It’s not a good look for a cafe when its staff are struggling to use the coffee equipment.

Whether something hasn’t been cleaned (causing your coffee to taste watery,  burnt or just plain wrong) or a part breaks down due to misuse, mishaps can cause significant damage to your brand.

The Downfall of Badly Trained Staff

In the few minutes your customers are forced to wait while the coffee equipment issue is addressed, frustration rises.

All they wanted was a delicious, steaming, fresh cup of coffee at their convenience. Was that such a big ask?

At the end of the day, unless you want to risk losing business to bad reviews due to lengthy wait times or incorrectly made coffee orders… you need to offer intensive cafe training to your employees. 

The Importance of Proper Cafe Training

When your customers can order a drink smoothly with no hiccups, they are going to be satisfied with the result. 

Before long, they’ll have a hit of caffeine to enjoy and will be considering visiting you again. Customers are loyal when they receive great service and great quality at the same time, and if your staff are trained to remember your regular customers as well then that’s a definite plus!  

What’s more? By providing cafe training to your team, you can ensure that your employees are able to properly care for your coffee equipment (increasing its life span) and are working at maximum efficiency. 

How to Create a Cafe Training Program

It’s clear, then, that you need to prioritise teaching your staff about the equipment in your coffee shop. 

To get started, all you need to do is:

1. Evaluate new and existing staff performance 
2. Identify areas of weakness
3. Pinpoint missing skills
4. Provide learning materials and barista training 
5. Assign experienced mentors
6. Use a coffee supplier that offers support, training and servicing 

Once you have a clear picture of who needs to be taught what, you can create a plan to accomplish success. From there, you can educate your employees about the coffee equipment you use so that they can produce the best possible result every time.

Best Practices for Successful Cafe Training

One important thing to remember with your cafe training is that everyone learns differently. 

You can’t always use the same approach with one team member that you would with another, however the end result does need to be the same – reliable and consistent coffee! 

Therefore, it’s imperative you diversify your training materials in order to achieve proficiency across your workforce. Learning the necessary skills to make a number of coffee styles is not easy, which is why barista cafe training is such an important tool  to consider. 

Don’t be afraid to get creative and look into:

1. Providing hands-on training (where staff members can learn on the job)
2. Enlisting the support of more experienced employees to oversee less skilled employees 
3. Printing out visual guides that can be optimally placed
4. Speaking to your coffee equipment supplier for more support and training 
5. Communicating with your staff and outlining clear expectations

From there, you’ll be in a perfect position to create a clear cafe training schedule that covers all the bases. You’ll even be able to organise refresher courses, improving your service long into the future.

Maximise the Value of Your Equipment for Coffee Shop

Even if you’ve had the equipment in your coffee shop for a while, there’ll always be more skills that you can gain.

Through cafe training, you could reduce your service times significantly, increase the quality of the drinks you serve to increase customer loyalty, and ensure longevity for your coffee equipment. 

Does that sound like something you can benefit from? The team at Complete Coffee are always eager to provide advice about the coffee equipment we loan out and to help with barista training. To learn more, contact us today.

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