Save valuable time and take back control
Notes isn’t just your run-of-the mill coffee shop. From its humble beginnings, the business has been on quite a journey so far!
Fabio – the founder of Notes – uses Ambie to manage the music across his coffee shops come wine bars. So, we popped down to his King’s Cross branch to meet him and find out how our service has made his life easier.
Q: First of all, this cappuccino is delicious. What’s your secret?
Roasted Guatemalan coffee bean. It’s the season for it!
Q: Tell us a bit about the Notes concept and how important good music is to your brand?
Music has always been at the heart and soul of the Notes brand.
Our first space, located in a music shop next to the Royal Opera House, had a real mix of customers. They’d listen to classical, blues and jazz music, whilst drinking our coffee!
Q: Before Ambie, how did you manage your music?
Spotify.
Q: Why wasn’t Spotify working for you?
Whilst Spotify was great for my own personal use, it didn’t give me the control my business desperately needed.
With several new openings, I was faced with a challenge: how to monitor the music and make sure my staff hadn’t taken the music into their own hands.
I quickly learnt that people don’t notice the music when it is good. When it is bad, they let you know! It ruins their whole brand experience.
Q: Have you changed your music depending on the times of day?
In the daytime we run Notes as a coffee shop and in the evening it becomes a relaxed wine bar. So yes, it’s always been important for us to use a range of music styles and try to take advantage of different trading patterns.
Q: How has Ambie solved those problems?
The problem I found with Spotify was that it became a job in itself to create individual playlists for different moods, events, etc.
By using Ambie, I didn’t have to worry about the music anymore and can concentrate on growing my business instead.
Because Ambie now invests the time designing our playlists, I’ve been able to sit down, see how customers react to the music and give on-the-go feedback to their music team.
I noticed that our morning playlist was too slow for commuters picking up their coffee on the way to work. I discussed this with my curator and by the following morning our playlists had been updated and was creating a more energetic atmosphere in our King’s Cross branch.
Ambie has created music consistency for our brand across all our locations and stopped staff being able to affect playlists.
