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Are You Ready For The New Era Of E-Tipping?

(CBS) -- Tipping is now popping up in places and in ways it never has before.

CBS 2's Marissa Bailey takes a look where and how you're being asked to tip and what an expert says you should do when you encounter the request.

Coffee shops and food trucks -- places you may never have tipped before -- are now asking for tips via pay-by-phone technology.

"Now they can actually get tips a great deal more often by simply suggesting the fact that maybe a tip is appropriate," says Maeve Webster, senior director of food industry analytics firm Dataseential.

Emily Darland, owner of The Corner Farmacy food truck, says she will take payment by phone, with an option to tip.

"I will take your money however you want to give it to me," she says.

Some people are OK with it.

"I always tip. I've had jobs where you live on tips, so I figure e-tipping is nice because I don't have to have change in my pocket. It's easy," Michael Holmberg says.

Even Starbucks is getting in on mobile tipping.

If you pay with the Starbucks app, a short time later you'll receive a text asking if you want to leave a tip for the barista.  The question: Do you normally tip on a quick-serve cup of coffee? If not, does being prompted to tip make you more likely to do so?

"They're just handing you a meal or a coffee, and I don't know if that merits a tip," Casey Hatch says.

But a traditional sitdown meal usually does.

Mike Ryback of Chili's says 86 percent of customers at a downtown Chicago location pay right at their table with a service called Ziosk.

If you choose to tip, it's figured out for you by percentage or dollar amount.

Open Table and Dash are apps that allow diners to pay and tip through their smart phones.

Then there is mobile tipping even before you get served. iPads at some of Newark Airport's restaurants let you order, pay and tip before your food arrives.

At Chicago's Bien Assorti salon, customers can use the Whittl app to book an appointment, pay and tip all before they even walk in the door.

"We're trying to eliminate that little awkward exchange that sometimes happens at the end of an appointment.  So, it's all done through the app or online," says Ashley Groves, Whttl's director of marketing.

Webster says it's becoming the norm, and consumers should do only what they're comfortable with.

She says thanks to the push to increase the minimum wage, there's also a move to eliminate tipping altogether.  Despite that, Webster says doing away with tipping at dinner altogether will be a hard behavior to unlearn.

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