BrewDog Retail Director James Brown first noticed the threat to staff tips after launching the company’s first cashless bar in Canary Wharf in 2018.
Realising that the amount generated in staff tips was significantly lower than other sites, James saw a big problem looming for hospitality employees as contactless payments continued to make cash a thing of the past.
Inspired to provide a solution, it didn’t take him long to reach tipping point and in the spring of 2019 with Alex Moore, Founder
of Rosa Thai Café, also on board, TiPJAR launched in the UK.
A twenty-first century technological fix to the age-old and often controversial subject, TiPJAR allows consumers to remunerate and praise staff directly, offering a low-cost practical and ethical tipping solution. The system uses high-tech integrations to table payment apps, credit card machines and in some cases QR codes.
TiPJAR Founder James Brown said: “TiPJAR enables customers to tip individual staff and teams directly. It provides transaction level transparency to the staff and empowers them to manage tips as they wish, while also taking the administrative pressure off busy operators. It also provides an added incentive to staff to be at the top of their game and then gives absolute trust to customers that the tip they give goes to the right person. They can even leave messages to staff members, as the human-to-human appreciation can be just as important as the monetary.”
TiPJAR also has options for group tipping that includes a custom branded portal and gives businesses access to valuable data including customer reviews. Businesses also have the option to include a percentage donation to charity via the platform.
James Brown continued: “The data we’re seeing on tipping practise is incredibly interesting and I’m not sure it’s an area that has been analysed like this before. For businesses with their custom branded portal, they can easily manage all aspects of their tipping but they can also access fantastic insights to improve service, staff retention and motivation.”
As of January 2021, the company has over 550 active sites using TiPJAR in the UK such as BrewDog, Yard Sale Pizza, Honest Burgers, Pizza Pilgrims and Red’s True Barbeque.
With over 60,000 tip transactions to date totalling over £300K, the platform launched across the pond in California last November and has big plans for a state-wide roll out in March, alongside further expansion in Dublin, Germany, France, Spain and Scandinavia later in 2021.
With the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic decimating the hospitality industry and only increasing the strength of contactless payment, James explains why the power of TiPJAR has grown:
“Two years ago, we set out on a mission to help the millions of tipped workers in the hospitality sector. Never has helping these staff earn more been more important, never has contactless and cashless tip transactions been more relevant than in the lockdown operations of bars, pubs, restaurants and hotels across this country. Built by hospitality professionals for hospitality professionals, we’re proud to have enabled a huge number of generous Brits to make donations of support. In fact, one of our busiest Tuesdays was the lockdown pre-Christmas when there was an unbelievable amount of support being shown to hospitality staff. For hospitality venues, delivery used to be a nice bit on the side for businesses and terrible for staff tips. Now with delivery so much more important, TiPJAR means customers can easily tip when ordering at home. We often see transactions made at 7am in the morning. People are buying an Honest Burger takeaway, eating it, going to bed and then waking up and tipping the next morning. We’ve tipped tipping on its head.”
TiPJAR is already offering its service to other sectors such as busking, yoga teachers and even online gamers, plus is launching Tap to Tip later this year, making it even easier to tip staff in venues. A lot has happened for the company in a short space of time but there
is no doubt, it’s just the tip of the iceberg.
For more information about how you can join the tipping revolution visit www.wearetipjar.com
