[jacktribe]

While profit sharing may work as an incentive for shift managers or store managers, in the absence of tips most baristas will expect some other immediate bonus pay, preferably based on a measurable metric that doesn't depend on factors beyond the barista's control, such as cost of goods sold, supply chain constraints, rent hikes, recessions, etc.

If you occasionally ask the customer in-app "how was your service today?" with a simple thumbs up/down option, and you associate the order's rating with the barista behind the counter, you can get a good metric on their interaction with customers. You'd probably want to use the median and not the mean in order to remove any outliers.

[ranieuwe]

Wouldn’t you be measuring the interaction with the ordering device? How can I rate the experience if I didn’t interact with the Barista yet?

One of my general problems with tipping is that I have to tip before someone makes the drink. Then end up with burned coffee I tipped for. This feels the same.

[jacktribe]

The feedback option would be shown on the customer’s phone the next time they open the app, in regards to their previous visit.

If the customer ordered via the POS, it will be shown on the next visit, if they sign in with their phone number (which is used to save your order history for easy reordering).

[nosianu]

I don't want to give feedback for such minor transactions. I just want a coffee. Why do you want to make me do actual work? Giving feedback, especially if it's supposed to be taken seriously, is work, and worse, it feels so utterly pointless. It's such a simple transaction, and this way overcomplicates it.

I had a shop too once (print, Germany, sold it after a few years) and know people owning restaurants. As far as I'm concerned, you are supposed to get your feedback from the "meta data" of your business, not involve the individual customers my making them work. Which is very unlikely to give you true and/or good data anyway. It's like asking people for what they want as "market research", which just shows a lack of understanding of how brains work and way too much believe in the rational mind theory.

[mnky9800n]

It's like you have never been in a coffee shop. A coffee shop needs good vibes, a good coffee supplier, and a cash register. It doesn't even need an espresso machine. The best coffee shop in Oslo only uses aeropress. But it also needs baristas who like coffee and appreciate the chemistry of it.

You seem to have created the anti-human coffee shop.

You don't need my number to sell me coffee. Asking for it is an invasion of my privacy. If you insist on an awards program of some kind, it already exists in it's ultimate form, the stamp card.

Customers should not be tasked with evaluating employees. They have no expertise in the matter.

Employees should not have wages effectively stolen from them under the auspices that "good work is rewarded". You know how you reward good work? Raises, profit sharing, more responsibility, benefits programs, you know typical things employers do for employees in a worker centered environment.

All this also assumes anyone uses these systems as intended. I doubt customers will select ratings in any meaningful way and you will have no way to ground truth if they do or not. Nobody will ever care enough to sit through customer interviews to evaluate whether your one question survey is valid or not. Certainly not for a cup of coffee.

[cptskippy]

Actually what you've done is devised a system for you to steal you staff's tips.

Instead of customers having the option to pay extra in the form of tips, you're charging more. By having a review/bonus system, you're still absolving yourself of the responsibility for fairly compensating your staff. You're shifting the burden of evaluating employee performance onto your customer. And you're incentivizing yourself to limit bonuses because that money goes into your pocket.

[mnky9800n]

I don't feel like you responded to my comment. If you are paying a reasonable wage, profit sharing is a bonus. You are creating tipping with extra steps.

[jacktribe]

Profit sharing only works if you stick around long enough.

In the service industry, and especially amongst young people, it's common to pick up a job like this for a few months and make some money, then move on to something else. And that's okay, not everyone wants to make a career out of making coffee. It's still a good formative experience to have, while earning some money, and there's no reason why you shouldn't do it right and get rewarded for it.

But profit sharing won't work for someone that is around for a summer. For instance that person could benefit from any upswing caused by previous employees, but if they don't add a positive contribution to the customer experience themselves, they won't be around for the long-term impact. And if you don't give them an incentive at all for the first few months, then you're back to square one. Or even worse: they could negatively impact the profit sharing of employees that have been around for the long run.

Ultimately, money is a motivator and pretending like it's not does not make tipping go away. The problem with tipping as I see it, is that it masquerades the real cost of doing business.

[mnky9800n]

Then you are hiring the wrong people for the kind of coffee shop you claim to desire running. There are plenty of people who enjoy coffee enough to make a career out of it even if it's for a few years. You are pitching this evolved, pay every one a fair wage, this is a real place to work that's super cool, and then treating them like it's some chain. It's transparent. You don't expect them to work with you longer then a couple months. You want customers to track whether employees are doing good or not trying to create some BS KPIs or whatever and then use that to incentivize your employees. Everything you write in every one of your posts demonstrates that you seem to miss the entire point of a coffee shop. It should be a cool place to relax and read or work or meet friends while drinking coffee.

[cptskippy]

> In the service industry, and especially amongst young people, it's common to pick up a job like this for a few months and make some money, then move on to something else.

By making that assertion you're absolving yourself of responsibility and shifting the retention issue entirely to the employee. You're completely dismissing the possibility that your retention issue is due to a customer culture you fostered or created, a poor work environment due to a manager or toxic employee, the demands of the job vs compensation, or any other factor.

> Ultimately, money is a motivator and pretending like it's not does not make tipping go away.

Money is a motivator but not necessarily for the right reasons and it has diminishing returns. Tipping culture has evolved from a mechanism for customers to thank staff into a means for staff to make up for insufficient wages. They're effectively panhandlers.

If an employee relies upon a tip to makeup for wages, they aren't paid enough and are being exploited and abused.

Today, not tipping is a punitive measure that allows customers to diminish an employee or staff's wage at the customer's discretion and without any insight or feedback provided to the employer. People feel compelled to tip because they thing employees aren't paid enough, not because service was above expectations.

[tekknik]

> People feel compelled to tip because they thing employees aren't paid enough, not because service was above expectations.

You had me until this point. No, this is some people’s belief, but not all. I certainly don’t think people are underpaid when I tip, it’s entirely based off service.

[cptskippy]

It's unfortunate that you're willing to dismiss everything I said because of a generalization that spoke in absolutes.

There will always be people who disagree, but if you're in the United States and believe that service workers are not underpaid then you either only patronize high end restaurants or are completely out of touch with the average American.

[tekknik]

And yet you dismiss what I said and gave an option as to why it’s acceptable.

If you believe that a majority of food workers are underpaid, then I, as well as market research, disagree with you.

[foldr]

If it’s thumbs up/down there’s not going to be a difference between the median and (mean > 0.5).