Aroma Coffee & Kitchen

Café forced to pivot operating model due to COVID-19

Heather Gilchrist set up her dream café business several years ago. From a coffee house with a small menu, the Aroma Coffee & Kitchen in Larkhall, near Glasgow, has blossomed into a restaurant serving every customer’s culinary need. The combination of a loyal customer base, passing trade and visitors to the nearby scenic Clyde Valley ensured Aroma was always bustling with customers to take care of.

Then COVID-19 hit.

As with most businesses, the effect was devastating. As the coronavirus first began to cast its shadow over the U.K., the effect was almost instantaneous, even before government restrictions came into force.

“Over the course of a few days, our turnover slumped by 50%,” Heather recalls. “People just stopped coming in ─ they were more focused on panic-buying than supporting local businesses. Some of our staff were scared to come in as well because they had vulnerable family members at home and were worried about taking the virus home with them.”

Then came the lockdown, and restaurants were restricted to serving take-away food and deliveries.

To make things as safe as possible for both staff and visitors, only one take-away customer was allowed into the café at a time. Heather recognized she needed to adapt quickly to her changing business needs and arrange for Aroma staff to deliver meals direct to people’s homes.

How do customers safely pay?

In both cases, an obstacle would be people’s nervousness about the health risks of handling cash. Worldpay’s card payment terminals met the needs of walk-in customers in the café, but how could customers safely pay for meals delivered to their front door?

For a delivery service to be successful in that climate, it had to involve zero contact between driver and customer. What Heather needed was a way for people to pay when ordering over the phone.

Heather contacted Worldpay and to see if it would be possible to take what are known as “card-not-present” (CNP) payments on her card payment terminal.

“I spoke with Worldpay and said, ‘We’re reopening on Friday as a delivery business ─ can you help us take payments over the phone?’ Worldpay leapt into action for us and talked me through the essential security protocols, such as always entering card numbers directly into the terminal and never writing them down. The new contract was ‘signed’ by email and the card terminal was activated remotely without us having to do anything. By Thursday, we were up and running with telephone payments.”

Converting sit-down patrons into delivery customers

Now, the big task ahead was to convert their loyal sit-down patrons into delivery customers. Along with good old-fashioned flyers, Heather used Aroma’s Instagram and Facebook pages and other social media to let customers know about her new delivery service.

The campaign quickly bore fruit, and deliveries started to take off on that Saturday night. “It was a positive start," says Heather, "but we had to change people’s mindsets about us ─ literally overnight. It was like starting a brand-new business.”

Those were, indeed, tough times, but Heather did what was needed to give her business the best chance of weathering the storm.

“People didn't want to come out and they didn't want to touch money. Delivering a familiar meal to a customer’s door was a welcome service for people who craved a bit of normality in those strange days,” she remembers. “It was a great feeling being able to help people out.”

At a glance

Objective

Pivot a previous in-person business into a delivery-only one ─ and quickly ─ and implement revised method of safely accepting payments.

Worldpay solutions

SMB Payments Capabilities; Card Machines

Impact

• Supports contactless payments, digital wallets, CNP transactions and all major credit and debit cards
• Accepts tap-and-go payments, gratuities and capability to offer cash back

“Worldpay leapt into action for us.”

Heather Gilchrist, Owner, Aroma Coffee & Kitchen

Note: Not all products, solutions or capabilities mentioned in our client stories are available in all geographic regions. Please consult your relationship manager or customer care (existing customers) or sales (prospects) for more information.