Product2 min read
Fair shares: the thinking behind team tips and staff scheduling
Splitting a tip sounds simple until a guest wants to thank 'the whole kitchen' and half of it was on leave that week, which is why fairness had to be designed into SafariTip rather than bolted on.
Co-founder and Chief Product and Technology Officer
Some of the most important people at any lodge are the ones guests rarely meet, from the chefs and the scullery team to housekeeping and maintenance, and a tipping system that only rewards whoever happens to be standing at reception gets the maths badly wrong. Fairness was one of the first things we had to design for in SafariTip, and it has turned out to be one of the more interesting product problems we've worked on.
Three ways to thank people
Guests can tip an individual, a team, or everyone at the property, and each option exists for a reason. Individual tips recognise the guide who found the leopard, team tips let guests thank a group like 'the kitchen' without knowing every name, and an all-staff tip spreads a single amount across every team and person, which is often the most generous way to include the people working behind the scenes.
Team and all-staff tips are shared equally between the people in them, which keeps the logic simple enough that anyone on the team can understand exactly how their share was worked out.
The problem with a static list
The first version of any team list is a snapshot, and lodges are anything but static. People go on leave, move between properties, and come back again, and if the tipping page doesn't keep up, guests end up tipping someone who isn't there while a shared pool gets split with people who weren't working.
That's the thinking behind staff scheduling on Enterprise accounts. Managers schedule leave for any staff member, for one property or all of them, and SafariTip takes care of the rest, so people on leave are hidden from the guest tipping page and shared tips are distributed only to the staff who were on duty.
Transparency closes the loop
Fair only counts if people can see it, which is why every settlement comes with a per-staff breakdown, and why Enterprise teams can use the Staff app to see the tips they've received and the positive feedback guests left for them. I think there's something quietly powerful about a housekeeper reading a thank-you message that was written with them in mind.
None of this is finished, and it probably never will be, since every property shares tips a little differently. The principle stays the same though, which is that the people who earn a tip should get their fair share of it, and should be able to see that they did.
More insights
Roadmap2 min read
What's next: skills and training in the Staff app
Great service earns great tips, so the next step for SafariTip is helping teams build the skills behind it, with training that lives right in the Staff app.
Fabio Longano
Co-founder and Chief Product and Technology Officer
Payments2 min read
How we keep guest payments and data safe
Guests are trusting a QR code with their card details, which is exactly why security sits at the foundation of how SafariTip is built.
Fabio Longano
Co-founder and Chief Product and Technology Officer
Product2 min read
Your tipping page should look like your lodge
Guests are far more likely to trust a tipping page that looks like the place they've been staying, which is why branding was never an afterthought for us.
Fabio Longano
Co-founder and Chief Product and Technology Officer
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