Customers tip their pet’s groomer or pet-care professional for all kinds of reasons. They might know that their pup is a handful when getting bathed, and the groomer deserves a little extra gratitude for their efforts. Or, they may tip as a ‘thank you’ for how perfectly primped and prepped their pup looks when they leave the doggie salon.
There are many benefits to increasing tips at your pet-care business. Tips encourage staff to provide great customer service. Tips supplement employees’ base pay, boost morale, and help pet-care businesses retain employees. Pet parents also feel satisfied when they tip for a job well done.
Like any other service industry, the amount a customer tips a pet professional can vary widely. So many pet parents ask themselves, “how much should I tip the dog groomer or kennel attendant?”
Thankfully, using the right pet-care software can automate payments and tips to remove the guesswork for you and your customers so that every transaction is a seamless transaction.
Ready to get started? Check out these proven strategies for increasing tips at your pet-care business:
- Powerful Pet-Care Software
- Suggesting Tipping Amounts
- Using Customer Names
- Saying Thank You
- Offering Multiple Ways to Support Your Business
Use Powerful Software
The first step to learning how to increase tips at your pet-care business is to use a software solution with an integrated payment system. A digital tool like this is the backbone for your tipping and payment strategy because, as every business owner knows, managing tips and payments on your own is a huge hassle.
Not only that, but many pet owners don’t know how much to tip pet-care professionals; they may not even know if employees are allowed to accept tips. Creating custom tip settings so that customers no longer need to worry about how much to tip changes all that.
With Gingr managing online and in-person payments, you can make tipping - and tracking tips and payments - easy!
Gingr allows you to:
- Prompt customer to tip at checkout
- Set custom suggested tip amounts
- Accept tips in multiple payment forms
- Pull reports on tip amounts
What does this mean for your pet-care business?
Once you have your pet-care software solution in place, you can get started implementing customer service strategies to increase tips for your staff and give your customers a better experience in the process!
Suggest Tipping Amounts
The most common reason pet-care professionals are undertipped is that customers simply don’t know if they can tip or how much they should tip for pet-care services. Tipping is second nature in other service-based businesses like restaurants, hair salons - even car washes. But, some pet owners, especially new pet owners, may not realize that tipping a pet-care professional is one-hundred percent okay, it is appreciated, and it's encouraged!
What’s the solution? Presenting tip options!
One of the perks of using an all-in-one pet-care software like Gingr that features integrated payment processing is that you can customize and automate the tipping feature to make your customer’s checkout process a breeze. Create easy-to-use buttons customers can click to automatically give a tip of 15%, 20% or 25%. You can also suggest tip amounts in dollars.
To recap, your pet-care platform should give you the ability to:
- Prompt pet parents to tip at checkout.
- Set custom suggested tips in dollar amounts or percentages.
- Create easy-to-use buttons customers can click to automatically give a tip.
Use Customer Names
One of the best ways to increase tips with pet-care customers is by creating a connection between your staff and the customers they are serving. Even little gestures like greeting pet owners and their pets by name add a personal touch. Getting to know your customers by name shows that they are more than a client dropping their pet off at your kennel or grooming business. They are a valued part of your community.
In fact, a study at Emporia State University found that restaurant servers who addressed customers by name increased the average gratuity by about 1.5 percent.
For busy pet-care businesses that have hundreds of clients - or thousands of clients across multiple locations with staff that move between these locations, remembering each customer’s name - and their pet’s name - is nearly impossible. Using pet-care software that includes individual pet profiles and databases is a great solution for this common problem. With a platform like Gingr, staff can quickly click on the pet’s appointment and see the complete pet and owner profile.
Notes like a pet’s likes and dislikes are also listed in the profile, which can help employees upsell products and services while building a connection with the customer.
Say Thank You
Saying thank you goes a long way in the service industry. There are so many ways to thank your customers, and each can influence a customer to leave a gratuity on their bill. To increase tips, try:
- Presenting a pet with a treat when they leave or a small bag of branded pet treats
- Adding a cute ribbon or bow after a groom
- Send a personalized, handwritten and branded ‘thank you’ card after milestone bookings (20th visit, six-month visit, one-year anniversary, etc.)
Offer Multiple Ways to Support Your Business
Tipping isn’t the only way your customers can support your business. Pet parents can:
- Leave a well-written, positive online review on Google, Facebook, Yelp, and Nextdoor.
- Follow, comment, and like your business on social media.
- Provide quotes and testimonials to use in marketing emails or advertisements.
- Attend the special events and classes hosted by your business.
- Refer a friend to your business.
Asking customers to do things like the above are proven ways to acquire new customers and drive traffic to your pet-care business. If even a customer isn’t inclined to tip, they may be interested in helping your business in other ways.
Summing Things Up
Implementing these strategies to increase tips at your pet-care business is simple when you invest in a pet-care management software like Gingr. Processing payments on a platform designed just for the pet industry enables your business to:
- Collect online payments for deposits, packages, subscriptions, invoices, and retail.
- Make checkout faster with a card on file and contactless payments
- Save time with automatic batching
- Collect mobile payments with wireless card readers and paperless receipts
- Enable tip selection at checkout
Once you have the right software in place, you and your staff will be on your way to increasing tips, boosting revenue, and improving the guest checkout experience.
Additional Resources
Increasing tips is only one way to grow your income. For other strategies to improve the revenue of your pet-care business, follow these additional valuable resources.
- 9 Services to Upsell at Your Pet-Care Business. Knowing how to upsell services at your pet-care business doesn’t just increase your revenue; it improves the quality of each pet’s visit. Check out this list of the top boarding and daycare services to upsell!
- Payment Processing for Pet-Care Businesses: Top Tips & Tools. The benefits of using integrated payment processing at your pet-care business are endless, from ensuring fast and secure online payments to collecting mobile payments on the go. Learn how this technology can work for you.
- Growing Your Pet-Care Business: 6 Ways to Increase Profits. This guide for growing your pet business can help you grow sustainably and hit all of your goals!
