Service charges

So the Indian government has said that it is not mandatory for customers to pay “service charges” at restaurants. It will be interesting to see how the restaurant industry will react to this.

The basic idea of a “service charge” is a “forced tip”. Given that Indians aren’t big tippers, restaurants, about a decade ago, started levying a service charge on top of the bill, ranging from 5% to 15%. Some restaurants mention this on the menu explicitly. In others, the print is fine. Some customers have come to accept the service charge. Others fight it.

The National Restaurants Association of India hasn’t taken too kindly to the notification, and has said they’ll take the government to court on this matter. It sounds like a rather extreme reaction, but illustrates the effect of behavioural studies.

Lower end eateries typically publish menus with “all inclusive” prices. If a cup of coffee is listed at Rs. 10, you pay Rs. 10 for it. Mid-priced and higher-end restaurants, however, have defaulted to showing prices exclusive of taxes and charges. With a 5% VAT, 15% Service Tax and (typically) 5% service charge, the final bill comes out to about 25-30% higher than the labelled price.

Now, frequent restaurant goers are aware of all these charges, and that the bill will be much higher than the sticker price. If they are rational, they should be taking into account these additional charges when deciding whether to go to restaurants, and when they do, what to order.

The problem, however, is that these charges are not immediately visible at the time of ordering, and so the customers end up ordering more expensive food than they had budgeted for (after controlling for the overall price level of the restaurant itself). It is a behavioural effect, where the customers’ minds are tricked by the number in front of them rather than what they will immediately end up paying.

The order that service charge is not mandatory will now push restaurants to include them in the sticker price of the food itself (it doesn’t matter what you call it – it’s ultimately revenue to the restaurant). The immediate impact of this will be that sticker prices will have to go higher, which will put a “bigger price” in front of the customers’ eyes, and they will order less.

How much less is not clear, but the fact that the restaurants association wants to take the government to court suggests it’s not insignificant. The high end restaurant business runs on extremely low margins (think what you may of the pricing), and even a less than 5% impact on revenues can have a significant impact on the bottom line.

It will be interesting to see if the government next mandates menus to print prices inclusive of taxes. It will be another behavioural nudge, but will end up ruining the restaurant business even more.