It’s a brave man who launches a privately-owned, independent coffee shop in an area surrounded by the likes of Costa, Caffè Nero and Starbucks. But that’s what John Wheeler did and, six years on, business is good.
John puts the secret of his success down to a mixture of quality service from polite and courteous staff, his own blend of fair trade coffee – and the versatility of a revenue generating loyalty card system that’s part of his Aloha point of sale software.
Before opening Coffee Bamber in Darlington’s Cornmill Shopping Centre, John ran a hotel, where he used roomMaster property management software from NFS Technology Group. So, when he needed a sophisticated point of sale system for his newly-opened coffee shop, he turned again to NFS, who demonstrated and then installed Aloha.
“Day to day, Aloha Quickservice covers every aspect of our point of sale needs and simplifies operations for staff, putting everything at their fingertips on a touch screen,” says John.
But, for John it’s the way Aloha handles his loyalty card system that has proved to be a winner for generating new customers and keeping them coming back for more.
The importance of loyalty cards to Coffee Bamber was ably demonstrated when their EPOS system went down on a Saturday morning. Staff recorded points manually for addition to accounts, but it was clear that customers didn’t entirely trust that, and were likely to start drifting away. A call to NFS solved the problem fast.