I love living in a suburb with great Cafes that I can walk to, where they know my coffee order and I can rely on the coffee being (pretty much) the same every time.
Cafe Sofia in Erskinville is such a cafe. The coffee is consistent, the breakfast varies only slightly between the 2 breakfast chefs and the thing I actually like the best about them is that they really want every customer to enjoy their coffee, their snack, their meal, their Cafe Sofia experience.
We eat breakfast there on a regular basis. Our regular order is 2 Coffees with 2 eggs on toast and this breakfast costs $24. Some weeks we do this 3 times and others maybe just the once. Let’s say an average twice a week and let’s say 50 weeks in a year and we have been doing this for at least the past 5 years.
$24 x 2 times per week x 50 week x 5 years = $12 000
Are we treated like $12 000 customers? I believe “yes” and at the same time I’m not sure they have ever thought of us like this.
And there aren’t just us. There are other customers who are there for breakfast every day and then back for mid morning coffee and then for lunch. Cafe Sofia would be busy for dinner as well if they were open.
No, they aren’t thinking about us in that way.
They are providing good old fashioned customer service. They want to know “How do you want your coffee?” and then they make it that way. “How do you like your eggs?” and then “let me make it that way for you.”
Product/ Market connection? You bet!
Market driven? Totally! The Christmas holiday period can be an opportunity for cafes in Sydney to close. The owners of Cafe Sofia don’t live in our suburb and had always closed for 10 days or 2 weeks in December/ January. One year they were giving the Cafe a good clean and freshening up the paint.
All day long people popped under the roller door at the front and said “Are you open?” That was the last year they closed.
Lesson for Startups:
What do your customers want from you?
What problem do they need solved?
How are you going to solve it? For them!
Not for you … For them!