Espresso Your Sales

I currently work as a barista when I go home for breaks and in the summer at a local coffee shop and artisan market. I want to open my own coffee and boutique in the future. I wanted to apply these sales skills and techniques from class and how they apply to the sales of a coffee business. Something that I have learned from experience and within this class is one extremely important quality in sales and within the food and beverage industry is the personal aspect. Building relationship with the customer and the barista/owner is extremely important and boosts coffee sales substantially. This can be accomplished through asking the customer their name and remembering something about them. Then when their drink is ready call their name and make a positive remark for them when they leave. This builds employee and customer relationship and builds trust between the company/brand and employee. When a customer has a relationship with the brand, they have less pain when going through with a sale and end up feeling good about their purchase and experience. Another important aspect in working in the coffee business is make sure the customer is satisfied. Although this seems obvious many places do not ensure that the customer is completely satisfied with their sale/ purchase. I have learned from working in the industry a good way to ensure the customer is satisfied is when they ask you about a drink explain it to them and then make sure they know if they are not a fan of it then you can remake it. This sounds like it would be wasteful and unresourceful, but it has more of a positive impact than a negative because it shows the care the company has of the customer and putting their needs first will bring customers coming back. These two sales skills/ techniques I have seen to be successful and important in boosting coffee business sales.