Costa Coffee Falls Flat
It’s not unusual to be on the receiving end of a poor customer experience, courtesy of one of the big hospitality brands. But I thought this one particularly worthy of a mention.
Yesterday evening I called in at a Costa Coffee outlet in Norwich. It was 6.15pm and the restaurant wasn’t due to close until 7.00pm. I ordered a flat white and the young lady serving said:
“Are you ok to have it in a takeaway cup?”
I explained that I was drinking in! She replied:
“We are closing soon, are you ok to have it in a paper cup?”
I replied that it wouldn’t take me 45 minutes to drink it, so a proper cup would be fine (and more satisfying to drink from). The young lady replied, saying:
“Well, we’ve just loaded the dishwasher.”
I stared at her, pretending not to understand, even though I could see where this was going. She said:
“We like to use paper cups near closing time as it saves us having to wash cups again.”
I raised my eyebrows and she reluctantly agreed to make my coffee in a proper cup.
Sitting in one of your favourite coffee shops is not about consuming coffee, it’s about enjoying the experience of consuming coffee.
On this occasion, I was being asked to put up with a reduced customer experience from a major brand outlet in order to make the barista’s life a bit easier. Worse than that, the young lady serving me did her best to make me feel that I was the one being difficult!
If anyone else has an interesting customer experience anecdote, I’d love to hear about it.
Dedicated to your success,
Christopher