Ways to Lose a Faithful Coffee Shop Customer
By Gail Grenier Sweet ©2006
1. Advertise “cappuccino” but don’t provide it.
2. When you have a customer who loves cappucino, assure her that you’ll get around to teaching the barristas how to make it… eventually.
3. After months and months of such friendly and repetitive cappuccino banter as in #2 above, remind this customer once again that there are only a couple of people who request cappuccino.
4. Ignore the fact that this customer has written two newspaper columns praising your store and brought in countless new customers for meetings at your store over many years.
5. Ignore the fact that this customer keeps trying to patronize the individual owner (you) over the corporate chain (Starbucks).
6. And always remember – the barristas know how to make cappuccino at Starbucks. Be comforted that your formerly faithful customer will have somewhere to go for solo cappuccino-drinking as well as for meetings -- when she finally gives up on you.
To be continued...