In the UK our minimum wage means service staff aren’t nearly as reliant on tips as their US equivalents often are, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t deserving of a little kickback for a job well done.

No, playing an acoustic guitar at the dinner table isn't the trick in question. Please don't do that (andreswd/Getty Images)

In any case, it can be a divisive topic, with some people ardently believing the cost of their meal and drinks is more than enough expenditure for one evening while others feel a civic duty towards making service staff’s life a bit easier. The great divider may be whether you’ve ever worked in hospitality or retail; that kind of solidarity lasts a lifetime.

But, if restaurants want to encourage more generous tipping, there are ways and means beyond the automatic 12.5% gratuity or the often-ignored ‘Want to add a tip?’ button on a card reader.

Things like a touch on the shoulder, dropping to eye-level, and drawing smiley faces on receipts have all been shown to increase the frequency and generosity of tips, but there’s a relatively modern invention that can significantly boost them.

It’s all to do with the modern hieroglyphs that are emojis. Yes, it turns out that emojis make us more generous.

Thanks to this study published in International Journal of Hospitality Management, there’s strong evidence linking emojis with an 11%-increased average in restaurant servers’ tips.

Apparently, a smiley face emoji printed on the bill can be enough to trigger the phenomenon.

"We establish that when emojis are included with tip suggestions during the payment transaction, customers tip at a higher percentage than when no emojis are included,” said the study’s authors.

While one may be enough to increase the chances of a tip, multiple emojis can make it even likelier.

The type of emoji has a part to play as well, with more neutral expressions on those little yellow faces typically scoring lower or fewer tips. Tips seemed to grow in step with the size of the emojis’ smiles, anyway.

Per the study’s data, which was gleaned from full-service restaurants in the US, emojis’ presence boosted the average tip from 22.86% to 25.28%, or an 11% relative increase.

It works for food delivery apps too, with emojis’ presence correlating with a 10% relative increase in tip size from 14.66% to 16.11%. More specifically, takeaway orders had a 32.8% relative increase in tips from 12.61% to 16.75%!

The bigger the smile, the bigger the tip (Dimitri Otis/Getty Images)

"This effect is explained by positive emotions, such that the presence of emojis leads to a positive emotional experience for the customer, who in turn leaves a larger tip than they would when no emojis are included," said the researchers.

While this may be the case in restaurants, it would be interesting to see how generous people were feeling after sitting through a screening of The Emoji Movie. We’re willing to bet the milk of human kindness would be considerably thinner on the ground in that context.