This month, clients Bret Haas and Leemone Carter, owners of the Boneshaker Beanery take some time to share the story of how outsourcing professional reception and customer service staff helped their business grow.
Q. Why does a coffee house need an outsourced sales and customer service staff? Lee: That's a good question isn't it? When Bret and I opened our first store in 1997, I would never have believed it either.
Bret: We were so lucky. We had a great location, and developed a regular clientele within our first year. Then, we developed a relationship with a local bakery, and things really took off.
Lee: Yeah. We wanted to add some bakery goods to complement our hot and cold coffees. So, we met Panayiota, the owner of a Greek bakery and she absolutely blew us away! The first time we met, she served us Diples, and Loukoumades with strong Greek coffee-the kind with the grounds still in the cup. Wow.
Bret: Anyway, we knew that we had found exactly what we wanted to feature in our shop. Soon, our regular customers were cleaning us out every day. Then, the word started to spread. Pretty soon, we had people calling their orders in advance so we would save them some pastries. It was crazy!
Lee: (Laughs) You know, we used to joke about the Loukoumades being like the "Marble Rye" from that old Seinfeld episode. It was insane. So, we added a website where we featured Panayiota's amazing desserts and added gift baskets of baked goods and high-end coffees.
Bret: By this time, it was 2000, and we had really cultivated a loyal clientele. Because we are located here in the business triangle, we had a lot of corporate types who made us a part of their routine. That Christmas, they bought hundreds of gift baskets with Baklava, coffee mugs with our logo, and house-branded coffees for business gifts. We were really very lucky.
Lee: It wasn't all luck you know!
Bret: No, we worked hard. But everything just seemed to come together. Pretty soon, we had as much business through our website as we did in the store. Instead of easing things up, we were busier than ever. Even though we've been successful, we weren't making huge amounts of money. So, we did most of the work ourselves.
Lee: I think we were burning out.
Bret: Yeah, I know I was.
Lee: So, we made a decision. We sent all of our sales and customer service for our web clients to you. You know what happened from there.
Bret: That was the smartest thing we ever did. I couldn't believe how much of a load it took off. Best of all, the service was affordable.
Lee: I don't think we could have had the time or energy to devote to our second store if we hadn't done it. Today, we have two stores, three distinct revenue streams, and only minimal fixed costs. Your service has been an instrumental part of our success.
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