This paper highlights some issues that Undergrounds Café had when I took over as student manager. These were my recommendations for how to make the café more successful. Since then, these changes have been implemented and the café is up $10,000 year to date.

 

 

Undergrounds Café Case Study

 

            For the past year and a half I have had a job on Purdue University’s campus, at Undergrounds Café, located in Hicks Undergraduate Library. Undergrounds is a student-run coffee shop serving coffee, snacks, sandwiches, tea, cold drinks, baked goods, lattes and other drinks of the sort. Mainly, Undergrounds’ customers consist of students studying in the library, or professors holding a class in the building.

            While Undergrounds is generally a successful shop, there is major room for improvement. Undergrounds needs to address the public relations issue of not being well enough known. Only a small portion of Purdue’s population actually knows that the shop exists, which of course means that Undergrounds could be generating much more business than it currently is. Most people who have heard of “that café in the library” don’t know enough about it to try it – instead they head to trusty Starbucks, just a short walk from Hicks. Other people have not heard of the café at all. For most new customers, they are working on a group project in the library, and happen to stumble upon the café, deciding they really need a coffee. This often means that business can be inconsistent when there aren’t many projects or exams going on, because no one is in the library. People don’t realize how convenient a location Undergrounds holds, and that our coffee is at par with Starbucks, while costing less.

            Right now, Undergrounds is forced to be understaffed at times, because its budget can’t afford to have more employees. If Undergrounds was better known, business would greatly increase, and it could afford to hire more people, which would make the shop run faster and smoother, and so people would be more inclined to return, making Undergrounds ever more successful.

            In order for Undergrounds to become as successful as it could be, there are three things it could do. First, it should set up social media accounts, of which it currently has none. Next, it should create specialty drinks that set them apart from Starbucks, its main competitor. After implementing these two practices, Undergrounds should set the objective of increasing income by 35% over the course of the next month.

            The first tactic Undergrounds should employ to meet its objective is to set up various social media accounts. Social media reaches a huge population of people and it is free to set up and operate if you do it yourself. Undergrounds would do well to set up a Twitter account, where it can update its publics on any changes to the menu, any specials it is featuring, or any other news it may have. Updating once a day would help to keep Undergrounds on peoples’ minds. It could also connect with other Purdue Twitter accounts, such as Life At Purdue. These accounts may help endorse and support Undergrounds by retweeting and helping to spread the account to even more viewers, as they have done with other Purdue pages.

           Two more forms of social media that would accomplish the same goals would be Facebook and Instagram. Not everyone goes on every social media site, and so getting the message onto as many sites as possible would help to spread Undergrounds’ name effectively. Facebook could also be used to promote specials and that sort of thing, while Instagram could show pictures of the various drinks and foods that are available for purchase. Another form of social media that could give Undergrounds much needed exposure would be Tumblr. The blog site could be used to share both images and text, as well as articles relating to coffee or fancy espresso drinks. A blog could attract different people than a tweet might, thus expanding the publics attracted to the café even further.

           Also in the area of appealing to different publics, Undergrounds may benefit from creating new and unique specials. At the moment, anything you can get at Undergrounds, you can also get at Starbucks. But you cannot go to Undergrounds and order some of the items available on the Starbucks menu. Undergrounds has a much more limited menu, which pushes many people to choose the popular chain over the local café. Starbucks is known for their specialty drinks, and have recently put out new flavors such as tiramisu and flan lattes. This is part of the appeal of buying a $6 coffee from the brand name store. There is a whole public that is attracted to the novelty of the drinks they can get only at Starbucks. If Undergrounds created its own unique drinks, that were not available at Starbucks, but were less expensive and just as tasty, they would attract different publics that those they currently serve. Undergrounds could then service the public that is interested in trying new and different drinks. Some specialty drinks they could serve might be a mango-coconut smoothie or Irish crème white mocha. With these drinks Undergrounds may even be able to steal some customers from Starbucks. With these new publics, Undergrounds would still be able to retain its old public by keeping its classic menu, and simply adding new drinks and weekly specials.

           When both the social media accounts and newly improved menu have been implemented, a useful measurable objective would be to increase income by 35% over the course of the next month. In theory, by spreading the name Undergrounds around campus, and letting people know what a great café it is, business should increase. Making more publics aware of the new specialty drinks at the convenient location is sure to bring in more customers wanting to beat the line at Starbucks and try something new. But, of course, you would want proof that this is in fact working. At Purdue, you are able to look at what is called your “sales-to-date”. This means that if you wanted to, you could go and look at this day last year, and how much income you generated at whatever time of day. You can also go in and look at how much income you generated last month. And so, after a month of showing off Undergrounds on social media and flaunting its new drinks, it would be advisable for the managers to go into the Purdue system and print off the sales for the month prior to starting these practices, as well as the sales of the month during which these actions have taken place. I would also advise looking at the same month, last year. It is known down in the café that business often fluctuates, and so it would be a good idea to have two points of reference, one from this year last month, and one from this month, but one year ago, with which to compare your new sales data.

           From this, you can see how much your sales have increased by. If you see that your sales have inflated substantially and you have met your objective of a 35% sales increase, then you know that your tactics of adding social media and creating a new menu have worked to help your public relations issue. If your sales have not increased by 35%, perhaps you need to reevaluate and try again.