SURPRISING STUFF
What coffee shop and restaurant owners either don’t know about or possibly care about.
Visiting patrons of these establishments that come in and choose to sit for service or to enjoy a cup don’t come in for the product as the main draw. The product is second. The first is the social need for human ambiance and contact. The coffee shop or restaurant should be a welcome haven for both of those things. Owners of these establishments are seldom on-premises, and many do not have brilliant managers working to run the places properly.
Music. The most overlooked, yet extremely vital, aural instrument capable of transmitting and securing the ambiance and comfort being written about here. Loud abusive music, many times delivered in the genres of rap, jazz or hard rock cause people to either turn around and leave or get the product once and then leave. The owner does not know that he or she has been selected against and that the business may be dying without anybody being able to figure out why. It’s because, when this happens, it is the result of young employees selecting the music they like. Simple as that. They are either unaware of the importance of their choices to the public they are supposed to be serving, or they simply don’t care.
There are nine places that are either coffee shops in the Lake Geneva area or cater to a coffee crowd while serving something else as a principal product. Four of those places are dying because of bad music. There are sixteen restaurants in Lake Geneva. The percentage holds there too, although some have survived because they went to carry out, unaware that nobody wanted to go inside anymore at all. Music selection will never make it to even the top ten explanations for why a business failed, but it’s right there.
The Georgia O’Keefe Museum in Santa Fe did the only survey this newspaper ever heard of. They measured revenue and attendance analytically and then made changing the music the only variable. They played rap for an entire day and lost 80% of attendance and ninety of revenue. They played all non-melody jazz. 60% down and fifty percent attendance drop. Their definition of attendance was ‘entered the store but did not buy anything.’ Where did they score high? Soft classical with familiar melodies, groups, and instrumentals from Enya and other New Age kinds of players. What was the biggest gain, adding twenty percent over the top? Old sixties and seventies rock and roll. That study sent shocks through the museum stores of America organization, and the shock was about the fact that the normal attendance for that store and the others in the association was older. Much older than anyone might think. If you are reading this article and own a restaurant, coffee shop, or almost any other retail operation then you need to pay attention to this.
Person of the Week
Patrick Hogan, owner of the Linn Pier Road Convenience and Gathering Place, in the Town of Linn, working hard to bring some family-friendly fun to the area.
