With the Princeton University students away and summer in full swing, the café is slowing down. Yet as slow as it was on Monday, my awesome co-worker and I made fantastic tips. We used the slower-paced environment to take extra, extra care of each customer. Lots of smiling. Lots of eye contact. Lots of enthusiasm in our voices.

I know that earning great tips had very little to do with saying all the right things such as “What would you like today?” and “Would you like anything else?” and “Have a good day.” People who work in customer service say those exact words all of the time but don’t necessarily mean it. It’s always obvious because their body language doesn’t match their words. They may not even make the effort to look you in the eye. Those are the people who don’t make great tips. And those are behaviors – poor eye contact and incongruence Continue reading →