Cancel it? I seriously doubt she had even started making my coffee, which is exactly why I was cancelling it.
It’s Monday morning and we’ve just ordered coffees at one of our favourite early morning coffee spots; a local espresso bar that has become an institution in Sydney’s Inner West. We usually time our arrival for a respectable few minutes after they are open their doors at (a some what late) 7am. This Monday we walked the opposite way to usual and ended at the espresso bar; bad move!
It’s busy, very busy. That’s OK these people are the Kings of process. They have a team of baristas and two stunning multi handled – 8 handles in total – coffee machines, so pumping out multiple coffees is something they take in their stride. I have a nice spot in the sun and even better, I have perfect view of all the goings on behind the bar! For a Process Queen, I couldn’t be happier….. except their processes and systems weren’t working so well.
Suddenly there is momentary silence except for the click clack clack of the coffee grinder handle being clicked to release the ground coffee. You know how that happens in a crowded space? Suddenly no-one is talking. I realize the reason no one is talking is because there is no-one waiting for coffee; the bar is empty.
And we still don’t have our coffees. Hhhhhmmmm.
“It seems their process is to clear all the take away coffees before making the coffees for the sitting in customers.” I comment to my walking and coffee buddy. Obviously I have used what my friends call my “facilitator voice” as the tall elegant young man who appears to be the manager says “Oh we have special processes for our orders.” And he goes on to explain about how the take aways with milk and the no milk coffees and the specialty milk coffees are all made on separate parts of the coffee machine and then the specialty bean coffees are made separately and “our systems keep everything working like clockwork”
Except this morning it doesn’t.
One of the joys of having the time and date printed on your receipt is that it is really easy to know how long you’ve been waiting. It’s 11 minutes since I ordered our coffees.
Then I notice some thing I hadn’t noticed before. The elegant manager is speaking to the barista who is making the “having here” coffees and she appears to be a barista with training wheels. She has a line up of failed coffees set on the bench behind her.
What business puts a trainee barista in the job at one of their busiest times of day? A business that really wants to annoy their customers, that’s who!
I’m not prepared to wait beyond 15 minutes so I ask them to please cancel my order. The elegant manager apologises, calls out “cancel that coffee order” to the trainee barista and hands me my money back.
You may be thinking that after all that time I’d be even more keen to have my coffee, not me. I was out of there. I just wanted to get on with my day. And I didn’t have a lot of confidence that my coffee would in fact taste any good when it was finally deleivered. My companion asked “So is this a place we can never come back to?”
I thought about the question for a moment. “No, we’ll be back. At our usual time of 7am, when they open!”
The espresso bar has what I call “goodwill credits” Over time we have had good experiences there so one misdemeanor does not put me off forever. In the past we have had samples of new blends and new single origin coffees, the team are usually extremely helpful and he was very quick to apologize. I first came across the idea of the emotional bank account years ago when reading Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly effective people. And in addition right now I’m trying very hard to Seek First to Understand why the Manager of the espresso bar would put their trainee on at that time ….. there are probably plenty of reasons.
Whether a business is a new StartUp or an established business like the espresso bar (which has been operating in that location for almost 15 years) the daily customer experience is what guarantees their ongoing success. What are you doing every day to build and keep your customers coming back?
Oh, and I’ll let you know how we go next Monday.
I’m Ingrid Thompson and thank you for reading this post.
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