We set out to build the perfect order-ahead platform for local coffee shops, but quickly realized that the only way to get to perfection was to listen closely to our users. After building out a prototype, we launched at Wayfarer Coffee Roasters, in Laconia, NH. Since then, we’ve been getting as much feedback as possible from Karen (the owner at Wayfarer), her baristas, and the shop’s customers. Our intent was to bring value to coffee shops in three ways: by increasing revenue, improving customer experience, and maximizing shop efficiency. We’re really excited about how far we’ve come at Wayfarer, and decided to use this case study to evaluate how we’ve done at adding value for the shop. Our sample size is small, so this is intended for us to get an idea of how we’re doing and to give other shops glimpses of how CoffeePass could potentially impact them. We’ve evaluated our sales data, app/site analytics tool data, and surveyed Wayfarer’s owner, baristas, and customers to get as complete of a picture as we can.

Usage Overview

On May 12th, the first CoffeePass order ever was placed to test that the system was running properly. Three days later on the 15th, Wayfarer launched CoffeePass to a few of their most loyal customers as a pilot program. Since then, Wayfarer’s customers have ordered ahead 1331 times! CoffeePass wasn’t perfect, but by July 12th, it was running smoothly enough for Wayfarer to post about it on their social media pages. On August 3rd, they ran a social media contest and had 14 orders, a record up to that time. On November 19th, CoffeePass launched customer loyalty rewards, and since then, Wayfarer customers are ordering ahead more than ten times per day on average.

Customers stick with CoffeePass once they start using it! Over half of users who try ordering on the platform are still using it a month later. We just launched rewards recently, so we don’t have a lot of data, but we’ve also seen retention improve in that time.

Revenue

CoffeePass is dedicated to empowering and growing independent coffee shops. We understand that increasing shop revenue is an important part of that, so we set out to study how CoffeePass impacted a shop’s bottom line.

One of Karen’s initial concerns was how CoffeePass would maintain and improve her average order and encourage customers to order a sandwich or waffle along with their coffee? We have a lot of ideas on how to optimize this in the future, but have focused on more crucial features thus far. With that in mind, we were happy to find that the average CoffeePass order was within 8.5% of Wayfarer’s average traditional order.

One of our favorite discoveries while putting together this case study was that customers tip more through CoffeePass. Wayfarer CoffeePass users tipped more than 9% on average, which was significantly higher than their average tip on a traditional in-shop order. Some CoffeePass users surveyed even asked to be able to tip more, so we’re confident that average tip percentage can increase greatly , meaning more money for a shop’s baristas! Our app is currently using the simple tipping functionality from our Alpha test, and we have a lot of ideas to optimize this even further!

Customer Experience

We know that customer experience is so important to local coffee shops! It can be one of the best ways to differentiate from big chains, and offering order-ahead is a perfect way to improve the experience for some of a shop’s customers.

If you’ve ever been asked “how likely are you to recommend this to a friend?” the company behind a product you’re using was calculating their Net Promoter Score. Net Promoter Score is a metric from -100 to 100 that evaluates the customer’s satisfaction with a product or service and the customer’s brand loyalty. Customers who respond with a 9 or 10 are considered promoters, 7 or 8 are considered passive, and 6 or below are considered detractors. Net Promoter Score (NPS) is calculated as follows: % Promoter - % Detractor = NPS. 95% of CoffeePass users surveyed were promoters, and none were detractors, giving us a perfect NPS of 100!

As expressed by our NPS, Wayfarer’s customers loved using CoffeePass. They commented over and over how easy it was to use and how they loved skipping the line.

Wayfarer is located in downtown Laconia, making employees of nearby businesses some of the shop’s best customers. When we set out to build CoffeePass, Karen told us that a small business owner down the road would come over several times per day to check the line length. He’d often return to his office coffee-less, as he didn’t have time to wait in line. After launching CoffeePass in Wayfarer, we kept a close eye on orders by that owner, and were delighted to see him use the platform. We followed up with Karen and she confirmed that CoffeePass had solved his problem.

Efficiency

At peak hours, the “flow” of baristas is so important to get through orders as quickly as possible while maintaining high quality. Order-ahead provides an inherent efficiency boost!

Ordering at a coffee shop can be a slow process for all but the seasoned veterans. Considering the menu, telling the barista your order, swiping your credit card, selecting a tip, and signing your name takes time. CoffeePass orders still take time for the user, but are much quicker for the baristas, allowing them to process more orders in a shift.

While it seems logical that CoffeePass would reduce barista time per order, we wanted to hear from the baristas themselves. We asked them in our survey and found that half of baristas said that CoffeePass orders took 50% as long as traditional orders.

Conclusion

CoffeePass’s value is reliant on the success of the coffee shops that use it, so it was very important to us to evaluate CoffeePass’s impact. We’re excited to say that CoffeePass is doing what it set out to do: increasing shop revenue by bringing customers back more often, improving customer experience by letting them skip the line, and boosting efficiency by cutting down on ordering time for baristas! But this is just the beginning for CoffeePass. We have big plans to add even more value with new features coming soon! Let us know what you’d like to see!