A time and place for theatre.
When you go to a theatre, you expect to see a show, a performance and you hope to be amused, entertained and delighted.
Over the years I’ve learned that in the seed to cup chain the closer a coffee gets to the cup the higher the chances are of it being screwed up.
It is truly a hockey stick curve except it’s upside down and the steep part is between the roaster and the end consumer. Granted if you start with bad or even an average coffee, there is no roaster (man or machine) or $20,000 brewer that will make it great. Quality can never be improved only preserved. So it is a tough challenge just to keep a strait line and NOT let quality drop.
When it comes to presenting a brewed cup in the retail sector, theatre has taken a front seat. Syphons, V-60′s, chemex, aeropress and more… The great value here is that it prompts the consumer to engage coffee and have a sense of expectation. I would say most retailers undervalue this and lose a lot of business and profit for this. The problem comes when the cup does not deliver and at least match the quality of the theatre. One of the basic rules of thumb in the retail and service industry is that the consumer should walk away with a sense of having received fair value for the time and money spent. Really one should aim to over deliver. Something I’ve thought about a lot lately is that many consumers may not know the difference between good and great coffee today and for a coffee professional to bank on theatre and neglect cup quality is a disservice to those in the industry working hard to deliver something truly exceptional.
That being said. This is an opportunity. A tremendous opportunity in fact. There is more good coffee out there today than ever before being delivered to consumers. All this with out a significant increase in supply.
The challenge is a simple one. For those receiving something good, to deliver something good. And if what you get is great, you must deliver great!
The obstacles I see are that while many artisan roasters strive to know their product well, they don’t know who their existing customers are and even worse they don’t know who their target customers are. It is impossible to market a niche product of ANY kind when you don’t know who you are marketing to.
And as an easy solution to discover who your customers are many have decided since they deal in a specialty product to have retailers treat it as such. However the “perception is reality” thinking will only go so far. This is a terribly inefficient way to discover who your customers are. Theatre creates buzz, theatre draws people. But if it is not a good show people don’t come back.
What is disappointing is that in my opinion some of the best coffee roasters out there have no clue who their customers are and some of the less tasty coffee providers, know exactly who their customers are. Whether you sell a cup for $2 or $22 you don’t want your customers walking away saying it was too expensive. You want to know or GET to know who your customer is and delight them. You should strive to over deliver so no matter what, they leave saying it was worth every penny and they would do it again. If this is not happening with most of your customers….. I hate to say it but your products simply are not a good fit for most of your customers. A quick solution is to change your products. More likely you want to change your customers. Not necessarily get new ones, rather to convert existing customers. How do you know if you need to convert customers? Most people that order black coffee add cream and or sugar to it. Most people that consider themselves coffee connoisseurs and regularly frequent a coffee house, buy their whole bean somewhere else. Why not from you? Whats the disconnect? Clearly you’re offering some other values that are trumping this. Is this by design? If so, great! If not, what can you do to change this?
All this to say. Theatre has it’s place. It is incredibly valuable and by all means should be used anywhere it makes sense. But it is no substitute for cup quality. And know that if your theatre is trumping cup quality, despite being a small percentage that appreciate exceptional cup quality, they are a vocal and growing number. They are the future of specialty coffee and perhaps the future of your business.
Here’s to 2012. May Coffee taste as good as we them look!
