The other day I found myself with the rare pleasure of having two hours to myself. I wandered, a little aimlessly, into a [famous] high street coffee emporium. The recent addition to my high street was light, airy, and bristling with the hullabaloo of people doing stuff they do in coffee shops, which is, it turns out, not that much really. Briefly surveying the clientele, I noticed a variety of social groupings: The ladies-that-lunch brigade, laughing and out-doing each other with tales of grander jewels, larger handbags and golder shoes; the thirtysomethings frantically writing up those ever-important notes on their laptop. busily missing the point of being busy; the sixth-form students making a small coffee last 3 hours; and the retired couple looking comfortable with each other, at ease with life, while yet a little uneasy about all this new-found convenience, and newness.
I made my way to the counter and was greeted by a beaming smile, a welcome and an-easy-to-business-with attitude. £6 bought me a frothy coffee and a bun. “Why don’t I do this more often?” I wondered to myself, as I lost my thoughts, and busied myself taking in the carefully crafted environment: middle-of-the-road, feel good music (not easy -listening, as I would have upped and left had it been this), easy lighting, three or four different styles of chairs that seemed to match…not an idle observation from a forthysomething bloke who can’t match a shirt to a tie!; and easy efficiency…it was an easy place to be. The coffee was perfectly presented, just like I imagined the photograph to be on the training video that the young beautiful young person had viewed weeks before. There were several young beautiful people, all serving and ready to serve with efficiency. Had I walked into some social cleansing shop? No, they just did their jobs with gathering efficiency, and niceness. She smiled, and took my money seamlessly, offering me a loyalty card, which I duly took up. I got free wi-fi, which is now vital…isn’t it? I know I don’t have space in my wallet for another loyalty card, but this one was going to displace a redundant one. I got the impression the chain I’d now frequented knew this about me. In fact I got the impression they knew a lot more about me than I cared to admit. How odd, I was being categorised, and sold to without it hurting!
The whole experience was a pleasurable one, but afterwards I reflected that I went there for a coffee and what I got, what I experienced, what actually I would return for, was an hour of “me-time”; a time to reflect in relative peace; and a time to just enjoy not rushing off to the next “got-to-go-to” meeting, to discuss stuff that’s endless and never-endingly circular. Somehow, with Harry Potter magic this hour seemed simple, not rushed. And easy. Overall it was easy. Am I that unique for this to be only me feeling this? No, of course not. However, why do some companies get it so right, while some get it so so wrong? I recall being a teenager, a long time ago, and the only place to have a “coffee” was a Wimpy. Back then, with raleigh bikes and tight jeans, it seemed one had to have egg and chips with everything, even if all you wanted was a coffee. Why? Perhaps the coffee revolution, had not hit 1980’s Britain. We did not know back then about coffee. But, is it really the coffee that’s being sold?
Armed with these unchecked thoughts, I decided to commission my own research which I felt would be pleasurable, and teach me something I already know…the best kind of learning, I always find. There are six coffee shops in my home town, a place with about 60,000 people. Two of the other coffee shops are well-known high street chains; one is a proud independent; and then there are two kind of, not-sure-what-they-are, but sell coffee, and say appealing things about milk and whisks type places. Having sampled the wares of each over a two-week period, I can conclude that the aforementioned emporium I entered accidentally is by far and away the best. Best! This is my subjective value judgement. Having not been a frequenter of coffee shops thus far in life’s meandering pathways, why do I make this judgement? To answer this I have to understand the why of my question! We often forget the why don’t we? Undoubtedly we all have to an extent, and listening to the former Tesco CEO Terry Leahy speak animatedly about his “Management in 10 words”, it made we realise that huge amounts of us have forgotten about our customers. Huge amounts of us from whatever walks of life we are from have forgotten to ask why. We haven’t in fact, and not in our daily actions – we still worry about them, want to please them, and want to offer stuff to them they can’t get elsewhere, but we have stopped listening to them?
I’m not sure we have in reality, but we have just lost our away a little, and focus is perhaps the better word to show where we are…or indeed where we are not. We haven’t stopped listening…although we have stopped hearing. We have not stopped reading charts produced weekly, daily and monthly which detail our value, or volume created by customers, but we have stopped asking them what they actually think, and what their individual and combined hearts desire. They are the best, most accurate and cheapest source of the truth. Without this, we are all guessing.
Putting the customer at the heart and the start of what we do as a business is surely no bad idea, be that business, a school, a doctor’s surgery, a supermarket, or indeed a coffee-shop.
My research, poorly conducted, but vey enjoyable nonetheless, revealed a startling truth. I was not alone in my thinking, that is, if people vote with their feet, the other coffee shops are deserted by comparison to my new found champion of coffee. This may have something to do with location (and location and location), but moreover, it seemed to me about the indifference of the staff in their pursuit of service who work in the other places. I found people pouring over cash tills, not looking up for over 5 minutes to see some hapless me wanting a drink, important managers writing up notes in books for others to read, staff checking the supply of milk, and even one of them telling me I had to pay in cash as their bank machine had broken. While I did not object to this at all, it soured the whole experience, as it wasn’t done with a smile.
It seems smiles are a differentiator, to me anyway. Is it that simple? Perhaps?
Back in my now favourite shop, smiles abound, attitude (the right sort) swirled like airborne magnets, attracting me to drink in the atmosphere, and things just happened with a smile. There was no cash register, no captain’s log book, and no preoccupation with anything but me…and my fellow guests. Nothing was too much trouble, and I could stay for hours. The internet just works, allowing me to pretend I was a thirtysomething, and the music seemed to be my own playlist. How clever? How easy?
My research led me to one startling conclusion…It’s not about the coffee, as the coffee, the actual coffee…the stuff I went there for in the first place, or so I thought, was OK, and from my past, I recall coffee costing somewhere like 15p to deliver to a customer in a cup (a massive generalisation, but you’ll allow some latitude here?). I don’t know what it cost to deliver to me, but £6 was cheap to get an hour or so to myself, in wonderful surroundings, with ease was worth much more.
Therefore, startlingly…It’s not about the coffee….
We are told sometimes on training courses, and from experts to “sell the sex”. Perhaps this is true, but moreover, I think it goes a little deeper than this. I think the unnamed coffee shop have a deep understanding of what they do, and how they can do it better than anyone else…perhaps better than anyone else can do it in my home town, or even the world? I also think they have recruited people who seem, (or have been drugged) to have a passion for what they are doing. They have put these two things tougher and have created magic. Coffee purveying in my home town is a crowded room, yet they have opened in October 2012, and are busier by at least 50% or more than any other coffee shop.
They have also perhaps increased overall coffee buying in a town that while not cosmopolitan by any means, does have a liking for new stuff, and the cash in their pockets to pay for it.
So, if it’s not about the coffee what is it? I don’t know, but I have coined a term in my meanderings, which I shall claim as my own…it’s something to do with the Bananarama school of management, “It ain’t what you do, it’s the way that you do it; that’s what gets results”.
Our Guest Blogger today is Mark Shotton. Dad of 3; husband to 1; leader of a great textile solutions business (www.tonrose.com)… he is still awaiting his first England cap (but the last bit is just what he dreams about, he says!!)
