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Management

To achieve a desired quality of service each person will customer can really set the course for the remaining engagement,
have their own list of criteria to monitor themselves by, need- that is why it is essential evoke affability and professionalism.
less to say this will differ person to person given individual This of course will shape how you want to carry out this ‘welcom-
(person or business) goals of service. These goals first need to ing stage’, causing one to think of spacing or ‘staging’ right through
be laid out, prioritised, and then distributed amongst the service to even a common language that would be best adopted by the
teams. What I have noticed when discussing ideas for service team.
with peers and colleagues is that most points are agreeable,
after all we tend to think quite alike and have the same end
goal in mind; differences in opinion however, in my experience,
have been found when placing the importance of each ‘service
criteria’ on a spectrum. This spectrum I refer to helps to pri- Quality and consistency is imperative,
oritise techniques and actions (least important - most impor-
tant) in the service space when accommodating customers. which is why creating these systems with
Having a great team is essential for creating these systems for
service as you can really debate and subsequently nail down a team can be more effective.
the most efficient and effective way to award the best service
possible, all the while engaging the team in the decision mak-
ing process and creating shared goals. Whoever thought your This same adaptive service style must continue throughout
high school teacher was speaking wisdom as they constantly the remainder of a customers visit, watching to see if customers
harassed you to write down your goals for each year? are engaged in conversation amongst themselves or seem in-
Molding service to the wants of each customer can be trigued by the menu for example will require two very different
difficult and takes practice. Right from the moment a budding interactions. This brings me to the nitty-gritty of coffee service,
coffee enthusiast walks through the door, or a caffeine hungry in particular, communicating the coffee menu and relevant in-
zombie clambers into the space a good service team will assess formation. This is the main reason for writing this piece in fact,
the subject like a meticulous TSA agent quickly deciphering as over the last few months I have really noticed a lack of service
the needs of the customer and tailoring their interaction ac- quality in this area. In the case of a specialty coffee venue, if a
cordingly. Being effective in this analysis can create person- barista doesn’t know the process of the coffee they are serving
ability with each customer and this can be the deciding point or the composition of the blend they are using, or a member of
for their future return. Like any first impression, greeting a the service team doesn’t know what the single origin offer is

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