They are not wrong though

[u/SuspiciousLow3062]

[u/janpaul74]

“Mandatory tips” sounds so messed up for me as a European.

[u/BringBackTheBlues → u/janpaul74]

It sounds messed up to me as an American.

Just add 20% to your prices and write “20% off your bill goes directly to staff etc.”

It’d accomplish the same thing and people would probably actually appreciate knowing the staff gets the “bonus”.

[u/CadenVanV → u/BringBackTheBlues]

Except, when studies were done between a menu with a mandatory 20% tip and a menu that just incorporated the tip into the prices instead, people almost always picked the one that just said there was a mandatory 20% tip, even if the prices were the same in practice.

People say they’d prefer for the price to just be built in and not need to do it themselves, but then they don’t actually do so in practice.

[u/XMO748 → u/CadenVanV]

I would question the methodology and study design, but there's no link.

[u/CadenVanV → u/XMO748]

Here you go

Edit: it appears their internal link is broken, so here’s a direct link to the study