We had such distinctly different experiences at Java Coffee
House this past weekend that left us rather perplexed. The Java Coffee House
brand has become quite a formidable brand in Kenya in the past few years. It
leads the way in brand standardization and providing customers with a similar
experience irrespective of the outlet one visits, in terms of menu items,
ambience, service delivery, billing and presentation. Even with the current
outlets popping up on the sidewalks and at Petrol stations, the Java experience
is just the Java experience and that’s what keeps customers coming.
So much so is this that menu customizations are not part of
the service protocol. I was advised recently that to get a customized vegetarian
version of their famous Quesadilla or to tweak the inputs or presentation would
call for the proposal to be sent to quality control for entry in to the menu to
then be put out to all units for offer to ensure uniformity. So with this level
of standardization and quality control, what has happened to the service
offered by the people that form the brand? Is a brand the environment and
physical tangible attributes or is the brand the people that work there?
On Friday afternoon we were at Java Hurlingham at the Shell
Petrol station for a work meeting and a fabulous, attentive and very pleasant
waitstaff called Wilkins took service to a different level when he offered to
squat and fix our power cables into the sockets under the seats that we had
trouble reaching. All this with a smile. We were blown away by his patience and
acts of service. On Saturday night we went out to dinner at Java Junction and
the waistaff Jane was what I can only call a ‘case study’ of how not to treat
your customers including application of Nil By Mouth treatment to us after
raising concern about the length of time our orders were taking. She took to
plonking our meals on the table and pointing with her fingers to indicate where
the items we requested for were.
What creates this disparity?
It is my observation that very often when brands expand,
staff that have been in the system for some time, get posted to the new outlets
to extend the brand culture there and new staff get absorbed in the original
units. What then needs to be done to ensure the new staff get accultured to the
brand’s way of doing things? We unanimously concluded that Jane must have been
new at the job for her way was clearly not the ‘Java Way’. Team leaders and
those who hold the brand strategy in custody need to be very sensitive about
how the people that work for the brand represent the brand. The brand’s
interface is largely through staff interactions and communication with
customers is right up there on the Richter scale.
I challenge all brands out here, no matter the size or
nature, to have a standardized code of conduct and response to different
customer situations. A simulation drill needs to be prepared and practised
ahead of time where every imaginable customer conflict situation is role played
in advance and the respondents prepare in readiness to execute with patience
and reassurance.
Customer’s love order and predictability. They thrive in
these environments. It takes only one out-of-order situation to have customers
doubt a brand and the cost of re-acquisition of lost customers can bring the
house down.
Let’s proceed to define our customer service standards then
apply them uniformly across all customer touch points.
