Consider the coffee shop as an office
Although the company creates conditions for employees to come to the office, every day Van Anh (26 years old, living in Binh Thanh, Ho Chi Minh City) always chooses to work at the coffee shop. The young girl will come to the shop at 8:00 a.m., order a glass of water for 35,000 VND and sit until 5:00 p.m., like an administrative shift.
Van Anh chose this way of working after the Covid-19 pandemic, when her company allowed employees to work freely remotely. Sitting at a coffee shop helps young girls avoid being bothered and distracted like at home. In an open environment, Van Anh is also not restrictive and has a dress code like an office space. In particular, she can completely take the initiative in finding the right time for herself.
“Most modern cafes are equipped with electrical outlets and strong wifi. Many customers like me will proactively bring additional electrical outlets and their own devices. Here all young people are like that, they see cafes as offices. room so I feel extremely comfortable,” Van Anh said.
The trend of remote working helps young people see coffee shops as offices (Photo: HA).
A survey of 260,000 people on FlexJobs (a job search website for freelancers) showed that 76% of employees feel they work better outside the office. In 2017, job website Albamon also pointed out that employees working in coffee shops are more comfortable than at home or in the library.
This remote working trend has flourished since 2020 when the Covid-19 pandemic occurred, allowing employees to be comfortable in terms of time, environment and working location. However, customers sitting and working too long at the coffee shop causes a lot of trouble for the shop owner.
According to a survey by the Korean Food Service Industry Research Institute, when buying a cup of coffee worth 4,100 won (about 3 USD), customers sitting for more than 1 hour and 42 minutes will cause the shop to lose capital.
Many customers even lie down on the couch when going to cafes (Photo: HA).
The shop owner has a headache thinking about how to “evict” customers… and take root
Ms. K. (owner of a famous coffee chain in Ho Chi Minh City) shared that when she opened the shop, she encountered many cases where customers came to the shop and only asked for a glass of water of 20,000 VND to sit for 9 hours, and often asked for staff. water refill tablets.
For her, this is a dead corner of the business industry. Because customers staying for more than 1 hour will cause the restaurant to incur additional costs for seating, electricity and water, wifi, iced tea and waiters.
“It looks like the shop is always full of people but in fact there is no revenue,” Ms. K. mused.
However, after the Covid-19 epidemic, the trend of “rooting in coffee” is becoming increasingly popular. Ms. K. said that the shop owner cannot chase away customers but always finds a way to live and develop for this group of customers. In particular, after 1 hour, her shop will proactively disconnect the wifi connection and ask customers to continue to buy water a second time before being re-issued.
“This requires the restaurant to work hard to form habits. In return for customers not to show their attitude, the restaurant must successfully complete the cultural story of serving warmly, comfortably ordering water, creating more sympathy,” she said. K. said.
Many shop owners say that sitting for more than 1 hour will cause the shop to incur more expenses (Photo source: Pexels).
Mr. M. (34 years old, living in Hanoi) said that in his 3 years of doing coffee business, he often encountered cases where a large group of customers came but only ordered the right cup of tea for 55,000 VND. According to Mr. M., evicting customers is relatively easy, but in order not to lose heart, the shop owner needs to have a trick.
Accordingly, in the beginning, Mr. M.’s restaurant staff often cleaned the table while customers were sitting. Immediately, his restaurant received complaints and 1-star reviews on social networks.
“Later, I started applying the method of forcing customers to join tables because of crowding. This made customers feel uncomfortable and proactively leave, without the owner needing to speak up,” Mr. M. said. more.
