Not all Frozen Coffee Drinks are created Equal.

You don't walk into McDonalds and order a Whopper. You don't go through the drive-thru at Sonic and expect Taco Bell. You shouldn't walk into any coffee shop, expecting the same thing you'd get at Starbucks or Seattle's best. No, this isn't another 'Starbucks is ruining specialty coffee' rant. It's about customer expectations and education.

First and foremost, the coffee shop I work at has a frozen coffee drink selection. We call them Frappe's (Frapp-ie's). We have either a chocolate or vanilla powder base, you can get them with coffee (espresso) or without and your choice of flavors, the typical chocolate, caramel and vanilla or whatever other flavor your heart and our syrup selection desires. It's a pretty self-explanatory process, we throw the ingredients together into a blender and voila, 30 seconds later, you have your Frappe. No secret stuff happens to make frozen drinks oh-so-much better than their hot or iced equivalent. Just more sugar perhaps.

Most other coffee places have something similar. And those of us in coffee have come to expect some customers to order a 'Mocha Frappucinno' whenever they want their drink blended. That's where the problem lies. Let me tell you a story.

This morning a lady came through our drive-thru at Road Runner. Initially she ordered a Mocha, then said 'It's the Frappe, right?' I followed up with 'You'd like your drink blended, correct?', after an affirmative response, I rang her up, made her drink, collected the money and sent her on her way. About five minutes later, she walks through the door, drink in hand. The first thought that comes through my mind is 'What did I forget?'. Our conversation went something like this:

Me: Is something wrong with your Frappe?
Customer: It doesn't taste right.
Me: Alright, what seems to be the matter with it?
Customer: It tastes burnt. Burnt like smoke or cigarettes, with no chocolate taste.

Now, I hadn't had any other complaints about our espresso before. But I pulled a shot just to check if it was the coffee, and no, it wasn't. Now, I will admit that our Frappe's have a rather chaulky taste to them. It's the powder base we use and it's not very good at all. I tried her drink that I made and it tasted like our normal Mocha Frappe's. So I explained how we make them and that she was tasting the powder base and I would be happy to make her another blended mocha, sans the powder.

This is where I screwed up. I assumed that she knew that we, as Road Runner Coffee Co., would have slightly different drinks than what she was used to. Back to the story.

Me: (After making her another blended mocha) I hope this is more to your liking. Sorry about the other one.
Customer: (After taking a sip) It's still not right...
Me: What's wrong? What would make it better?
Customer: If it tasted like chocolate.
Me: Well, what sort of drink do you usually get?
Customer: I guess a Mocha Bruegaccino.

At this point, I was at a loss. I apologized again for the drink and she left. Brueggaccino's are Bruegger's frozen coffee drinks. I've never had one, so I have no idea what she was talking about, but I tasted the second drink I made and it tasted chocolatety, maybe a bit more than usual, but it was good and I had my co-worker try it as well and she agreed.

I guess the moral of this story is that you can't please everyone, not all frozen coffee drinks are made equal, and just because you can say a word, doesn't mean you understand what you're ordering.