“Good Morning. My name is Kim, and I’ll be serving you this morning.” K. Garrity and D. Degelman tested this greeting at a Charlie Brown’s restaurant in Southern California. Their study appeared in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology in 1990. Introducing herself by name brought the server much higher tips.
The study was small. It used one server and 42 dining parties over two days. A study published in 2016 went further. The servers “introduced themselves by name and then invited customers to do likewise.” Then they used the customers’ names. Their tips rose by 6 percent.