How simple was that?
By Steve Carter
You want what?
‘Can I have a decaf skinny latte, extra hot, extra wet please?’ My wife recently asked of the young lad stood behind the counter at a well known coffee chain. Completely bewildered, I looked at my wife, then at the lad behind the counter and then at my wife again, thinking to myself; what the hell have you just ordered? Was this some sort of secret code in the world of coffee, or was my wife trying to relive her youth and get down with the kids? Whatever it was, he understood everything that she said and then turned his attention to me. ‘What can I get you?’ He asked politely. ‘Can I just have a normal coffee with milk please?’ I said in reply. The last time I looked I didn’t have two heads, but I may as well have done, given the look that I was getting. There was a momentary pause before my wife came to the rescue, advising the lad that my beverage of choice would be an Americano. Suddenly he was back in the zone again and politely asked, ‘would you like milk with the Americano?’ Unless I had changed my mind in the last 10 to 15 seconds, which I hadn’t, milk was indeed part of the original request, so I nodded and said, ‘yes please.’ ‘Would you like hot or cold milk?’ Was the next question asked in my direction. ‘Umm, cold please’, I responded. ‘And is that a medium or large?’ He asked finally. What a carry on that simple request turned out to be.
My wife enquired as to whether I fancied a sandwich or any other food of choice. I declined on the grounds that it would be far too difficult, guessing that the lad may want to know which mill I would like the flour to have been produced at.
‘Go and grab a table and I will wait for the drinks’, said my wife.
As you may have guessed, I don’t tend to visit coffee chains very often and on the odd occasions that I have done, I have rarely stood in the queue to place an order. I sat for a few minutes, still mulling over what my wife had ordered and wondering if ordering a simple coffee really needed to be that difficult, or was it just me?
The tray containing the 2 drinks was placed in front of me and I found myself looking at both, comparing them, thinking that neither looked wetter than the other. How could they, it doesn’t make any sense, if it is wet, it is wet, surely there is not varying degrees of wetness where a cup of coffee is concerned. I felt obliged to ask the question, to which the explanation was something to do with having more liquid milk than froth. I think it was probably at this point that I made a conscious decision to probably try and avoid this particular coffee chain for a while, just to save any future embarrassment. Nothing wrong with the coffee whatsoever, it was just too much faffing about; it just needs to be simple.
Here we go again
I just want to give another example of where thinking something through and keeping it simple would make things easier for all interested parties.
I love my local pub, it has great beer, great food, very friendly staff, and there is always a warm welcome for everyone. It is situated on the edge of a lake and is literally a couple of minutes from the countryside so, as you can imagine, it does attract a lot of customers particularly on the food side.
Only this week, I walked in to see a sign on the bar explaining that, due to distribution challenges with the Spanish based supplier, there were no tomatoes available for a period of time. As my friends and I looked at each other, there were expressions of amusement, bewilderment, and disbelief. We were all thinking along the same lines in that less than half a mile away there is a country based market garden business with probably more tomatoes available than you can shake a stick at. The other option is that if you stand outside of the pub and throw a stone it will land on the roof of the Co-op and, the last time that I looked, they also sold tomatoes.
Apparently, food comes from approved suppliers at agreed prices, and it is hard to deviate away from that. Really? What even when it isn’t available, and the simple solution is right there on your doorstep? Think of the angle that could have been put on that, about how a local business helped out a major pub chain in times of need. Instead, every time a salad or rump steak, that should come with half a grilled tomato, was ordered an explanation had to be given and something else offered in its place. Come on, keep it simple and make it easy.
Could we do better?
Both of these things got me thinking. Do we make it as easy as possible for our customers in our industry? Do we assume that our customers understand the jargon that we use? Do we believe that our customers are fully up to speed with everything that is going on in our industry? I think, on the whole, we do a relatively good job, but I also think there are times when we could do better. As an example, at the time of writing this blog we are very much in the depths of a worldwide cut sheet paper shortage. Within our industry, it is well documented, we all know about it, and we all know the reasons for it but are we sure that our customers do? After all, an office supplies business without paper is like a chip shop without chips, or at least that is the way it is perceived. I recently made a point of going out and asking people in other industries if they were aware of the challenges with cut sheet paper. I asked people in the banking, insurance, car dealership and science research industries and not one of them had any idea that paper was in very short supply. These are all industries that tend to use a fair amount of cut sheet paper and yet they were unaware of the challenges, but they really needed to be.
Within the Advantia group we made a point of pulling together all relevant information, along with letters from the mills which would explain to consumers why these challenges exist and then giving our members the tools they needed to ensure that their customer base is fully up to speed. It is simple really, but sometimes we are all guilty of overlooking what should be simple. Why do we do that? Why do we assume that everyone will know as much as we do about something that doesn’t necessarily form part of their daily life?
If I go back to the young lad in the coffee shop, he certainly knew his stuff, he had the relevant expertise in the various drink combinations that were on offer. I would have very much welcomed him asking me how I normally like my coffee and then steering me towards the best option for my taste. He could have kept it nice and simple and then the next time I would know exactly what to ask for, saving time for both of us. I am always willing to learn from the expertise of others. I don’t need to know all of the ins and outs, just the simple basics is fine with me. Equally, I am always willing to share any knowledge that I have, and I also know that I need to keep it simple and share it in a way that people will understand.
On that note, I am off to boil the kettle and make myself an extra wet coffee. Only joking, I wouldn’t know where to start, I will leave that to the experts. Nescafe granules it is then.
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