Why Coffee Shops should be online.
Let me give you a brief reason as to why I have come up with this statement.
Many moons ago when I worked in a coffee shop, like most of you know by now. I would constantly have regular customers come down from their cubical (or office) and ask what kinds of coffee there were for the day. On the occasion there would be somebody who wouldn’t get a cup because they didn’t like anything and that is understandable. I have had new customers who have never been to the shop before have been amazed at the selection of beans, and other trinkets.
That is why Coffee Shops should consider using the Internet to let their loyal customers know what is going on for the day. Here are a few ideas
First lets look at a blog. A blog can be free and is easy to setup or if the shop already has a website a blog can be easily integrated. Once you have a blog setup it doesn’t take more than 5 minutes to quickly make a post with the day’s coffees and specials. On top of that you can keep customers up to date with things like when a new shipment of coffee beans has come in or if the Espresso machine breaks and you only have coffee for the rest of the day. The nice thing about a blog is you can put in the details about what it is you a posting about. You can describe that smooth lovable favorite specialty of the day or explain that the Espresso machine blew a seal and you got steamed milk all down the front of your pants. Either way a blog is a good way to tell your customers in detail what is going on.
The second thing I want to talk about is Twitter. Call me a geek if you want but Twitter could, and is, a very good information tool for a Coffee Shop or any business. You could go about it basically the same as a blog. Twitter is free; you can’t pay for it even if you wanted to. Go to twitter.com and sign up now. With Twitter you don’t have to worry about a website, to get to your Twitter page is simple. It would be www.twitter.com/COFFEESHOPEXAMPLE and anyone can see it, even if they don’t have there own Twitter account. Unlike a blog you have to keep it brief, fewer than 140 characters but that’s all right because on the upside you can update it more often and quicker. The beauty with Twitter is you can update it from the web, from a desktop client and from your mobile phone. The phone would be the key one here. So when your jumping around because the seal on the Espresso machine blew, and you have steamed milk down the front of your pants you can still text twitter and let everyone know the machine is down.
There you have it a simple reason why Coffee Shops should be online and a simple solution. With many younger people working at Coffee Shops it is almost a guarantee they have had a blog or been on twitter so why not approach them with one of these ideas? Could you imagine ordering a coffee via Twitter (I know Starbucks does something similar already)? It would be just another way to use social networking and technology in our everyday lives. Mind you I always enjoyed conversation with customers………….
