Instructor-Led Training Program

Monthly product training designed to build sensory evaluation skills. Developed as part of a comprehensive, end-to-end training program for a retail and wholesale coffee operation based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Year
2022

Client
Anodyne Coffee

The Problem

Anodyne’s operations team observed a decrease in seasonal single-origin coffee sales across all 4 retail locations.

CRM showed that customers purchased more of the low-cost, year-round options such as House Blend over the higher ticket, limited release offerings. The surplus of seasonal coffee was aging on the shelves and not selling at the desired rate.

  • A needs analysis revealed that although the Director of Coffee was emailing sales associates detailed information about each new coffee, sales associates were not reading the emails. As a result, they were less confident speaking about newer products than the familiar staples, and therefore not recommending the S.O. coffees to customers.

  • The core challenge was creating a sustainable way to close the product knowledge gap at the register and keep staff informed about the quick seasonal rotation of coffee offerings. The added hurdle was delivering training across four locations with staff whose schedules and availability varied significantly.

  • In order to retain product knowledge, I suspected that learners needed to experience each individual coffee themselves. Since Anodyne offers up to 12 S.O. coffees at a time, I knew that learners would also need a job aid to reference at the register.

    I developed a paid, 45-minute gamified ILT experience to be delivered on a recurring monthly basis during morning and afternoon timeslots to accommodate the varying schedules of learners.

    The workshop was designed to evaluate coffee quality, identify flavor nuances, and compare products side-by-side. Sample coffees were paired with snacks to enhance the learner’s experience of product tasting notes.

    I incorporated real-time evaluation by adding a guessing component to each tasting, in which learners had to identify a product by smell and taste alone. 

    Training was supplemented with:

    • Email communication detailing product information

    • In-cafe job aids (list of current offerings w/ tasting notes and customer talking points)

    • Follow-up knowledge check-ins performed by Coffee Leads (in-cafe trainers)

  • Operations noticed an immediate increase in the way learners could distinguish and speak to key characteristics of single-origin offerings with customers at the register. Within 2 months of implementation, P&L reports showed an increase in S.O. retail coffee sales.

    • Adult Learning Theory

    • ADDIE

    • Curriculum Design

    • Stakeholder Collaboration

    • Graphic Design

    • Adobe Illustrator

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