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0 Introduction

YOLO Espresso is a newly opened café in Kampar Newtown which is located

at No 2244, Jalan Batu Sinar, Taman Bandar Baru, 31900 Kampar, Perak. It was
founded by Mr. Keat and his family members in April 2017. Mr. Keat is a friendly
person where communication means a lot to him where public could contact him by
calling him at 016-308149 or 05-4661003 or email him through
YOLOESPRESSO@gmail.com. Mr. Keat is a coffee lover and he had explored
around the world to collect ideas of beverages. Once, he been to Vietnam and he was
surprised that coffee in Vietnam is so delicious and suits him. Since he is also a local
Kampar resident, he wants people around Kampar to taste good quality coffee from
Vietnam. Hence, he started up YOLO Espresso with the concept of blending arts,
culture, and beverages into one. He hopes that every customer that had been through
YOLO Espresso can enjoy their shop’s layout and feel the atmosphere of coffee shop
in Vietnam.

YOLO Espresso had a mission of creating a unique zone where customers are
able to hang out in a calming and comfort environment. Besides, the founder hopes
that customers that visit YOLO Espresso can enjoy the best brewed coffee or espresso
in town. He also involved in the business of aiding customers to decrease the stresses
of everyday by having a piece of mind through friendly customer services, great
atmosphere, convenient location and even high quality products throughout the time
in business. The profits earned will be capitalized to increasing the satisfaction of
employees while providing stable return to the shareholders and survive in this
saturated market longer (Puckett & Green, 2004).

YOLO Espresso aims to offer the best tasting coffee beverages to its
customers at the best price. This will be achieved through the use of high quality
ingredients and following the standard operating procedure. According to McKeever
(2008), the menu listings, the store layout and the marketing activities will be focused
on ensuring that more sales of higher margin espresso drinks are achieved. Apart from
the espresso drinks, other drinks like brewed coffee and tea together with some
refreshing beverages will be offered in the shop to take care of customers who might
have allergies to coffee or want to take other drinks different from coffee. Sandwiches
and cakes will also be offered to go along with the coffee desire. In Yolo Espresso,

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Mr. Keat also sells packed coffee beans to make sure customers who desire to make
their own coffee at home.

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2.0 Evaluate how the organization applies theories

2.1 Customer Acquisition

Customer acquisition is referring to bringing new customer and persuading

customer to purchase the business product and services. A good customer relationship
will allow a business to gain customers, service the customer and increase the value of
the customer to the business. Other than that, a good customer relationship can
improve customer service by facilitating communication in few ways. In directly, well
maintained customer relationship would draw customers to business.

Social media is one of the most useful marketing tools for businesses. In order
attract new customers’ interesting in knowing more about YOLO Espresso, they use
social media which is Facebook and Instagram to advertise, promote and market their
café. Recently, they are active regularly on social media in order to increase YOLO
Espresso’s awareness. This results when YOLO Espresso became customers’ first
choice of study, chat, or even have a sweet dessert and a cup of coffee. Social media
is a powerful marketing strategy for YOLO Espresso because it helps in engaging
their customer to YOLO Espresso. Not only that, customers could also share their
feeling and emotions on YOLO Espresso’s Facebook which could also drive potential
customer to try on YOLO Espresso’s products.

On the other hand, YOLO Espresso is focusing more on the customer service.
Customer services can help their business to gain and attract new customer to visit
YOLO Espresso. YOLO Espresso is considering as a new business in Kampar so they
are maintaining the relationship with their customer to develop customer loyalty.
Customer service is very important for YOLO Espresso because it can provide and
also increases satisfaction to their customer. The better the service quality, the better
the satisfaction of customer. If a customer likes YOLO Espresso’s service, they will
promote to friends through word-of-mouth. A satisfied customer is one of the most
effective marketing to a small business. Customer will always trust from their friend
or people they know. According to Wharton marketing professor Jonah Berger,
word-of-mouth is 10 times as effective as traditional advertising. Word-of-mouth is so
effective and powerful that many successful businesses rely on this way to advertise
and market their products and services.

