Should nice customers pay less for their coffee?
A US based coffee shop has sparked a debate this week by offering lower priced coffee based upon how polite their customer is.
But are they right or wrong to do this? And it does beg the question — is the customer always right?
Should nice customers pay less?
CUPS Coffee & Tea based in Roanoke, Virginia posted the sign outside their small shop only to see that the image had spread online (mainly via the internet link aggregation site Reddit).
The sign reads:
“One small coffee”
$5.00
“One small coffee, please”
$3.00
“Hello, I’d like one small coffee please.”
$1.75
It’s a bold (but strange) move, where customers do have an ever increasing number of options to get their favourite hot drinks.
Austin Simms, the owner of the coffee shop stated it was initially intended as a joke, but realised that this was his was to try and help make the world a better place.
“I decided because I need to solve all the injustices in the world to start charging more for people who didn’t take the time to say hello and connect and realise that we’re all people behing the counter,” he told US based WDBJ-TV.
We applaud his audacity, but are unsure how people would treat it this side of the pond. Not that we condone customers being rude!
As with any service job, there are going to be bad customers and good customers, but does that mean that there is such thing as bad money and good money? Would 1,000 rude paying customers be less preferable than 100 polite customers?
Maybe this is a bit a of grey area, but surely the amount of custom is the most important aspect of the job first and foremost? It’s not always entirely possible to expect customers to have the same enthusiasm as staff surely?
Whatever the case may ultimately be, it’s an interesting idea, hopefully it works out well for CUPS.
But it has left us wondering how people would react on this side of the pond?…