This morning I took a walk into Peterborough city centre to pay some cheques into the bank. It has become a habit for me, when in the city centre, to pop in to Caffe Nero for a coffee, because the service is always so good there, not to mention the excellent coffee!

Now that begs the question, would I just go for the coffee if the service was poor? (probably not, I think), or would I just go for the service if the coffee was second-rate? (perhaps, but unlikely). So, it looks as if I am equally bothered about a quality product and great service. Perhaps if it was just a quality product I wouldn’t be blogging about it though!

As many of you know, I’m writing a book at the moment, and yesterday I was recalling to my memory some events in my life from 35 years ago, when I worked in a pub in Westminster. When I started there it was made very clear to me ‘how we do things around here’. For example, when we filled the shelves with bottles (we used to call it bottling-up) we had to pull forward the old stock and make sure the new stock was put behind, and all the bottles had to be clean with labels facing outwards. Also, every glass in the pub was washed by hand and polished every day, so it was extremely unlikely that a customer would get a dirty glass. This was before the days of dishwashers in bars!

We also had to make sure that all our notes were the same way round in the till, and remember that in those days we had to add up our rounds of drinks in our head and key in the total on the till, then work out the change in our head too!

All of this was made clear to me from the start, and I can’t help thinking that Caffe Nero must have something similar in place in their Peterborough branch, at least, as there is always a consistently great level of service there and everyone knows how to deliver it.

This morning I sat and drank my skinny latte after I had had my rather tatty loyalty card replaced without having been asked. I watched as every customer was greeted as they entered the store and joined the queue – there is nearly always a queue, but people don’t mind waiting a few minutes because they are engaged as soon as they enter the store.

There are some real lessons there for hospitality businesses everywhere, because Caffe Nero in Peterborough are just doing what everyone in leisure, hospitality, retail and public transport should be doing.

Many businesses will have the chance to improve their customer service this year through WorldHost training. I have just received my certificate that qualifies me as a Quality Assured trainer for this workshop.

Has anyone else experienced great service this week?