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 Besides that, YOLO Espresso use beverages and desserts to target new
customers. It is because recently they realize that their waffle is a popular dessert and
getting feedback from customer related to reasonable price and delicious taste. So,
they decided to focus on specific food and coffee to target customers. Other than that,
YOLO Espresso’s founder (Keat) thinks that the environment is an attractive method
that can attract and gain new customer. This is because YOLO Espresso environment
is comfortable and relax for all people. Furthermore, YOLO Espresso target market is
Kampar student but based on the founder view, he realize that YOLO Espresso
customers consists not only Kampar student but also family and locals who visited
YOLO Espresso. So, he also adjusts his menu to different market of customers.

Nevertheless, the most important things for YOLO Espresso’s founder(Mr.

Keat) is communication. He usually will communicate and talk with customer in face
to face when they visit YOLO Espresso. He said that “communication is very
important within a business”. A good communication can helps to build up the
business reputation. According to the founder (Keat), he often gets feedback from
customer about why they like YOLO Espresso because the employees is friendly and
the environment is comfortable for them. In addition, this can helps to create a good
relationship with customer and build the customer value. Whenever they feel
comfortable in YOLO Espresso and feel warm while chatting with the manager,
customer will totally fall in love with YOLO Espresso. He mentioned that “enjoy the
moment at YOLO Espresso because you only live once”. So, the founder of YOLO
Espresso advices people “Communication with each other better than playing phone”.

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2.2 Customer Retention

Customer retention is the process of keeping a high proportion of current

customers by reducing customer defections. YOLO Espresso is using positive
customer retention strategies to retain their customer by going beyond what would
normally satisfy the customer which by providing services or products that will
exceed customer expectations. The founder of YOLO Espresso thinks that customer
relationship is actually an important way to establish a successful relationship with
customer as customer is important for him and also the café in order for the café to
able to have a long run business, improving their products or services from customer
feedback and gaining competitive advantage from time being.

To maintain a good customer relationship, the YOLO Espresso’s founder

thinks that communication plays an important role in it as customer are important to
him and also the café itself. The founder will normally ask customer for feedback
face-to-face when he feel the customer is friendly and willing to talk or share
regarding their personality, preferences and expectation on the products, service and
also environment of the cafe and improve themselves on it in order to serve the
customer well in the future. Especially after customers had tasted their cup of
beverage, Mr Keat will ask for opinion and feedbacks.

YOLO Espresso does not have any practice in improving their customer
retention by providing loyalty card, sales and promotion to their customer at the
moment. They currently focus more on offering different drinks at different time. For
example, they offered Iced Soda Yuzu(Pomelo) during Chinese New Year period. Mr
Keat believes that only good quality products and good services would satisfy
customer and hence they would slowly turn into loyal customer.

The challenges that YOLO Espresso is facing is less customer visitation

during October to November. He believes that the food and coffee in the café could be
the problem in not attracting the attention of customers. For the food, he thinks that
YOLO Espresso should add new foods into the list to overcome this problem. For the
coffee, he thinks that the coffee may feel too basic for the customer or customer may
get use to the coffee and not willing to drink the same coffee anymore. To overcome
this coffee’s problem, he will try to introduce new coffee or improve their current
coffee that will exceeding customer expectation and fit the customer preferences.

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2.3 Customer Development

Customer development is the process of growing the value of retained

customers (Buttle, F. & Maklan, S. ,2015). YOLO Espresso is using cross-selling
method to achieve customer development goals. Which is selling flower tea or
seasonal available item like Iced Soda Yuzu(Pomelo) that is only offered during
Chinese New Year period. YOLO Espresso’s main product is coffee which their
ingredients are carefully picked by the owner itself. As the man on the wheel, Keat
emphasizes in maintaining good product quality. For example, they will test the milk
before they use it and serve it. He further explained that YOLO Espresso is a business
that aims to serve its customer with the best product, environment and services.

