You’re reading CX Stories, a newsletter about customer experience innovation. If you want to join the 6000+ lovely people who receive it every month, just click the button below.
We’ve had our office in Kings Cross for nearly ten years now. Whenever I tell people, I always get the same question:
‘Oh, are you in the new posh bit, with all the fancy restaurants?’
And I always give the same reply
‘Erm… not quite, we’re about halfway between the new bit and … the real bit of King’s Cross’.
If you turn left out of the front door, you get to that new bit, the big brand shops, the new Google building, the restaurants that don’t accept bookings. But if you turn right, you get a very different – but no less good – experience.
A tattoo parlour, a tailors with strong Godfather vibes, a barber shop that claims to be the oldest in London. And – just past Honest Burgers – a whole host of small, independent cafes, including my favourite place to get lunch, and one of my favourite human customer experiences.
Most days, I go in here to get food. And most days, I’m served by the same friendly team (I won’t name them in case they wouldn’t want to be named). You get a smile, a hello, a ‘do you want the usual?’.
Whilst it’s being made, they’ll ask what salad you want with it, affirming your decisions with ‘oh that sounds great’, making suggestions with a ‘how about a bit of that to go with it?’.
Then whilst it’s being finished off, some kind of small talk, maybe the weather, maybe football, maybe about what’s happening in the area, about something they’ve seen on the busy street outside.
On a Tuesday, I have a different usual. And they know it.
‘Jacket potato today, nice large one?’
‘That’s it, you got it’
‘Better make sure you score a hat trick tonight then’
They know that every Tuesday night, I (attempt to) play 7-a-side football. So they know I have a bigger lunch, and they know that once, I promised them that if they gave me the biggest potato, I’d try and score a hat-trick for them.
And if they sense you’re having a bad day, they slip a little Pastel De Nata into the paper sandwich bag. They don’t tell you they’re doing it, there’s no big show. It’s just there for you to discover and give you a little smile when you unwrap your lunch.
They’re not doing this because they’ve got studied how to do journey maps or got themselves a formal customer experience qualification. They’re not – I imagine – sat in a boardroom with whiteboards debating the Peak-End rule or seeing how the can replicate Pret’s famous ‘random act of kindness’ policy.
They’re doing it because they’re being human. They talking to people in a human way. They’re reacting to people in a human way. They’re not forcing the selection process through a screen, adding +30p for every extra ingredient, shouting out order numbers to a host of blank faces, making themselves entirely forgettable and replicable.
But what I love most, though, is the sense of calmness there.
The place next door is also good, and in fact the portions are bigger, and you get served more quickly (many of the team prefer it).
But Coffee Uni-n is a place I look forward to going to, knowing I’ll get a smile, a hello, given a moment of peace away from screens, from the feeling of being rushed through life. It’s got that sense of an old local pub, instant comfort, instant welcome as soon as you come in, something that feels rare, and special, nowadays. It feels human.
Oh, and they also do the most amazing fry ups…
Thanks for reading this article, I really hope you enjoyed it. You can subscribe to my monthly newsletter below, find me in picture form on Instagram @johnjsills, or in work mode at The Foundation and LinkedIn.
johnJsills 