Have you noticed that there has been a proliferation of opportunities to tip people? Tipping has become ubiquitous. It is everywhere. Well, everywhere in B2C. But I have not yet seen it in the B2B world.
Backstory: I absolutely hate tipping. I have tipping anxiety.
Tipping is an awful thing. I’m the sucker that always gives a 20% tip (it is much easier math than 18%), even when the service does not warrant a tip. When I go abroad, the servers are shocked at my “American tips.”
Random questions:
- Why are tips a percentage of revenue? (The rich just get richer)
- Why tip at all in a restaurant? Even worse, tipping at checkout counter. Square has massively increased my tipping anxiety. It is just a way of squeezing an extra 20% out of suckers like me.
- Why isn’t tipping just included in the price? You don’t (yet) tip when you buy an airline ticket or buy a book from Amazon.
Tips used to be for showing appreciation but today they are usually just to avoid embarrassment.
Tipping in the enterprise
In my almost 20 years of selling software, I have never been “tipped” by a client.
But that got me thinking, maybe SafeGraph should start asking for a voluntary 15% “tip” during our quarterly-business-reviews (with customers). Maybe 25% of clients would pay (if they had a way of doing it).
I have no idea how these customers would pay … but wanted to put it out there to some of your smart readers can figure it out.
Summation experiment: next time your lawyer does an outstanding job, try to tip her.
I am a sufferer of tipping anxiety as well – nothing worse than when the iPad gets turned around and you feel the entire line looking at you thinking “I wonder if this person is going to be cheap and not tip.”
For B2B, can’t this concept be accomplished pretty easily through pricing mechanisms? Client is invoiced / when sales agreement signed, there is a [ ] % additional that can be paid at the choice of the client?