So it would be really easy for me to text in my coffee order from my desk on my way downstairs, with an estimate of when I'd be there ie. TrimFW Pamela 2mins.
A very clever system could then figure out what coffees should be made when, and viola!
Pros:
- no waiting in line
- the system could apply some intelligence ie. i (pamela) order a coffee every morning at 9am... maybe it would eventually text me (trimFW 2mins?) and i could just reply y or n and voila!
- the cafe would have my cellphone number and could tell me about special deals/offers etc and ask me questions about my experience (if i agreed to this of course)
Cons:
- has my human-interaction-time been reduced? is this a bad thing? i'm not sure. i think it is
- cost of running a system like this?
I'm sure there are many more cons... probably namely, do the benefits (cost benefits mainly) outweigh the cost of setting something like this up?
Are cellphones/texting the best option? could we then pay for the coffee using our cellphone? could it be included in our phone bill? coooooool.
i'm just wondering :)
2 comments:
It would work if the coffee people were able to weave your coffee order into the list at the right point. Often during the morning rush the barista is flat out and the volume of coffees they can make is what constrains the length of the line.
A good way to look at it would be to say: the business is 'text for coffee', and we only make coffees for people who text their orders in. Now, how do we establish that business? What rules about the order of serving people, and so on.
Perhaps we could reduce our operating costs by not having a street front premises. Perhaps the barista could be someone who is additional to existing staff in an existing joint, which gets extra business through this model.
Your solution will work if it saves people time, and if the barista can make your coffee so that it is ready when you are.
so you're saying it makes more sense as a stand alone business in itself? sort of like the idea of supermarkets becoming more efficient and online, but REALLY only if they make the most of the online space by turning their existing stores into storage warehouses and hence saving money on the whole appearance/layout/floor staff thing? so in a coffee/barista sense, it would mean saving costs on... a till? i'm not sure it would save THAT much. unless we knew for a fact that the barista could get through making more coffees over the busier period thanks to the system. which would suggest there'd be more coffees to MAKE in the first place. suggesting more people would come along if there was a 'shorter queue' or if they were more LIKELY to order a coffee thanks to the 'easy to use' system - which, like you said, would need to be proven to actually save time and deliver.
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