Robo-Tipping: Are Customers Game?

This study sought to investigate customer attitudes towards tipping robotic employees in bars. A convenience sample of participants who were 21 years of age or older and who had patronized a bar was recruited using Amazon’s Mechanical Turk platform. Of the 102 usable responses, only 15 participants had experienced robotic bartender service. Only 11 individuals (10.8%) in total said they would tip a robot; 10 of those were respondents who had acutally experienced robotic bartenders, representing 67% of that subsample. Participants listed efficiency and required maintenance as reasons for giving a tip to a robotic bartender. Out of 91 respondents who initially declined to tip a robotic bartender, 38 study participants (41.8%) agreed to tip if they knew that the collected funds would go to human employees. However, in the same group of respondents, only 14 (15.4%) agreed to tip in the scenario when tipping would serve as a learning experience for a robot to understand customer preferences. The rationale for not tipping included such reasoning as robots are machines that do not need extra income and cannot appreciate the gesture. This study suggests that explaining how the collected funds will be used may positively impact consumer intentions to tip a robotic bartender. This extra revenue may help offset the cost of the robot, and subsequently lower the prices of the drinks served at a robotic bar, thus making the product more affordable for a wider audience.