YOLO Espresso’s product is prepared with a Standard Operating

Procedures (SOP) that was preset by the owner. With the SOP in operation, YOLO
Espresso could provide best quality and quality to their customers. Other than that,
customization is also allowed at the time of order. Mr. Keat told that once a student
order a hot chocolate with little amount of milk and a little of caramel. Since that,
Keat remembers her order and he will prepare it whenever she comes. Keat also catch
the time to communicate with customers to improvement themselves at all times. This
allowed Keat to think from customer side and improves accordingly.

YOLO Espresso uses small detail to attract customer and hence create a
strong brand image in the minds of customers. As what YOLO Espresso had done
during Chinese New Year 2018, they hung a few big red lantern and red ribbons in
correspond to this season of red. Mr. Keat would like to impress customers and also
enjoy this festive season while working. The concept of decorating their café
according to season or festive originated from a suggestion of a loyal customer of
YOLO Espresso. Thus, Mr. Keat decided to act towards it. He wishes to make YOLO
Espresso a place to unite arts, crafts, coffee and people rather than solely a café.

With the strength of great people, good products and excellent environment
YOLO Espresso has, YOLO Espresso aims to serve people right and nice. In their
future planning, Mr. Keat wished to open a concept store which is totally different
concept with current YOLO Espresso. A concept store which allows the creation of
creativity, gather of people, and joy of laughs is the main direction of YOLO 2.0.

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Take an example that Kampar has, G2 Youth Centre. It has a blend of mini cinema,
study corner, board games and a place of gathering.

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2.4 Customer Experience Value

Customer experience is defined by interaction between a customer and an

organization throughout their business relationship, it is also the cognitive and
affective outcome of the customer’s exposure to, or interaction with, a company’s
people, processes, technologies, products, services and other outputs. Customer
experience such an essential part of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is
because a customer who has a positive experience with a business is more likely to
become a repeat and loyal customer (S. MacDonald, 2018). By implement customer
experience strategies may bring many ways benefits to an organization and can create
a positive customer experience value.

There are several concepts associated with customer relationship management.

There are included touch point, moment of truth and engagement. Touch point exists
whenever customers come into virtual or concrete contact with YOLO Espresso menu,
environment of YOLO Espresso, customer services of the employees, and the
ordering processes. Touch point in customer experience is hen customer walk in to the
YOLO Espresso’s environment. Every famous café has own unique layout or theme
that represents their concept of business. YOLO Espresso has a good layout design
with ambience and the cleanliness environment in the café and this attracts many
customers visits YOLO Espresso. Furthermore, attitude of a staff can make up of
touch point customer experiences. YOLO Espresso’s staff will have a welcome
greeting to customer once they walk in the café and thank you greeting to customer
when they walk out the café. This action may create a great experience to customer to
enhance customer retention to come back again.

Other than that, moment of truth at the front counter ordering systems which
customers will have a menu once waiter serve they seat and make an order in front the
counter. The staff will repeat the customer’s order to them to confirm their order and
avoid any mistake. After making an order, customer can get back to their seat and
waiting for serve. When the drink or food is ready, the waiter will serve and send to
customer. By developing this ordering system, customer can enjoy and chatting with
their friends once they have make an order. YOLO Espresso’s staff can provide a
better customer service by sending their drinking and food to customer and no need
customer take their drink and food in front the counter. Besides, the YOLO

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Espresso’s founder will observe every customer’s behavior and understand their needs.
The YOLO Espresso’s founder said that got one customer always visits their café
since grand opening, they can understand the customer’s preference and know what
he likes. YOLO Espresso’s staff will observe either their customers have finish their
beverage and food, if customer do no finish and YOLO Espresso’s staff will ask for
reason immediately and solve it directly. YOLO Espresso’s founder has mentioned
that customer feedback always important to them to improve their services. He also
said that he received many advices from customer instead of complaints.

In this new era, YOLO Espresso also highly engages on social media such as
Facebook and Instagram. YOLO Espresso using Facebook and Instagram to introduce
their new drinks and foods. For instance, YOLO Espresso introduce a seasonal
Chinese New Year flower tea and Soda Yuzu Pamelo on their Facebook page recently
to let their customers know what is the new launch beverage and activities. Next,
YOLO Espresso is also using Facebook as a connection to their customer. YOLO
Espresso will have a look and reply the customer’s comment and feedback in order to
understand their needs. YOLO Espresso can measure the customer emotional by
looking through the likes and shares on Facebook, and the shares or likes of new
launching beverage. This may lead their customers have higher intensity of
participation and connection to YOLO Espresso.

