Where’s the money go?

The hotel I stayed in on a recent weekend road trip left a note in my room kindly asking me (and presumably all its guests) to tip their housekeeper.

I'm not opposed to the idea of compensating someone for a job well done, particularly for a job that's essential. But it seems to me that hotels like this one would do better to include the cost of tipping their housekeepers in the cost of room service.

Most guests don't mind paying a little more when the markup is high already, but I think many like myself find it odd (and slightly dubious) that a multimillion-dollar business would ask me to pay them on top of what I already paid.

Further, what happens if I don't pay? Or, what happens if only 20% of their customers tip their housekeepers for their service? Does that mean the business won’t compensate their housekeepers fairly? And, if so few pay up, will their housekeepers be sufficiently incentivized to do their job well and not slack off?

I’m not so sure.

Point is, baking everything you need to cover in the price is a far better alternative than jeopardizing your brand by doing what’s right for the business, by both cutting corners and trying to position yourself as a bargain.

You’re either solving a problem for the customer or you’re solving a problem for the business. Solve the former first, and profits tend to follow. Solve for the latter first, and it’s an uphill slog to make a profit while you slowly expend your customers’ trust.