Introduction
Heart of Gold Café has already established itself as a catering unit for nearby offices. It has developed an informal model of catering and they know most of the customers. Building long-term relationships with the customers have paid off and the unit obtains the required number of customers. A new office building has opened up nearby and the building would have a number of offices with new people. The new people are potential customers who have never used the services of the cafe hence a new business model and strategy has to be developed that would bring in customers from the new building. This paper provides a strategy that can be used to attract customers from the new building.
Current strategy and Problems
Heart of Gold Café uses a one-to-one relation in obtaining orders since the present customers have been eating from this café for some time. Customers either email or fax their orders, 1 day earlier and indicate the time when the food is required. Staff from the Café deliver the food. This system has worked properly for all these times.
The problem with this strategy is that it demands the customer to show the initiative by sending emails or fax to the café. Moreover, the customer has to tell the order one day in advance and this may create lesser orders as some staff who may not be sure of coming to work the next day would not place the order and then the next day, they would probably eat elsewhere. This strategy has to change.
Recommended strategy
It is recommended that certain changes be done to the existing strategy to obtain business from the new office building (Canada Business. 2008).
Know the Customers
Before initiating the strategy, it is important to know the type of customers, find their gender, age and other details along with the number of people who work in different offices. The management of the Café can directly approach the office for this information, invite the HR or admin person to the unit and show them the place, the cleanliness and hygiene the maintain, the number of clients they currently have and so on. Once the required information is available, and then they can ask the office manager to be allowed to send letters and brochures to the employees, through the office. It will be very nice if they can obtain names of each employee so that the letters can be sent to them personally. At the end of this exercise, it would know the number of employees or the potential customers, the lunch timings, approximate age group so that a rough idea can be formed about the type of food that the customers eat (Joyce, 2007).
Getting the Logistics Right
After obtaining information about the number of people in the building, the Café should ensure that it has the required arrangements to provide food for the people. The Café can either hire more people to prepare the food or it can outsource certain food items so that lesser infrastructure is required. It may also be essential to increase the area of the kitchen. This is an area where catering restaurants frequently fail. They initially create a lot of advertisements and awareness that makes the customers to place orders. Then when the customers do come or place the orders, there is an inordinate delay in filling the order and a hungry customer will bad mouth the services (Joyce, November 1, 2007).
Contacting the Customers
The Café should begin contacting the customers by sending them a menu and a cover letter. All menu items should be numbered so that if a customer says that he wants item number 6, then the Café knows what is exactly required. The letter should attempt to explain why this Café is so good and how people can find it more convenient to order from here. The menu should also give the rates and approximate portions in each serving. There should also be the chance for customers to take different items from the menu (Joyce, 2007).
Collecting Orders
The present system of collecting orders should be done away with. Two or three staff should be hired and they would have to go to the office and collect orders personally. Permission has to be obtained from the office to allow the Café staff to enter the office. The staff should offer the menu, take the order, make a note of where he order has to be delivered and the time when it is required. This may require some skill and speed but it can be managed properly. An important thing is the orders should be collected right in the morning after the employees come to work and not one day before. Probably a time slot such as 10.30 to 11.30 am should be used. Employees would be sufficiently hungry and willing to place their orders. The staff should rush back and give the orders so that the catering staff can complete the packing, write the names of the employees for whom the food is to be given, office name, block and location number and so on. There should be no confusion about this aspect (Joyce, 2007).
Filling Orders
Filling orders is where the Café has to show its expertise. Food items should be neatly packed in disposable packs that do not stain or spill and the staff should then move over to the office and deliver the food. There should also be arrangements to collect the used plates and packing as the office cannot be expected to arrange this (Joyce, 2007).
Collecting payment
The Cafe can either collect the payment on a daily basis or on a weekly basis. Weekly basis would mean that problem of finding the required change or tipping is avoided. But it also means that cash would be blocked for one week (Joyce, 2007).
Summing Up
The Café can use this method for one or two offices in the building to find the problems and how well the system works. Once the sytem is proved, then the service can be extended to all the offices, including the old customers who should not feel that they have been sidelined. As an extra method, customers should be allowed to send their orders through email, fax or through telephone (Joyce, November 1, 2007).
Draft Letter
Date:
From: Heart of Gold Café, Ist Street, 3rd Avenue.
Dear customer.
Please take some time to read this letter so that you can enjoy good food provided by our catering service, delivered right to your office. We have been providing catering services to all nearby office since the past few years and have developed a wonderful relation with our valued customers, some of who have been eating with us since many years.
We offer reasonably priced, hygienically prepared food that is delivered right to your office. Ease and convenience along with promptness and a varied menu are our offerings. The attached menu gives the items available and their prices.
Each day between 10 to 11, one of our staff would come to your office and you can placed the order with him. Fresh food items, as per your order will be delivered at the time you want.
Please call us on the following numbers for more information or send us an email with your queries. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you need any more information.
Looking forward to serving you.
Best regards.
XYZ, Manager, Heart of Gold Café.
Conclusion
The paper has examined the strategy that can be used by the café to attract more customers from the nearby new building that is coming up. A multi-point strategy plan has been provided that would help the Café to attract new customers and develop and long-standing relation with them
References
Canada Business. 2008. How to Start a Restaurant or Catering Business in Ontario. Web.
Joyce Weinberg. 2007. Everything Guide to Starting and Running a Catering Business. Adams Media.