In a nutshell, YOLO Espresso is associated with touch points, moments of

truth and customer engagement in order to create a positive customer experience
value to their customer to come back to YOLO Espresso.

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3.0 Conclusion

3.1Future Challenges

YOLO Espresso is well-known with its various type of coffee and dessert that
favored by people around Kampar. It has been the highest rate of coffee shop aside
than Starbucks. Thus, YOLO Espresso has also become the leading choice for those
customers who prefer to consume cheap and traditional coffee. However, there are
some future challenges that might be faced by YOLO Espresso despite its
successfulness of business.

Firstly, the coffee shop markets are being saturated in the Kampar which
results in the increasing competitors against YOLO Espresso in the market. This is
due to the high demand for coffee shops from customers nowadays and thus the
market is overcrowded by a lot of coffee shops, such as Starbucks, A&C Espresso
Cafe and Simple Coffee. In addition, these coffee shops have developed large loyal
customer base due to their long period of operating. It will cause YOLO Espresso
hard to develop its business well due to strong competitions in the market. Besides,
there may be new restaurants that are same model as YOLO Espresso coming up
in the future. As a result, the customer base of YOLO Espresso will be damaged
easily as the new coffee shops may offer similar products or even serve better
products such as civet coffee or low-fat dessert in order to grow the customer base.

Furthermore, the trend towards healthy eating of the customers is also one
of the future challenges that will be faced by YOLO Espresso. Normally, the menu of
YOLO Espresso has focused on offering various type of coffee choices of meals such
as sandwiches and cakes. Yet, YOLO Espresso has also offered the complementary
sides such as crispy chips and soft drinks that are rich in salts and high in calories.
This may affects some customer’s choices that really care and persist on their healthy
eating habit. Moreover, the customers are bored of YOLO Espresso’s menu. There
is no diversification for the range of foods offered on the YOLO Espresso’s menu due
to YOLO Espresso is poor in adapting to the variation in the customers’ taste. Thus,
customers may choose to move to other restaurant in order to demand a more spice of
taste and healthier choices.

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3.2 Learning Outcomes

From this report, we had further knowledge about the nature of YOLO
Espresso’s business. Nowadays, YOLO Espresso is the leading choice of offering
coffee and desserts to the customers in Kampar. Thus, YOLO Espresso has developed
large number of loyal customer due to the strategic technique to manage each stage of
customer life cycle.

For the stage of customer acquisition, YOLO Espresso has evaluated and
acquired new customers by promoting their products which are coffee and dessert
through social media and advertising. It can aids to attract new customers as it is the
best way to expose the potential customers to all the information about YOLO
Espresso’s products by just a click on the social media. Furthermore, sales promotion
is also the effective technique that practiced by YOLO Espresso to acquire more
potential customers by giving coupons for every order.

Besides, YOLO Espresso has offered the fresh and nutritious sandwiches and
cakes with the best quality that consistent with what it has promised the customers in
order to create customer delight in the stage of customer retention. Furthermore,
retention-oriented sales promotion can increase customer loyalty as it encourages
customers to repeat their purchase. In order to retain the existing customers, Mr. Keat
has continuously put in effort in creating new products to suit different customers’
preference. Also, he personally remembers constant customers’ customization in their
drinks.

Moreover, cross-selling techniques has also been used by YOLO Espresso

with the purpose of increasing customer profitability in customer development stage.
YOLO Espresso has offered complementary foods, drinks, or even extra cheese with
additional charged for every purchase to gain additional profit to increase company’s
value to the customers. YOLO Espresso has enhanced the customers’ experience
value by using the concept which includes touch point, moment of truth and
engagement on small detail. Additionally, YOLO Espresso has also offered
sandwiches with variety choices of flavors that can fulfill different tastes for every
customer. YOLO Espresso has also provided fast and efficient customer services in
serving their customers.

Total words : 3262 words

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