How an efficient payment system helps a thriving coffee business

By Alison Coleman

The way that customers choose to pay has evolved dramatically in recent years, with less reliance on cash, and a huge uptake in the use of cards and digital payments. And that makes a robust payments processing system a top priority for business owners.

At the speciality coffee business Copper + Straw, which operates three cafes in Bray and Dublin, in Ireland, 88% of customer payments are made by card or smartphone, via payment services provider Elavon. 

The chain’s founder, Stephen Kennedy, says: “Our customers include people who live and work locally, as well as tourists from all over the world, all using different types of cards, so it’s vital that we have the right payment provider in place; it is the oxygen of the business.”

Kennedy’s journey into the coffee business has been an unconventional one – high on both risk and reward. “I was previously working in higher education, but coffee became a passion and visiting coffee shops – at home and when travelling abroad – became a very important part of my life outside work,” he says. 

“It felt very experimental in the early days. Baristas were suddenly talking about coffee the way sommeliers talked about wine – taste, aroma, balance, mouthfeel, acidity.”

Ultimately, for many people, great service and exceptional customer experience is all about their most valued commodity: their time. “We have a lot of customers in the morning who literally have just 15 minutes before they have to be in the office, or they come in during their lunch break when they have just half an hour,” says Kennedy.

“Every minute is precious, so the ability to manage queues and complete a large number of orders efficiently is hugely important. People might walk into our shop and see four or five people ahead of them, but they can also see that we’re getting through those orders very quickly at the till.” 

Switching to a different payment provider can feel like a daunting prospect, with concerns about business disruption while adapting to a new system. Kennedy says, however, that switching to Elavon went really smoothly.

“Thanks to their onboarding process, it was one of the slickest, smoothest transitions I’ve had in relation to switching any type of service provider,” he says. “They provided a huge amount of initial and subsequent support as their system was implemented into all three of our shops. There were no glitches and no setup issues. From the second we pressed launch, we were able to hit the ground running.”