June 19, 2024
How can you increase coffee sales and streamline your barista’s experience? For the average coffee shop, order accuracy and speed is a crucial part of success. This blog will take a look at how you can increase sales, improve sustainability, and benefit from modern technology.
The first step of growing your business includes reaching more people. This process requires building interest in your brand, increasing brand visibility, and building a strong reputation that drives word-of-mouth referrals. However, it’s also vital that you provide an excellent product and experience as you attract more customers or your efforts could backfire.
Here is a three-pronged approach to help boost coffee sales for your shop.
Customer Service: Train your staff to provide excellent customer service. Friendly, knowledgeable, and efficient service can significantly enhance the customer experience, leading to repeat business and positive reviews.
Once you’ve started building an audience, it’s important to set yourself apart and show how you support the community. Another important way to reduce costs and improve your reputation is to follow eco-friendly (or green) practices to eliminate unnecessary costs and resources. Here are four ways you can make your coffee shop more sustainable.
Choose coffee beans and other ingredients that are ethically sourced and certified organic. Partner with suppliers who prioritize sustainability and fair trade practices.
Talk to local farmers and artisans so you can source regional goods directly from the source. This supports the local economy and provides fresh, high-quality ingredients for your menu.
Switch to biodegradable or compostable packaging for to-go orders. Offer reusable mugs and plates for customers that plan to stay. Upgrade to energy-efficient appliances and lighting.
If renovating or building a new location, use sustainable building materials and designs that maximize natural light and ventilation, reducing the need for artificial lighting and air conditioning. Install devices and coffee business equipment that will reduce energy and water use.
You can make a bigger impact when you share the knowledge! Start by making sure your staff understand the importance of conserving water and energy during daily operations.
Host events or workshops on sustainability to educate your community while increasing brand visibility to draw new customers. Engage with local environmental groups to promote green initiatives and foster a culture of sustainability in your coffee shop.
Implement recycling and composting programs for coffee grounds, food scraps, and packaging materials. Encourage customers to bring their own reusable cups by offering a small discount.
Use a kitchen display system to reduce paper waste from printed tickets and improve your kitchen efficiency. This digital solution not only supports a more organized workflow but also aligns with eco-friendly practices by minimizing the need for paper.
A Kitchen Display System (KDS) can significantly enhance how a coffee shop manages orders.
Fresh KDS helped PJ’s Coffee get a better system in place, improving order accuracy and employee success. Read more about it in this case study.
Here are seven ways a KDS will help you increase coffee sales and improve operations.
Misunderstanding something as simple as a milk substitute or pump flavor can lead to essentially pouring money right down the drain. How can you improve accuracy for your team?
A KDS clarifies the entire process, making it easy for your team to see drink modifications (like allergy alerts) and other important details (like the order type). Reducing mistakes in the kitchen with a better order display system will help eliminate the cost of remaking items and keep things flowing for your staff.
Orders are displayed digitally on screens in the preparation area. This ensures that every barista sees the same, clear information, including the order of items waiting to be prepared.
Not only will this reduce the number of miscommunications that occur with written or called-out orders, but standardizing the process also helps streamline employee training. Your baristas will feel more confident and less stressed when orders are clearly displayed in real-time on a screen.
How should your team juggle online orders, to-go orders, and in-person orders when they don’t all take the same amount of time to create? A KDS can prioritize orders based on their preparation time and complexity, helping staff manage their workflow more efficiently during busy periods. Plus, a KDS offers real-time updates if something is changed on your point-of-sale system.
Some coffee shops have several different stations to prepare things like hot coffee, smoothies, and bakery treats. Fresh KDS makes it possible to set up different stations on different screens so you can bump completed items from one station without disrupting the in-progress order on another station. This ensures items aren’t getting skipped and order progress isn’t halted when one machine or prep station is busy.
Don’t need an assembly line setup? That’s fine too! With Fresh, you get to pick the screen communication style that best supports your operations.
You can increase coffee sales by letting customers order online ahead of time for pickup. This caters to people who want to skip the line when they are in a hurry or need a convenient way to make a larger group order.
However, the temperature and freshness of drinks rely on timely pickups, so it’s crucial you have a setup in place that does more than provide an estimated time. Fresh KDS makes it possible to provide your customers with real-time order updates via text so they know exactly when they should arrive to grab their drinks. You can even set up a customer-facing screen to show which orders are ready and which ones are still being prepped by your team.
Optimizing your business requires data-driven insights about your operations. A KDS makes it possible to see into the granular details of order turnaround times. You may find that your average times seem long because they are skewed by pickup times for to-go orders. Or, you might find that during certain parts of the day, wait times are much higher because you are understaffed. We’ll help you look at the outliers and not just the overall picture to pinpoint where service can improve.
At the end of the day, a KDS contributes to a better customer experience in a coffee shop setting. While your customers may not directly interact with your display screens, they’ll be able to benefit from a smoother order creation process and more confident employees. Your KDS should help you create the kind of atmosphere that makes people want to come back for more.
