Coffee Shops and Customer Context
I have been noodling on coffee, coffee shops and why I always defaulted to Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts for my morning coffee when traveling for business. This question popped to mind randomly several times last year as I reminisced on prior business trips and realized I almost never go to Starbucks when I am home, even though there are three within walking distance of my house.
I finally cracked the code on my own behavior and motivations.
I live in San Diego yet often found myself working with clients in Manhattan, upstate New York, Chicago, Tampa, and Houston. Three different New York clients over the past five plus years and each looking to move forward quickly – during the winter months.
I have lived in Southern California for almost half my life and Arizona for another 17 years. With a few years scattered between Indiana, Illinois, and Colorado, I have had plenty of time to solidify my love for sun, surf, and NO snow.
I have never mastered business attire for blizzards and certainly not appropriate footwear for onsite snow days! Compound that with teams wanting to meet for breakfast in the hotel lobby before heading onsite to see our client, we would meet downstairs around 7am eastern time (4am pacific time)! I am a morning person, so rallying for a morning meet-up was probably less painful for me than others, but coffee became a necessity and hotel coffee does not cut it. The mugs are too small.
Whoever had a rental car would take the coffee drinkers to Starbucks, and I would contentedly order my blonde flat white or double dirty chai. Ah, delicious!. Warm drink, caffeine, and tasting exactly as expected. No surprise.
Contrast that with my Saturday coffee walks to the beach with a friend or the Sunday drive thru before our church’s microsite set-up outside. I often walk to one of my favorite local coffee shop chains, four within walking distance. I look forward to getting my Better Buzz Black Tea Buzz; it is like a London Fog but with black tea versus Earl Gray. It always feels like a decadent treat. When my sister comes to town, I know she will bring me home one after her morning beach run. The drink is delish. The baristas are friendly. The neighborly buzz of a few familiar faces is relaxing. It is my 3rd space.
Sometimes I pop in to try a new coffee spot close by or meet-up with a friend halfway at a little coffee joint we tracked down on Yelp or Google Maps. It is fun to find a new, spot tucked away. It is often obvious who there considers this coffee shop to be their 3rd space - their neighborhood go-to coffee spot. It is fun to check out the different drinks they serve, décor, patio seating, and hopefully a few pups to ogle. I often snap a pic or two for Instagram; so many cute coffee shops, too little time to explore them all. It is a teeny, little adventure packed into an otherwise routine day.
I started wondering what I should be learning about the behaviors and motivations of my clients and their customers.
Depending on the day and the context of my visit, my motivations and behaviors obviously varied WIDELY. I could easily fit into two or three different customer types (personas). My jobs-to-be-done were different for each type of coffee stop.
Business Trips
I want a familiar cup of coffee and do not want to research which coffee shops the locals go to nearby. I want this experience to be predictable. No surprises. The client and our project will have enough of those.
Home Sweet Home
I want a sense of neighborhood and community (often after I have been away traveling and am finally home for a day or two or three) even if I am introverting on my own with a tasty beverage or meeting up with a friend for our weekend walk. It is familiar, it is personal, it is a treat.
Itty, Bitty Adventures
I want just a bit of variety to explore a new corner of town as I meet-up with a friend halfway between their town and mine. Exploring Yelp or Google Maps or sometimes trying out a recommendation someone gave me that I marked down “To Try”. Sometimes I order a new beverage or get a tried and true knowing it will be a bit different. It probably should not be as interesting to me as it is.
Coffee shop adventures are one of my favorite parts of traveling internationally. Once my brother and I went to a coffee shop in Viet Nam where we spoke none of the language. We were able to communicate enough to indicate coffee and had fun randomly ordering and reverse engineering which words must mean, hot, iced, milk, mocha, etc.
Customer wants, needs, motivations and behaviors are dynamic.
I think many of us went through 2020 realizing we needed to connect with customers more frequently to understand their current needs and how they were changing throughout the pandemic. The question I am asking myself is am I actively aware of my clients and their dynamic wants and needs. What they valued last year and last week may change next month. There does not need to be a global pandemic to account for these changes. Sometimes it may just be the context of their current need.
If it took me this long to figure out my coffee shop motivations and behaviors, I think it is safe to assume that our customers may not even be consciously aware of how their current context (geopolitical, geographic, market, etc.) is influencing their wants and needs, their motivations and buying behaviors.
Clients may be very aware of their goals but not consciously aware of all that will influence their buying behaviors.
Just being aware that context can change customers wants, needs, motivations, and behaviors is important.
With this understanding we can explore what they are valuing most right now, without assumptions and preconceived notions based on the past. There is no shortcut for regular conversation and interaction with customers above and beyond the reactive ones when there is an issue to address.
