3.1 The cafe and clients

Economic and management services

Grade 4

The corner café

Module 6

The café and clients

Any good businessman or –woman will do his/her best to keep clients happy by looking after their interests. He/she should take good care of various aspects of the business.

1. Safety measures and hygiene

The owner of a shop does not only take care of the safety of the staff, but also of his customers. He must prevent injuries, e.g. by indicating when floors are wet, to keep customers from slipping. If a worker or a customer is injured on the premises, the necessary first aid must be applied.

Cafés often are targets for armed robberies. How could the owner to some extent attempt to protect his staff and customers against such an event? (Group work)

A clean shop encourages people to buy from it. Floors should be shiny and there should not be any flies. The staff should look neat and stock should be displayed attractively. As little as one negative experience could help a customer to decide that he or she does not want to buy from a particular business.

1. Service counter

This probably is the centre of all the activities of the café. The service counter is also found near the entrance/exit of the café and someone has to be on duty at all times.

Activity 1

To make a list of services rendered in a business [lo 4.2]

See whether you and your partner can draw up a list of services to indicate what happens at the service counter.

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Yes, this is where payment is made. We can also pay electricity accounts and buy Lotto tickets at this point, Smokers can buy their cigarettes here and fruit and vegetables may be weighed here. The safety precautions therefore have to be most securing around this counter.

What do you think the manager does with the large amounts of cash on the premises? Does he have to drive to the bank every hour? (Brainstorming)

1. Advertisements

How many cafés are situated close to your home?

If you refer to module one, you will realise why businesses have to advertise their services and products. That is right – they are in competition with other businesses in the vicinity.

Activity 2

To design an advertisement [lo 4.3]

Do you think the corner café needs to advertise its products?

Discuss this in small groups and report your ideas to the class. Remember to offer good reasons to prove your argument.

Now design an advertisement for the local newspaper to advertise the café that has just been opened in your vicinity.

The needs of the customer

The main objective of the owner of the café is to meet the needs of his customers .

Well, who are his customers? Yes, they are the people who live in the residential areas that border on the café, as well as visitors to the area.

Every family needs a variety of products and services to survive from day to day. Some products, like bread and milk, need to be bought daily, while others do not need to be acquired as regularly. The café provides for daily requirements, which are rated as “ FAST LANE ” products as well as for the less frequently bought or “ SLOW LANE ” products. Some products will therefore remain on the shelves for a longer period than other products.

Activity 3

To find out how the owner categorises the stock [lo 4.2]

Pay a visit to your local café and compile a list of articles from the various categories.

Which list is longer?

(a) Are there any perishable articles in the ‘SLOW LANE’? Give a reason for your answer.

(b) How do prices of products in the ‘SLOW LANE’ compare with the prices of similar products in supermarkets? Can you think of a reason for this?

Assessment

Learning outcome 4: entrepreneurial knowledge and skills

The learner will be able to demonstrate entrepreneurial knowledge, skills and attitudes.

Assessment standard

We know this when the learner:

4.2 explains how entrepreneurs combine labour (work), capital (money, machinery, tools) and natural resources (raw materials) to gain profit;

• differentiates between the entrepreneurial actions of buying, selling and producing.

Memorandum

Page 1

Facilitate a class discussion on safety measures/potentially dangerous situations in a café.

Page 1

During their visit to a café, learners can monitor and list the variety of services offered at the service counter. Electricity coupons, Lotto tickets, cigarettes, gas and many other products are sold. The cash register is also manned here.

Page 2

Make learners aware once more of the element of competition and motivate them to design an advertisement that focuses on the features of the café that they are marketing.

Page 3 and 4

• Discuss the concepts “Fast and Slow Lane” and make sure that the learners understand them well.
• During their visit to the café learners make a list of articles that can be classified as “fast lane” or” slow lane” articles, according to them.

It is important for the teacher to be quite conversant with the content of the module in order to give the learners proper guidelines on the kind of information they should collect during their visit to the