Fresh Cup Magazine, providing specialty coffee and tea professionals with unique insight into the trends, ideas, products and people that shape their world.
Issue link: http://freshcup.epubxp.com/i/158781
A s a coffee or tea retailer, you likely supply more than just high-quality food and drink at your establishment. For many in the community, you offer a "third place"— a comfortable anchor that offers customers a welcome intermission between home and life's hectic day-to-day. Undoubtedly, you do everything you can to keep your staff friendly and your café neighborly for all who count on the moment of needed respite you provide. But ensuring customer satisfaction isn't always easy. Coffee and tea drinkers—fueled by both a strong desire for their morning fix and a preoccupation with the industry's habitual quality-seeking—are one of the pickiest sub-categories of consumers. To help you keep your customer base happy, we've compiled some instrumental tips for dealing with difficult, demanding and otherwise high-maintenance patrons. Below you'll find five theoretical customers who might require aboveand-beyond customer service, with some tried-andtrue strategies from industry professionals on minimizing conflict and keeping customers happy—one drink at a time. CUSTOMER #1: THE UNWILLING TO WAIT For a business owner, long lines and high-volume hours may be a dream come true. But to a thirsty patron, unexpected wait times can feel stressful and unfair. Luckily, there are tricks of the trade for calming the nerves of even the most impatient customers. First and foremost is greeting and connecting with your visitors. Customer anxiety while waiting in line stems mostly from a feeling of being ignored. When you're swamped, it's more important than ever to make customers feel welcome and appreciated. The best way to do that is to greet individuals as they wait in line or when they first walk in. Make eye contact and ask how their day is going, or thank them for waiting. The goal is to connect and to make sure that no one feels like a burden—or, worse, like they don't exist. Another easy way to calm an impatient customer's nerves is to calm one's own. "The minute a barista or cashier starts to get flustered, customers feel that tension and it starts to make them a little more anxious," says Heather Perry, director of training and consulting at Southern California roaster-retailer Klatch Coffee. "Ten seconds starts to feel like 10 minutes. Little things like being confident in what you're doing, being calm and making sure you're smiling while hustling make customers feel like, 'OK, she has it under control, I'm being taken care of.'" Keeping calm and confident will also make inopportune mistakes less likely and will keep operations running smoothly and efficiently. As Perry puts it, "Something all coffeehouses—especially busy coffeehouses—have in common is knowing how to balance quality with speed." But she adds, "Customers want to see that you're trying." CUSTOMER #2: THE UNDER-CAFFEINATED You greet a customer who doesn't say "hi" back. Instead, he barks his drink order at you while handing off his money. At first you are taken aback, but then you realize that it's 8 a.m. and this person is probably woefully under-caffeinated. Regardless of whether your assumption is true, if it seems like someone is having a bad day, that is probably the case. If some customers are often surly, then they're likely having a series of bad ones. Tightlipped, rude and occasionally impossible-to-please customers will grace your doorway—it's unavoidable. The answer is to respond in as friendly a manner as possible. Don't take a customer's snippy attitude personally. It's important to understand that his or her bad temper likely has nothing to do with you. Make it your goal to improve people's days during the time they're in your shop, serving each and every order with kindness and without judgment. A friendly inquiry ("How is your day going?") or compliment ("I like your bag!") may be all it takes to break someone's icy exterior. When it's not, smile, say thank you and move on. Mary Greengo, owner of the Queen Mary Tea Room in Seattle, says friendly customer service is "paramount" to her business. "A lot of it is reading body language," she says. "Not every person needs the same thing." The worst thing you and your staff can do is absorb the negativity of others. The next customer you encounter after a grouchy continued on page 34 freshcup.com September 2013 33