Story Coffee — Restaurant in London

I arranged a business meeting at Story coffee at Clapham Junction for today. Can’t stress enough how terrible the customer service was. As I went up to the counter to order, I was told we couldn’t use our laptops on the tables (??). When I asked why, the server tersely replied “it’s policy.” Thinking it might be to do with scratching the surface of the tables, I asked what the policy was. “It’s policy” was the reply. I said my iPad has a leather cover so shouldn’t scratch the table, and was still told no, and that if we wanted to use a laptop or iPad we had to sit at the benches at the walls (the table surface only is about 10”) - so either facing the blinding autumn sun, or forced into the back of the shop and not able to face my colleague. I even asked if I could sit at the table and use my iPad ON MY LAP, and was told no! The other server then told me “the coffee shop up the road has free WiFi if you wanted to go there...” which was poorly-disguised code for “please leave”. I hadn’t even asked about WiFi. At which point I lost my patience and told him point blank that their customer service was rubbish. We ended up at Birdhouse just up the road who were superb, offer table service and produced a fantastic flat white and lovely Irish breakfast tea. And they let us use our laptops on their tables. In short; awful customer service. If you want to do any kind of work on your laptop or iPad here, stay well clear. They have some kind of ridiculous super-secret table use policy and can’t handle when that policy is challenged.

Edit: since reading other reviews the owner likes to use the excuse of not having much space to force their inflexible policies. Hello, this is London. There are hundreds of equally small or smaller coffee shops who allow laptops/tablets/baby buggies/seating groups before the entire group has arrived, because they appreciate that in the age of social media and instant reviews that customer service...

Nice food, Brutal service, to start with, we tried to sit on a chair (rather than a stool) at the window so be took a chair from the empty table literally right next to the window, we were quickly told that was not allowed. Chairs are for tables and stools for windows even though there were many empty tables. Despite this we ordered food and drinks, the orange juice seemed fresh but was almost hot to the touch, we ordered and paid for food, it arrived but was missing part of the order, we were quickly reminded that they hadn't charged us for it at the start and we will have to pay extra. We were reminded of this twice while still eating, we had to request napkins, which took literally 10 minutes, (the cafe is small you can reach across it in two seconds). We asked for a glass of tap water, and a thimble of water was provided. We had to request enough cutlery for two people and when we asked for a box to take our unfinished food away with us they handed us the empty box and said "here you go, you can do it". I would not have be surprised if they asked us to wash our plates before leaving. ...

I did not expect this!

First of all I have to say this has nothing to do with food and coffee as they are great! I wouldn't have been a loyal customer otherwise. But here is my latest experience visiting:

I went to the old branch this morning to buy my typical Flat white. I have been a customer since two years ago and they know me by face.

I had a simple ask. I was using their old Loyalty app trezello and had some points. For some reason it is not possible to access them. But I knew that it was halfway with the points. So I asked them to add points on their new app Magic stamp. It was a matter of trusting a customer and a human being. But all I was given was a very polite sorry. That was far from my expectation. It may sound dramatic. But simply being polite is not enough. It is all about these little things.

I thing you need to go the extra mile for a customer and have a bit of trust. The maximum cost of this was a free coffee. But now you totally lost me.

Trouble is Businesses typically start to care when they realise they are ...