Murky Etiquette and Murky Coffee
It sounds like a cheesy sitcom scene: Man goes into coffee shop. He orders his favorite drink, a triple shot of espresso over ice. Barista declines; he says the drink goes against company policy because pouring espresso over ice ruins the quality of the coffee. Man gets angry. He leaves a tip with an expletive scrawled across it.
That's not even the end of the story. The owner of the coffee shop, Murky Coffee, then writes an open letter to the customer explaining why the barista behaved properly. (It did not enlighten me, though, as to why espresso and ice should not mix. Here is an excerpt: "OK, we don't do espresso over ice. Why? Number one, because we don't do it. Number two, because we don't do it.")
Tags: consumer behavior | coffee
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Reader Comments
Barista is caught in the middle
The dispute is between the customer and the company policy. The customer was wrong to take his frustration out on the barista; his correct move should have been to take his business elsewhere. The owner should be able to explain the policy better, and to train his employees to explain it better (or allow them to make exceptions to retain business; clearly they've not heard of "the customer is always right.")
Not sure who to side with
I live in Arlington and frequent Murky Coffee. They have really excellent coffee - Starbucks it ain't! Nick and the Murky staff are extremely passionate about what they do, and they continually strive for perfection. Nick and a few of the other Murky baristas have actually won competitions for what they do, which is definitely not "just coffee".
However, I'm really not sure who to side with here. I don't know if the policy was adequately explained to the customer, but I also don't think the childish responses from both the customer and Nick were warranted.
I don't necessarily believe in "the customer is always right"; but I think the staff at Murky should take the time to educate their customers in a non-snarky way to avoid these situations in the future. They have the knowledge and the passion, they just need to get rid of the attitude.
Both behaved like complete tools...but the Murky blogger really should have taken the high road on this. He makes his shop and other passionate coffee people look like jerks.
With customer service the way it is these days, it isn't a stretch to imagine a customer losing it a bit...but regardless, the Murky guys had an opportunity to make things right, look like winners and heroes, but instead just took the slime to another level. And as fanatical as I am about coffee...I would never patronize that shop...because if they'll go off on someone in this instance, who knows what they'll go off on next.
My advice...apologize and move on.
No one would excuse this behavior if it had been any other business.
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