Birmingham, United Kingdom – March 14, 2011– Caffè Nero, the largest independent coffee retailer in the UK, has demonstrated its commitment to listening to their customers by partnering with Empathica to create a customer experience management (CEM) programme. Empathica are the UK’s leading CEM agency within the hospitality and retail sectors, and the programme will enable the coffee house chain to gain feedback from thousands of its customers every month across more than 400 of its locations.
Justina Virdee, Head of Customer Relations at Caffè Nero, said, “We have always focused on providing great customer service using mystery shoppers to gain feedback on our execution. However, we felt that this wasn’t getting to the heart of the issues that we needed to address. We believe that this programme will give the business the opportunity to take our in store experience to the next level, improving our customers’ experience even further.”
Ceri Aiken, Head of Communications added, “We chose to work with Empathica as they best demonstrate how we can listen and learn from our customers. We will now be able to understand what drives customer loyalty and advocacy, and take appropriate actions.”
Steve Raher, Business Development Director at Empathica, said, “Caffè Nero’s decision to choose Empathica for a 3-year programme demonstrates the trust we have earned as leaders in the Customer Experience Management field in the UK. Caffè Nero’s philosophy is that coffee, atmosphere, food and service are the key elements to their business, and achieving excellence in all four areas is required in order to reach their objectives. Basing product and service decisions on insights obtained from real customer feedback is a powerful way to engage their staff and drive customer advocacy.”
In line with its reputation as a leading provider of Customer Experience Management Programmes to retailers, Empathica will proudly sponsor the prestigious Retail Week Conference in London on 16-17 March 2011. At the event, Empathica will offer insights on how to improve the customer experience by identifying and delivering on the key customer loyalty drivers that maximise sales growth and brand advocacy, across each and every location, each and every day.
About Caffè Nero:
Caffè Nero Group Ltd is a family owned company founded in 1997 and is currently the largest independent coffee retailer in the UK, with over 470 stores in the UK. It also expanded into Turkey in 2007 and the Middle East in 2008.
The company’s aim is to provide a European style coffee house experience offering premium espresso-based gourmet coffee, authentic Italian food products and a relaxing ‘neighbourhood feel’ atmosphere in every store.
Over the years the business is proud to have won many accolades for the quality of its coffee and the overall Caffè Nero experience, including being rated as “The best espresso this side of Milan” (Tatler), labelled “The traditional Italian Cafè” (Egon Ronay) and ranked the best UK Coffee House brand for nine of the last ten years by UK consumers (Allegra Report, the UK’s definitive guide for the coffee industry).