Working in hospitality: harnessing the efficiency of tech

An early alarm, a 6 am coffee and the morning rush: what working in hospitality looks like now, and the tech that makes it easier.

This article was written by Tom Saxon, co-founder of Batch Coffee. He has worked in the speciality coffee industry for over 10 years, across the world and throughout many parts of the supply chain.

I personally love working in the hospitality industry, and I can't encourage people enough to consider a career in it. The workforce is typically young and energetic, and constantly making customers happy is what makes working in hospitality fulfilling and rewarding.

Working in a coffee shop

My day starts early, as you'd expect in the coffee industry. The 6 am alarm is always met shortly afterwards with a delicious coffee though, one of the many perks of working with speciality coffee beans.

Opening the roastery and cafe takes about 30 minutes. It involves dialling in coffee machines and preparing for customers. As they arrive, each one is met with a small conversation, especially the regulars, whom I would now class as friends.

The morning rush comes and goes quickly, and I always feel pumped afterwards. The coffee industry is great because people are so thankful for their morning coffee, and especially customers who dine in: their energy once fully caffeinated is contagious.

My responsibilities, first and foremost, are customer service. It's so important that our customers leave happy and hopefully in a better mood than when they entered. Making coffee and ensuring the place is clean and tidy, stock control, and various small jobs like checking the toilets every hour or so make up the rest of the day.

The days are quick, and finishing at 4 pm means I still have an evening to do whatever I'd like.

How tech makes working in hospitality easier

Working in a busy coffee shop can be occasionally stressful, especially behind the coffee machine, where there is a finite number of coffees one can make per minute, contrary to the odd customer's opinion.

Add to that the fact you are customer-facing: while the orders stack up and you're frantically trying to pull 18 shots of espresso and split a litre of steamed milk into six different milk-based drinks, you have to keep a smile on your face and appear unfazed.

1. Ordering app

A really useful tool that has helped many baristas all over the world is an app where coffee can be ordered before the customer arrives at the coffee shop.

The transaction takes place on the customer's phone, so there is no waiting in line and no time wasted serving the customer. It streamlines ordering completely, and the barista can add the order straight to the queue.

2. Customer loyalty app

Another useful app we use, which involves the customer's experience, is a loyalty app. Stamp cards are becoming a thing of the past. They do work as a physical representation of how many coffees you have left before a free one, but from a barista's point of view the practicality is a bit wasteful.

Today, when customers place an order through their app they receive an e-stamp, visualised as a loyalty card on their phone. If the customer orders in the coffee shop, they can scan a QR code that appears after the purchase on a screen facing outwards from the register, which adds another e-stamp to their virtual loyalty card.

That saves only a matter of seconds per customer, but at scale it saves hours of staff time and, crucially, frees up a staff member during peak hours. The wait time drops, which keeps current customers happy and entices new customers into the cafe.

3. Staff scheduling app

Technology is now used in all areas of hospitality, and one of the most efficient pieces from a manager's point of view is a roster application.

Back in the day, weekly rosters were stuck to the wall on a piece of A4 paper with an Excel-style table where employees could read their shifts and see when their colleagues were working. It was a physical representation, but also messy: by the end of the first day the roster was published, it had already been annotated with shift swaps.

Today, all the shift organisation happens in an app where managers can publish weekly rosters months in advance if they wish. Colleagues liaise directly through the app and request shift swaps, with manager authorisation, and the new roster updates automatically. Staff can add holidays up to a year in advance, so when the manager plans the roster they know exactly who is available for the coming week.

The app usually has a sign-in system too, so gone are the days of more A4 prints on the wall or punch cards. Just tap start and finish at either end of the shift, and the app records each staff member's weekly hours.