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It depends on where you are (which country) and with whom you are employed...
If you are in Germany ... the waiter is an employee of the restaurant or hotel and receives hourly wages/salary and tips are only rounded up to the nearest Euro ...
In this case only customer service applies and no commission, unless you see10 or20 cent as such... being friendly is a must, however selling is not....
If you are in the US/Canada ... you receive a base wage of $2.65 (which is blow the government minimum wage )... The tip is through out the industry set to20%, but not every one tips ...
In this case the waiter is performing customer service which could be seen as sales job with a commission ... being friendly, bringing the food out fast and attending constantly to the customers needs is very important and can earn him/her a higher tip....
The newest trend (NYC restaurants/chain) is to follow the European pattern, since some employers feel the staff is working for him and should not depend on an individuals mood or onion how well he/she got served.
I believe I read, restaurants which rather pay their waiters $15 hour and not for tips, add an administrative fee to the bill and discourage tipping ... any tips are collected for charity ...
Yes he is. He should get a commission. But instead he gets tips.
First of all the role of a waiter is to give good service to the customers at the restaurant, if he has got the intention of sales then he will try to push those items to customers which have got more benefits for his personal interest.
A restaurant will only flourish once good service is provided and once the quality of food is good. The entire team should be able to delight the customer rather focusing on sale.
Customer comes with intention of having something different, he definitely ask the waiter sometimes as formality what do have something special to have at your restaurant. If the waiter is genuine he will definitely suggest something unique & specialty of the restaurant.
Hence i feel commission not to be entertained it will spoil the image & reputation of restaurant in the long run.
"A waiter in a restaurant is in fact a sales person. Do you agree?"
No, I don't. A waiter is a waiter. The job is to make the customer feel welcome and serve them. Sales is a secondary part of the job: important, but secondary.
"If yes, why doesn't he earn commission?"
Commission would be inappropriate even if the waiter is a sales person, if it was paid based on that customer visit. Salesman-waiters would increase sales on that customer visit, but the customer would be much less likely to return. If I was a restaurant owner paying commission to waiting staff, I would do it based on the earnings from the second or third time the customer came.
I am baffled by the discussion of tips in some of the other answers. Yes, the size of the tip does tend to be correlated to the size of the bill, but tips are given explicitly for good service, not for good selling. And they are given at the customer's discretion, not the owners. Most importantly - and this bit is important people, so pay attention. Much of the time, tips are taken by the restaurant owner: the waiting staff are not allowed to keep them. (This does vary from country to country and restaurant to restaurant, but don't assume what you don't actually know.)
NO i don't agree that the waiter in restaurant is in fact a sales person because mostly the waiter consider as a server person he give service to customer that's what they consider him in most Arab Country's but in Western they count him as both sales person and server so his Commision the tip he/she collected from the customers ....................thanks
Yes I agree.
They usually don't get commission due to unfair treatment of restaurant owners. Some owners even refuse to give them the tips they get from customers.
I don't think that he is a sales person, since he is giving or making only a service for what the customer already ordered or wanted, because the sales person is a business driver, and surely the waiter is not a business driver.
Yes sure. He is a Sales Person as the waiter in the restaurant could play a very big role in up selling and cross selling, the waiter he is the person who has to know and anticipate the guest needs and wants trying to meet or exceed the guest expectations in terms of getting extra revenue for the entity.However, for the waiter to be a proper sales person should move from being an order taker to an order maker trying to create an exceptional service to the guest to get an extra revenue and keep more loyal guests to maintain the profit all over the year.
Being a Sales Person does not necessary mean earning commission. It is all about what kind of job you do not what kind of benefits you earn. Benefits like commission, tips, or Service charge differ from one company to another and also to the country which the company based in.
Yes, he is a salesman because he markets the restaurant by service or take the order of the customer, listen to the customers need and likes. Greet and polite answer the customer by being a waiter you need to deliver your services in a high performance. Always remember being an employee in any establishment if you provide definite answers and politely reply this will stuck on the mind of the customer that you are good. He receives only tip which is to improve progress.
I do agree a waiter is a sales person, but should not receive any commissions. Living in the U.S. and working in the hospitality industry from buss boy all the way to General Manger for over20 years, I do believe That a waiter is a sales person,but his/her commission comes in the form of tips. Let me explain, as a waiter I only made $2.13 an hour way below the government minimum wage. But I use tell me employees be a salesmen and not an order taker. I knew our food and Liquor menu like the back of my hand. I used to make recommendations and up sell to my guests thus increasing the amount of the guest check.
Now some people tip based on the amount of the check, and others tip on the service. If you had a higher check average usually you had higher tips. But apart of that was also the service you presented to your guests. So I used to incorporate the two together and made a pretty good income when I was waiting tables and bar tending. Most people but don't know this but tips is actually an acronym it stands for TO INSURE PROPER SERVICE. So the better a waiter sells and provides service the better his tips are, just like when a sales person exceeds his sales quota his commissions go up. In this case tips can be equivalent to commissions.
Yes i agree in responsible business gist. No corporate social responsibility culture gave birth to the myth of not giving commission to serve in open. Its my non professional response to the question. In terms of professional norms, i don't agree to the statement and no commissions to the waiter thereto.
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