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The Bottom Line

  • BY JAMES CONTI
We are reminded often about a café’s insatiable need for staff and what we all refer to as “good staff”. Frankly all businesses have the appetite for people who are going to bring in a work ethic and a strong belief that their respective role(s) are, will make a difference. What’s their “why”? That difference may be seen through different lenses but it all rolls into the bottom line of your ever-changing business. How we think of the bottom line or define it is obviously subjective and more personal to what your role is.

Baristas at a café are without question, a tremendously critical point in the operation of the business. Baristas are your front line so to speak for client interaction. The customer experience starts as the client walks in. The familiar sounds of a door opening and closing are quickly followed by the customer and barista visibly connecting. 

The customer comes in seeking that visual affirmation from the barista or the staff, that the caffeinated “circle of life” is beginning all over again today. With just a glance up from a perfectly steamed latte finished with Van Gogh’s tulip, our customer knows the café team has “got them”! No matter the procession as latte’s, cappuccino’s and Americano’s continually pour out, the role we can play in our customer’s life is made all the more favorable by your team understanding the “glance” and its ultimate bottom line impact.

The mindset created that your café and the front of house team use throughout their shifts, has its roots with your training program. It begins with your recruiting efforts and what brings someone in for an interview. Candidates for a role on your team are paying closer attention than ever to the “experience” of obtaining a spot on your café bar team. The attention to detail with your interview questions along with the theme you express during questioning will reveal a lot to a discerning candidate. 

Where you conduct your discussion inside the café can tell someone how important this role is and how much time and effort you are putting into the hiring. It would seem almost impossible to expect an interviewee to leave your interview session knowing how critical a job this is and how much a premium you place on hiring when you made them sit and wait (you’re late!), conduct a superficial Q&A session while standing by the door. 

Conversely, by having a place in your café where you can speak at length, along with an extensive question agenda which clearly seeks to understand who your candidate is and will they fit in on your team over the long term. Impart a vibe that their success at your café is important to you and watch the energy you get back with an answer to a question. 

By asking great questions, expressingauthentic curiosity and listening intently to their answers, you tell quite a bit about what and how youexpect them to work with your customers. Walk the walk that you ask your team to everyday! The candidate at this moment is your “customer” and treat them accordingly and the exponential benefits will soon follow.

Many times, if not most, we hear café owners and prospective owners in our Professional Business Classes speak to the desire to create community and inclusion with their existing and new venture. Instilling and evoking some positive experience that will invite customers back on a continuing basis is the goal. We remind both business and barista students, that what we are always mindful of is the culture within our walls at the café. 

That begins with ownership, management, and current staff. Put the time in to foster an environment that you wish your customers to appreciate from their purchase of a beverage from your cafe. Whether you train your staff or seek out the New Jersey Coffee School to play that role in some way, the tools needed are of course an ability to pull a shot and steam milk within a very quick timeframe. 

However, the experiential characteristics of your barista glancing up as that door opens to a quickly welcomed customer, begins with their first entrance to your café seeking you out for an interview. The tasks we all learn to procure a cup of coffee are merely the vehicles we can express gratitude for someone’s continued business. The bottom line has many contributors in your café but none more than your team’s obsession with imparting the experience that only your café can do and do very well!

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