Millennials and other young generations absolutely love coffee and visiting local coffee shops. Coffee shops are relatively easy to create and run, and they typically don’t require as big of an investment as other businesses do.  As a result, coffee shops have become common business ventures in recent years. However, with all these new coffee shops comes stiff competition. In addition to local shops, you also have to worry about major chains like Starbucks and Dunkin’ cutting into business. So how can you get customers through the door and stay in business? Here are six ways to boost attendance at your coffee shop. 

Improve Menu

Improve Menu
 
The most obvious way to boost attendance at your coffee shop is to improve your menu. There are two main ways you can improve your menu, the first is to offer a wider range of drinks and flavors and the second is to improve the quality of the drinks already offered. Expanding your menu to include new drinks and flavors can be a great way to gain new customers and keep existing customers coming back to try new products. Improving the quality of your drinks can also help you retain customers, as high-quality beverages made from a top-quality espresso machine will keep them coming back for more. In addition, positive word of mouth will spread, leading to more people visiting your coffee shop.
 

Live Entertainment

Although the things you serve on the menu are extremely important, they aren’t the only things that can boost attendance. A great way to get more people to visit your coffee shop is to provide live entertainment for guests to enjoy. Acoustic singers and other forms of live entertainment can go a long way in improving your shop’s environment. Those that already visit your shop will want to visit more often to enjoy live entertainment, while new customers may hear about your live entertainment and will want to see what the buzz is all about. In addition, hiring local musicians and other live performers can be a great way to form connections with the community, establishing goodwill and getting even more people to visit your coffee shop. 

Enhance Design

An important part of a coffee shop is the design and aesthetic. Many of the more modern and popular coffee shops have some great design elements and really cool aesthetics. In fact, for most visitors in a coffee shop, the design and look of the coffee shop are just as important as the actual drinks and food being served. As a result, if you want to boost attendance at your coffee shop, improving your shop’s design is a great way to start. A simple makeover of your coffee shop can generate a lot of buzz and get a lot of people through the door.

Special Events

Special events and deals are a great way to get more people through your coffee shop doors. People love added value and discounts, so having these can really boost attendance. Special events could be something like hosting book clubs while special deals could be something like providing half-off a certain type of drink on a certain day. Events and deals not only get people through the door, but they also form connections with the community, something that can boost attendance even more.

Train Staff More

When people are at coffee shops, they love to receive high-quality customer service. Customers want their drinks to be made correctly and with a smile. Customer service and interaction are huge parts of having a local coffee shop, so if you want to boost attendance you’ll want to be sure that you’re on top of this. One way to ensure that your coffee shop has great customer service is to train your staff more and to improve your training programs. A highly trained staff that is great at customer service can go a long way in retaining customers and boosting attendance.

Start A Loyalty Program

If you really want to incentivize people to keep visiting your coffee shop, then one thing you can do is start a loyalty program. As the name suggests, a loyalty program rewards those customers who visit you the most frequently. A common loyalty program may be something as simple as every 10th drink purchased is free. A loyalty program could also be points-based, allowing consumers to rack up points when they purchase items and then allowing them to turn in those points for special drinks or food at a later date. No matter how you choose to structure your loyalty program, having one present in your coffee shop can be a great way to incentivize people to continue to come back, thus boosting your overall attendance.