The Customer is Always.......Right????!

Gonzo

Seen in two separate businesses in the last week.

a) A young couple go into a specialist coffee machine seller showroom. Spend one and a half (yes 1.5) hours going over and over a particular excellent brand high end espresso machine with shop assistant, including being allowed time by themselves to "play" with the demo....and finish off with, "...oh the coffee's a bit sus, will have to returm with our own coffee to try it out...." and hastily leave without committment, having totally missed the point about whether the machinery is capable of producing the goods no matter what coffee is used (and in this case it happened to be a blend of fresh roasted, very high quality high grown arabicas).

b) Senior trainer spends time with interested cafe staff in their cafe after hours discussing the finer points of how to improve the production of their espresso based drinks. The staff are genuinely interested in producing "high end" coffee, rather than "milk bar" brew.

Staff member produces a technically excellent and well balanced cappuccino that looks, and tastes good. Enter a friend of the cafe owner who proceeds to pick fault with the brew because according to him (an office worker), the foam isn't high enough off the top of the cup, and there isn't enough liquid inside the cup....he feels ripped off that the cup isn't full to the brim with brew.

This is after the trainer and staff have already had the discussion about how with espresso based drinks, smaller is better.

The cafe owner is ofcourse, influenced by and values the friend's totally meaningless, unprofessional, untrained, worthless opinion.

Such is life.

Perfect examples of what the rapidly expanding cafe and coffee industries are up against in western societies every single day.

Gonzo.

FreshCoffee2

There is nothing startling about this... re note : You have simply experienced the classic old "tail wagging the dog syndrome", where those with little or no expertise are given credence by those who should know more about the industry they choose to be in, and are therefore allowed to influence the direction and development of the cafe / coffee industries. It's very common and stems from a lack of confidence and knowledge by many cafe owners about the product they are meant to be purveying, in the industry they choose to be in. Funny thing is many are trying to improve, but they're listening to people with no expertise whose aim appears to be to look for "value for money" rather than excellence in a cup of coffee. Bring on the MuggaChinose. Fresh Coffee.