#41 – What is the industry we are in?

This post will be all about the beer – but in the end 100% about the coffee.

I have a favorite beer place here in Lisbon ( I can share with you the name later if you want, just ask me if you are curious) So, I have 2 favorite beer places, and one favorite brewery.

First has fantastic beer menu, that is changing every week, and they keep their clients up to date with it posting it on instagram and facebook. Beers are both from the portuguese breweries, and some foreighn ones, always interesting tastes. But I go there not because of the beer. I go there cause I like to talk about the beer, and there are some people there who are smart and sweet enough to feel it. So they have fantastic beers, but their service for me is “beer talking”, let me put it like that.

 

When I come there, and I am not recognized, and they see me as a tourist in Lisbon, don’t know my name, are not willing to talk or offer tremoços, a snack – I drink one beer and go away.  I feel unwelcome. When it is the opposite – I am met with the smile, recognized, talked to, kindly offered to try something interesting – I stay there for some time, can order 2-3 drinks, and give recomendations. It is a beer place. But I am going there to talk about the beer. This is the side, hidden service of the place. If they knew about it, they would have hired differently. Because who sells in this case is somebody who is passionate and able to talk about this passion, this is his job. Not just pouring the beer.

 

The second favorite beer place. Only portuguese beers, always rotating. But beer is not the reason I go there. So why I go there? They have amazing tempered olives, house recipe. That go great with the beer, and are not very expensive, and highly addictive. The beer is great, but their value for me is in the small appetizer they prepare themselves, and that tastes exacty the same every time I go there. How do I know? It happened to me that I came there, they didn’t have olives, and I went away. Or I came there, olives were not ready, and I said I will wait.

So they think they are the beer pub, but for me they are making the best tempered olives, and all the value is there. Without them they would be like any other bar.

 

And… The favourite brewery. They have the best craft beer n Portugal at the moment. They experment a lot, they brew wonderful sour that is only served in the tasting room… How come I don’t go there?

 

Because when I asked to try a bit of 2 beers to make my choice (the thing I do everywhere) I was said “For this we have a tasting tray”.

Ta-dam. If you are looking for the instruction how to lose a client – here it is. Hire somebody like that. I love the product, wait a bit,  I consider them the best brewery in the country – but I am not buying it as much as I could. Because of how I am treated. Probably 1 beer a month in a local supermarket. And I am not coming back until I forget. Here come 4 months already.

 

So here we had 3 beer places. And the one with the beer that I love the most is the last one where I will go.

 

So what is the industry they are in? Production? Or service?

 

Here is the small thought that should be written in bold. “Quality of the product is everything, when you want to attract somebody who knows to appreciate it, but service is ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING, when you want to keep. Keep anybody.”

 

It was not about the coffee, and it will be about the coffee now.

Coffee shop can have the best coffee ever. But if you enter, and the waiters are trying to not to look at you, or bring you drinks to the table and throw it, leaving as fast they could, or not knowing the product, or showing backs to you – anything of that, anything – just ruined the service you are offering.

 

The product should be absolutely exceptional for people to come back to you not cariing about the service. The problem here, the problem or a positive siide that you can use – is that your customers will most probably forget how your coffee tasted, but they will rememeber how they were treated.

Try not to kill it.