Café Javas customer care is still average
What makes exceptional customer care?
When you are used to very poor customer service, anyone who gives you average service is seen as outstanding.
In March 2019, I visited one of the Café Javas restaurants for a family meal. When asked where to have lunch, my three children – the average age of six years – overwhelmingly named Café Javas. You know the influence the children have on their parents. I turned the car to Café Javas. Keep in mind my wife no longer goes to the restaurant. Apparently, their menu is just flat and too ‘imported.’
“I love surprises. I love going to a restaurant and I experience something new. Something fresh.” Sometimes after you have eaten the food, you wonder whether you are yet to be served!
Why the kids love Café Javas?
When you go to Café Javas with children, they are given Hollywood characters to paint. The children get all the colors they need, and various characters to chose from. Now after the painting, someone will even put the stars on the best painting. The kids love it. Who would not?
Even me an adult, I love it to see the kids so busy painting and admiring their work as they wait for the order. I have time to catch up on my WhatsApp messages without any distractions as our meal order is processed.
I give it to Café Javas for such high-level organization and consistency. Every time I have visited with children, they will get photos to paint. The children do not go to Café Javas to have a great meal. They are drawn there to get Hollywood characters to practice their painting skills which I must admit I have not invested in at home.
The question is: can Café Javas retain competitive advantage if another copy and paste restaurant introduced the same offering to their patrons? Be the judge.
The next good thing at Café Javas is the consistent menu – serve a few items but offer them consistently. The meal experience will taste the same. It is like KFC chicken. They have perfected the formula for quick turnaround time and consistent meal presentation. And that is it.
So, what is quality customer service?
This has a lot to do with proactive anticipation of customers’ needs and offering them fully. With increasing problems of lifestyle diseases, a large class of customers would need foods that are low on oil, and more on freshness and fruits.
You need a capability that responds to this need. Imagine being able to enjoy fresh and local foods to the same high level of service in a Café Javas restaurant with the consistency it does for other foods.
I know you are thinking that Café Javas serves to a certain class of people who love their food and will always go there. True. But that is not what grows companies. It is the ability to anticipate tomorrow that makes a difference.
Until Café Javas introduces a local product on their menu that is offered with the consistence they do with the current menu, I will still branch there once in a while, but not to enjoy a great healthy meal.
Copyright Mustapha B Mugisa, 2019. All rights reserved.
