SAHIL SHAH
COFFEE BEAN
AND TEA LEAF
CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT THROUGH EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT AND CSR
Challenge
The coffee industry reality is that millennials consume more specialty coffee than any other generation. These millennials want to know where their coffee comes from and are demanding a better experience within the store. They want to be heard and engaged in the process. The challenge is to engage with customers in unique ways and deliver a better overall coffee-drinking experinece.
Research
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The retail value of the U.S. coffee market is estimated at $30-32 billion dollars, with specialty comprising approximately a 37% volume share but nearly 50% value share
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Worldwide, millennials drink over 500 billion cups of coffee every year
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63% millennials said they go to premium cafes like Starbucks
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Coffee farms are the economic livelihood of over 25 million people
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90 percent of the world's coffee production takes place in developing countries
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Millennials derive value from being engaged in product development, advertising, social interactions, and other facets of the marketing process (Fromm & Garton, 2013).
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50 percent of Millennials say they are more likely to buy a brand they know supports a cause (Fromm & Garton, 2013).
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They are the most skeptical coffee-drinking group, and are more likely to question company ethics.
Who's driving the engagement?
Based on the millennial target audience and their psychographics, Coffee Bean realized that customers care about where their coffee comes from and the overall in-store coffee experience. Therefore, Coffee Bean has decided to drive engagement with their customers by using an employee engagement strategy and by coming up with a CSR initiative for the brand.
Insight
Millennials have shifted the value proposition, placing their experience above the product. At the counter, around the roaster, or even on online platforms—engaging with customers on many fronts has become a necessity in specialty coffee business strategy.
The Idea
Customer Engagement through Employee Engagement and CSR
Millennials want to be able to experience the brands and right now Coffee Bean is unable to provide them with that. By aligning employees with their customer engagement strategy, the company's most important brand ambassadors are being brought into the store. Along with that, through a CSR initiative, they are creating that personal one-on-one interaction that was missing from their experience.
Solution
Employee Engagement
At its core, Coffee Bean is about great coffee - the highest quality beverage. Coffee Bean cares about the farmers, millers, exporters and importers who grow and process cofffee and want to help them improve their productivity, increase the yiend levels to earn much more income to raise their standard of living.
Coffee Bean will engage in fair trade practices for coffee sourcing which will mean:
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guaranteeing a minimum per pound price of coffee to all the farmer communities
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providing good working conditions, support camps and farmer loans for farmer communities and their families
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using environmentally responsible growing methods and ensuring lower energy consumption
For all roasting and blending processes, Coffee Bean will make use of machines that use a closed loop method where we reclaim the heat, manage the emission and reintroduce that heat back into the machine.
The roasters and blenders will:
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Produce 85% less emissions
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20 times less energy
Solution
Caring Cup Initiative
Each day, Americans consume 400 million cups of coffee adding up to over 146 billion cups annually. Coffee Bean has designed a new packaging cup, that is able to be planted rather than thrown away. By embedding seeds into a paper based medium, we have created cups that can biodegrade within 180 days to produce annual flowers to a variety of tree species.
It works this way:
A customer walks into our store and orders a cup of tea or coffee. Once the customer is done with the cup, they can now determine where that cup will ultimately end up. If they would like, the customer can take the cup to plant it. Or, if they choose not to keep the cup, there will be a special bin to discard the cup at the store. These discarded cups will then be planted by our employees every month at a desired location.
Measurement
Customer engagement for Coffee Bean needs to tie back to the company's mission and values about giving the customer a better in-store and online experience as well as to keep them coming back:
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The average amount of time spent in the store per user per visit
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Number of social media shares using the #caringcup hashtag
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Number of likes, comments and shares for posts about Coffee Bean #caringcup
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Number of biodegradable cups sold in store
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Energy saved by installing new roasters and blenders
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Measure the customer support performance using surveys and conversations on social media and other food rating applications like Yelp
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Number of repeat purchases by new and active registered members since the launch of the campaign