Motorway services, great weather and Bank Holiday traffic are normally a recipe for disaster, but recently Starbucks showed that good planning can solve the problem. Watch this to find out more!

Transcript:

Hi, welcome to another episode of BaranovTV designed to demystify the world of accounts and tax and to help your business grow.

I’m hoping this actually is audible because it’s very, very busy. I’m at Cobham Services on the M25.

It’s Bank Holiday weekend and it is seriously busy here; it’s just on lunch time.

But I wanted to show you something that actually has really impressed me.

Very often when the weather’s great and it’s a busy period you end up standing in queues a lot in these sorts of places. But today, Starbucks have really impressed me.

We’ve popped in for a quick drink and something to eat on our way down to see some friends in Worthing. We’ve sat in traffic on and off, but it’s not been too bad for Bank Holiday weekend with a fantastic forecast. But we’ve got to Starbucks and they have got so many bodies behind their bar, it’s brilliant.

• They’ve got somebody taking the order, somebody else writing the labels to go onto the mugs.
• They’ve got somebody else collecting the food that people might be ordering. So that’s three people on each of the three tills that they’ve got going, so that’s nine members of staff.
• They’ve also got various baristas making the drinks, they’ve got different guys handing out the drinks and they’re still managing to give great customer service.

There’s lots of smiles, there’s lots of jokes but the thing is the queues are moving really, really quickly.

Looking around at the other food outlets here they’re not moving anywhere near as quickly.

Now, okay, Starbucks is more expensive but they’re looking after their clients, their customers and they’re getting us all through.

So really, I just wanted to give you an example of Starbucks at Cobham who have broken down the process, and they’ve planned accordingly. The weather forecast has been brilliant all the week. They know that it’s a late summer Bank Holiday, so they know it’s going to be busy. They’ve also been warning all the week about the level of traffic that’s going to be expected today.

So on all fronts Starbucks knew that they were likely to be very busy and they certainly are. But they’ve got a plan, they’re making it work and it’s working really well.

So hopefully they’ll have a few minutes at the end of the day or the end of the weekend to realise and feel pleased at how well that plan’s been implemented. Can you implement any of this approach to your business? That’s my thought for you this week.

Meanwhile I’m going off to find my drink and I’ll see you all very soon.