Service charges - should it be discretionary or mandatory?

The hospitality industry routinely puts on a? ‘discretionary’ service charge on your bill at the end of a meal.

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Should you pay this or not?? What do you think?

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Do you get better service, the same service, or poor service, when a service charge is applied?

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Now I can understand to some degree why a business would put on a service charge, to help with cashflow and income.?

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My question though:? Is it not up to the clients to determine if the wish to leave a tip based on the service they receive, or don’t receive?? After all, it is for service and the tip left, or no tip left, allows the business to know their levels of service given.? If a lack of tips continues to occur, then that lets the business know pretty smartly that there is something lacking in their service.?? By having a service charge built into the bill, masks the true reflection of service received, or rendered.?

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And yes, I’m sure some people would not leave a tip regardless of the service given.

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It is my opinion that the levels of service in provided in Britain, falls far short of good service in many hospitality places.? Staff go through the motions of service and the client experience is not good.

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I like the American version of the service charge.? While I’m not in agreement with their low wages,? and then made up of tips, I do find that the majority of time the service is excellent because the waitstaff know it is in their best interest to provide good service.

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We dined out at a gourmet burger place recently and everything is done on the App.? A waitress showed us to our table and then we ordered through the app.? No interaction from any staff.? And then to our disgust at the payment section they had a section for staff tip, 5%, 10% 15% or ￡￡.? There was no button, for ‘no tip.’? We had to go into the ￡￡ section where at the bottom it had ‘remove tip’.?

It was sneaky as you wouldn’t readily go to the ￡￡ section.

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Our burgers were brought to us with no further interaction from staff. Why this establishment think that they should be tipped is beyond me.? We won’t ever go back to this establishment.

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Another question:? Does the service charge go to the waitstaff, everyone in the business, or does the business owner ‘pocket’ it??? This is a reason I am against a discretionary service charge, as I don’t know where it ends up.

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Often we have asked to have this service charge removed from our bill before we pay.?? This can sometimes lead to surprise and indignation.??? When we ask them as to why they think they should be determining what we tip and how much,? we are often met with silence as they don’t know what to say.

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At other times we have taken the service charge off the bill and given the waitstaff a cash tip of our choosing, for the excellent service they have provided and we let the management know of this as well.

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What do you think??? ‘Service charge’ - should it be discretionary or mandatory?