5 Tips for Running a Coffee Shop Franchise

Cara Squires, writer

Published at 01/10/2021, Updated on 04/05/2022 , Reading time: 5 min

5 Tips for Running a Coffee Shop Franchise — Photo © 5-Tips-for-Running-a-Coffee-Shop-Franchise.jpg

Tea and coffee are British staples, and they never seem to go out of style. If you’d like to enjoy constant demand and a lucrative, dynamic career, you should consider investing in a coffee shop franchise. Here are five tips for running a coffee shop franchise successfully, and building a business which can thrive in the long term.

In the UK, 95 million cups of coffee are consumed each day [British Coffee Association]. That’s a huge potential customer base, and a sky-high level of demand for the products you’d be selling as a franchisee in that industry. If you’re interested in making a career change with a coffee shop franchise and navigating that transition smoothly, keep reading.

Why become a franchisee in the coffee shop industry?

When entering the world of franchising and committing to a brand, you want to be sure that you’re making a strong and stable investment. A coffee shop could be exactly that. A chance to enter a booming industry, knowing that you have the support of your franchisor at every turn. The cafe and coffee shop market in the UK is worth £4 billion, and employs almost 100,000 people [IBISWorld]. As one of them, you’d benefit from the many different advantages of running a coffee shop franchise, including:

The chance to become a beloved part of your local community
The room, at every stage, for growth and development
The lower level of risk involved in franchising compared to going at it alone
The diverse, exciting, and dynamic working environment
The benefits of an existing brand name and customer base

Few establishments have seen the level of success achieved by coffee shops. Once primarily seen as a stop-and-go location, coffee shops are now an intrinsic part of British life which many of us turn to for both working and social occasions. - Esquires Coffee

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5 tips for running a coffee shop franchise

Having decided to enter the ever-growing, ever-evolving coffee shop sector, what comes next? How do you successfully run a coffee franchise and juggle all the management balls in your court? By starting with this list of five top tips, of course. From quality control to rewarding customer loyalty, all you need to know is waiting below...

1. Insist on quality

Here’s something that all the top coffee shop franchises in the UK have in common: Their franchisees put an emphasis on quality control, and never deliver anything less to their customers than 100%. Even with plenty of options from your franchisor to follow, it’s still your responsibility to make sure that every drink and dish served by a member of your team is up to scratch.

After a single bad service experience, a whopping 39% of customers will avoid a company for two years [Dimensional Research]. Two whole years! Plus, 89% of customers consult reviews before making a purchase [Trustpilot], and if your poor quality control sees bad reviews stacking up against your business’s name, you might find it difficult to recover. You might even end up negatively impacting your entire network.

2. Appreciate your staff

Another important tip to ensure the smooth running of your coffee shop franchise operation is that you always treat your staff well, and appreciate the hard work that they put in to keep things ticking over. Recognition improves your retention rate, with 63% of employees who feel recognised rating themselves as very unlikely to look for a new job [HR Technologist]. A higher retention rate, in turn, paves the way for a truly productive and efficient workforce. Here are just a few ways to express gratitude and appreciation:

Provide rewards for hard work
Express thanks and praise on social media
Give time off (especially for important events)
Honour important events at work (birthdays, anniversaries, etc.)
Respect work-life balance and make mental health support readily available
Welcome feedback and actively listen when it’s given
Host company events, mixers and occasions

3. Start a loyalty programme

Nothing is more likely to breed a loyal customer than a good rewards programme. Starting a programme like this is a great way to keep customers coming back again and again. And if it’s not something your franchisor is already offering across the network, it’s definitely a suggestion worth making/a strategy worth implementing: Think stamped coffee cards that offer the tenth cup for free. Reward your best customers, wherever you can.

In order to maximize loyalty and profitability, a company must give its best value to its best customers. That is, customers who generate superior profits for a company should enjoy the benefits of that value creation. As a result, they will then become even more loyal and profitable. - Louise O’Brien and Charles Jones, Harvard Business Review

4. Provide plenty of variety

Some of the biggest coffee shop trends that have come to prominence in the past ten years all come down to the same central desire: A desire for variety. A desire to be provided for, even if your needs are a little more niche. It stands to reason that when your coffee shop offers something for everyone, your customer base grows. Here’s an idea of some inclusive, varied options you should look into selling in your cafe franchise:

Caffeine-free drinks
Dairy-free food and drink
Vegan food and drink
Vegetarian food and drink
Gluten-free food
Soft drinks and mocktails (if your cafe also sells alcohol)

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5. Ensure you’re being eco friendly

Eco-friendliness in 2021 is a necessity for many customers. Sustainability has been a growing focus in the consumer market - not just in the coffee industry, but across the board, and customers are voting with their feet in regards to environmental policy. If you make a real effort to become more eco-friendly and sustainable, you’ll not only help the planet. You’ll also help to increase the amount of business you attract. Common ways for coffee shops to become more environmentally friendly include:

Introducing recyclable cups
Rewarding customers who bring reusable cups
Sourcing supplies locally
Using energy-saving appliances in the shop
Choosing to partner with an eco-friendly waste management company

Start a coffee shop franchise today and enjoy all the perks of running your own business

With these tips, you’ll be in a better place than ever to make a coffee shop franchise investment(/our-franchises/S2-coffee-cafe-coffee-shop-franchises) and turn your cafe dreams into a reality. If you’re wondering where to start, why not check out Cafe2U, a mobile coffee van franchise with over 90 franchisees, or The Açaí Spot, an international coffee shop chain that specialises in delicious açaí products?