Opinion: Five strategies for navigating today’s digital tipping culture

The requests for tips for service are coming more frequently these days, as cashless payment methods with automated tipping options proliferate at checkout counters. To help make responding to these prompts less awkward, tipping experts offer some guidelines. First, it’s worth knowing that you can always decline to tip in scenarios where limited service was provided. But in service-heavy scenarios, such as at sit-down restaurants, tipping 20% is still standard, and many service workers receive a significant portion of their income in the form of tips and end-of-year gratuities. — AP

The nearly universal experience of finding yourself face-to-face with a checkout counter screen asking you to select an amount to tip for service can prompt a cascade of awkward questions: How much should you tip on a US$5 (RM23) coffee if anything? How can you decide before the cup has even been poured? Is it rude to select “no tip”, then slink away with your drink?

The answers to those questions vary depending on whom you ask, but tipping experts agree on one thing: We get prompted to tip much more frequently these days, largely because of the explosion of cashless payment methods with automated tipping options. Another thing they agree on: You don’t always have to say “yes”.