I have been a frequent visitor to Bru World Cafe in Juhu since the time it started (probably the first day of its launch) and always loved it ambiance, filter coffee. In fact had commented on its Arabic tone of music and was pleasantly surprised to see it being replaced (I cannot take complete credit for it, though). Read the rest of this entry »

I had earlier blogged about my problem with Costa Coffee here

After sending a text & reminder to their CEO Virag Joshi who promised action, it took them more than a week to remove the offending part of tile. Post this their Regional Head Kaushik called up to invite me to visit them again etc. Being in no mood to entertain, I had however promised that if and when I felt like it, would visit one of their cafe and contact him.

Finally, on a store visit last week at Inorbit Malad, waiting for someone to arrive, decided to have coffee at Costa. Ordered my regular and gave my card for payment, telling the person at the cash, that someone would be joining me soon. I was told that they would collect it together.

After we had finished, went to settle at the cash, but was informed that I would have to pay cash, which normally should not have been an issue, however had used up most of the cash for fuel earlier. When I expressed helplessness, was told that somebody would accompany me to the ATM for withdrawl, which was a no starter, on account of not having an ATM card.

This is when the two young lads - Sunil & Aasif - won my heart ” Sir, don’t worry, please settle next time when you visit” Mind you, I am NOT a regular at Inorbit Malad.

The friend who was meeting me turned up & I quickly borrowed and settled the due, besides writing a note for Kaushik.

Same company, different locations, different service, how does a brand target & maintain consistency?

I had first got hooked to Costa Coffee a couple of years ago and have staunchly defended it against a lot of friends, who asked me try out
Gloria Jeans, Coffee Beans, Barista etc. because the coffee was
consistently good, convenient, close to office, stores that I have to visit.

But an incident happened yesterday, that prompted me to write about it. Lucky Bhatt aka @bhatnaturally was in town from Bangalore and we had planned to meet up at Costa coffee in Phoenix. Whilst waiting for him with @b50 @shamikv we decided to have coffee. Asking them to hold a table, I went to place the order, wanting to prove a point to @b50 that Costa would serve good cold coffee without sugar.

Walking back to the table, saw a man pushing his chair from the table from the corner of my eye, as also an aluminium strip jutting out where Costa had used it to economize on the wooden flooring. It
snagged my trouser and baam I went down in a ugly fall; trying to save
the edge of table hitting my eye, put the entire pressure on my left
knee. Managed to get up, with people running up enquiring whether I
was hurt. @b50 raised his voice to one of the service boys, who just
beat the strip down and wandered off.

We sat finishing our coffee, trying to gather my wits and checking the swelling before leaving.

The issue here is not that I was hurt – maybe I was at fault, which
I was not; maybe the strip, floor was not maintained properly, which it should have been, given the fact the brand coffee charges; but the fact that the attitude of the staff – no one even bothered to look at what the commotion was, come up to enquire “whether I was hurt” offered a
cold compress – to act humanitarian, which one would expect from a brand like Costa.

When I tweeted about this, a couple of people said that they knew the
manager would I like to speak to him; whilst some said “sue them”.
If I were in the UK or USA, I would have done so, not for money but
for the attitude, however I definitely want to bring this to their CEO/President’s notice and see whether they have a semblance of customer service feedback mechanism at all.

Having to travel for a couple of hours to Goa *sigh* opted for my preferred airline, where everything went perfectly, so much so, landed 15 minutes early and was left to do nothing for the next couple of hours.

On spur of the moment decided to have breakfast in Fidalgo, which I had not visited in a decade.

I saw a small cafe just off the lobby and sat there, guided in no small measure by the fresh bakery smell.

After perusing the menu, the waiter; quite knowledgeable - recommended I try the fresh chicken sandwich, which I ordered along with some cold coffee.

It took some 15 odd minutes to be brought, but arrive it did - nice thick slice on which bits of chicken pieces with mayo were spread and then covered with another thick slice.

The first bite took me to heaven, the bread soft, whilst the filling was chilled to perfection.

The cold coffee was superb - nothing that CCD, Barista could match.

Both were demolished in short order and were enough to sustain me till evening!

Coffee??

Not much of a difference in terms of coffee or ambiance between CCD, Barista, Costa, Coffee World but at least barista in malad & lokhandwala is polite & quick; coffee world allows surfing & does not make faces if interviews are going on!

Only the different sizes cups seemed diff…..They need a real differentiator if they want to change thoughts.