Café management involves the usual aspects of managing a small business. These include managing staff, making sure customers are satisfied, and monitoring sales and profits. It also involves the additional responsibilities of food preparation, food safety, and equipment maintenance. When you think about marketing and promotion, project management skills will be required.
9 tips for running a successful coffee shop
You can make your coffee shop better than ever with these nine tips. These tips include everything from your business strategy to your front desk. Try something that you think makes sense to you. Try out some of these ideas and see which ones have the greatest impact. In no time, your coffee shop will run more smoothly and become more successful.
1. Create a business strategy for your café
Start strong by knowing what your goals are and how you intend to achieve them. A business plan is essential, especially if you want to attract investors. If you already have a business but plan to expand, update your existing plan or create a new one.
A coffee shop business strategy will help you stay on track when making decisions and ensure that your operations are efficient. It’s also important to have a plan for all aspects of your business.
2. How to market a coffee shop
Your coffee shop will not be successful without customers. How will you attract customers? How will your customers know you have opened or expanded? It’s not enough to rely on foot traffic. You will need to find ways to make people want to visit your coffee shop.
You can increase your visibility to attract more customers by:
- Your Website
- Your social media accounts
- Special Events
- Discounts
- Partnerships
3. Manage cafe employees effectively
If you want to run a cafe, then managing the shop must be a passion. You can’t just bury your head into a coffee bag and expect the shop to run itself. You need to know how to run a coffee shop.
- Be honest with yourself about your strengths, weaknesses and the management styles.
- Learn how to become a great manager, whether you use ‘s online manager resources or take a course.
- Listen to the concerns of employees and be approachable. Stick to your decision. You don’t wish to lose a worker, but you also do not want the problem to fester. This will lead to more staff leaving.
- Regularly hold staff meetings for the purpose of discussing policies and concerns. They can also be used to build relationships, test out new products and to have fun together.
- Clarify your job description, expectations and mission. It is important to write it down and make sure that your employees understand.
- To gain more insight on overtime, improve communication with your team and easily schedule your staff, use a Restaurant Scheduling Tool.
- Ensure that your employees receive adequate training to ensure they are equipped to perform their duties.
- Accept input and address problems directly. You will gain more respect from your employees if you follow this advice.
It’s important to communicate clearly what you want from your team and why. This will not solve all problems, but is the minimum foundation.
4. Your team should be educated on your products
You can’t just be a expert in coffee. You may have a great understanding of the coffee you sell, the notes on the tastes, and the recommendations that every coffee lover would love.
Regular tasting not only makes your team more knowledgeable but also helps them detect changes in quality or taste before the customers. This is a great way to ensure quality while also preparing your staff to help customers.
In investing in the training of your employees, you are investing in your own business. Make sure that the training you provide is tailored to your employees. When you are putting together your training program, here are some things to keep in mind:
- What are the gaps in your employees’ understanding? What are the skills and knowledge they need to perform their job efficiently and effectively? Recent events may have prompted you to address certain issues. Consider what skills will benefit you, your staff, and your clients.
- What are your goals for the training? Are you looking to increase sales or reduce errors? Reduce register errors? How can you increase adherence to policy? Set training goals and then monitor performance.
- Support – whatever training you plan, ensure that you and your team of managers, if needed, provide your employees with the support they require to not only complete the training but also to succeed. In a few weeks or days, follow up to ensure everyone received what they needed. Answer all questions from your employees.
5. Appreciate your customers
Many businesses have customer appreciation days. They’re an excellent way to showcase new products or services, as well as to celebrate a holiday or season.
You can still show your customers that you value them even without a large event. Other simple ways to show customers that you appreciate them are:
- Mark down the price for pastries that are a day old.
- Samples of your coffee products can be offered to your customers as a way to educate them about the product.
- Earn free drinks by using loyalty cards
- Free wifi is available.
- You can even have a bookshelf and comfortable chairs to let customers know that they are welcome to stay a little while.
- Use the name of your customer as much as you can during the transaction.
- Ask your customers what they want, and make adjustments if needed.
These double-duty strategies will increase your sales while also making customers feel valued.
What makes customers feel valued the least?
Employees who don’t acknowledge or make eye contact with customers at the counter. When they’re not recognized as regulars and have an impersonal and cold transaction experience. They may also feel rushed out by employees who mop the floor or wipe the tables around them just before closing.
You need to teach your staff what not to do if you want to ensure that your customers feel valued. Otherwise, your efforts will be wasted.
6. Employee appreciation is a habit
Your team is important. It is expensive to replace an employee. You can show them how much you value them by:
- flexible scheduling is used wherever possible to give employees more control over the work-life balance. Restaurant schedule software will help you quickly set up this.
- Creative tip jars to encourage tips.
- Celebrate special occasions in their lives.
- Incentives for good work and long-term employment.
- You should pay well and look for employee benefit that you can offer, regardless of whether they are typical or not.
- Rewards for professionalism and openness to growth.
- Keeping your word. It’s hard to find a faster way to lose the respect of your employees than by not keeping your promises.
There are many ways can show employee appreciation. You don’t have to do it all, but at least you should do something.
7. How to become a third place winner
Starbucks inspired us to create a third place. This is a place you can go that’s not home or work. It’s somewhere else where you want to spend more time. It’s somewhere you feel comfortable and welcome.
How can you turn your coffee shop into a third-place?
We’ve already discussed how to make customers feel valued. You can also make your shop more inviting.
Change the atmosphere to match the time and season. People are sensitive to environmental cues. You can make your cafe more inviting by changing the decor, music, lighting and menu in accordance with what other customers experience.
8. Automate whenever possible
We has helped us better connect our team by providing a single resource for all of our team members to use in order to communicate,” We’ve removed annoying mass text messages from our coffee shop so that we are always on the same page.
As Jackson discovered, automation can save you time and money and keep your team more connected. You can automate several tasks. Here are a few great examples.
- Set up automatic reorders of your products based on historical data.
- Use a point of sale system that has a tip feature built in.
- Plan your social media marketing a month in advance. Plan your promotions, coupons and special events and post them for the next month.
- Employee scheduling – Use a tool for easy creation of the schedule. It can be integrated with time clock, and payroll. It also comes with self-scheduling and allows employees to swap shifts without needing to contact you.
- Invest in the technology to help you automate your cafe operations.
Automating behind the scenes allows you to be more personable in front of the counter. This directly impacts your customer experience and employee satisfaction.
9. Optimize your order area
While your customers are placing their orders at the counter, you have a limited amount of time and space to grab their attention. There are a number of ways to maximize the profit from that space.
- Do not over-signalize. Customers will tune out the entire area if there is too much information to read and see.
- Signs should be simple, professional and easy to understand. They should also direct customers to drinks with high profit margins.
- Only put high-profit items on the order page. Items with lower profit margins, such as bags of whole beans or other items, can be put elsewhere.
- Add-ons should be easily visible to encourage upselling. Asking if the customer would like a bagel to go with their coffee is easier for your staff.
At peak times the coffee shop ordering area is crowded. All things should be kept simple to ensure maximum and streamlined sales.
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