Dilupa Pathirana
CEO and Director

Q: The need to provide holistic customer experiences is rapidly gaining importance. What is your take on this? 

A: At Barista, enhancing the holistic customer experience is both our primary objective and the core purpose of our operations. We recognise that a well-rounded customer experience is central to our brand identity.

It is not a onetime task or simple effort but a strategic decision that requires a transformational process across the entire organisation. And for this reason, we have incorporated it into our vision statement: ‘to become the largest and most preferred cafe chain in Sri Lanka.’

Customer satisfaction and loyalty are perfectly correlated. We believe that loyalty is rooted in how customers feel, and how they store, retrieve and reconstruct their memories of every interaction with our brand.

These interactions may be direct – such as when a customer is served coffee inside an outlet by our baristas – or indirect through word of mouth. Therefore, we strive to ensure that all brand encounters are satisfying, vibrant, engaging, energising, memorable and refreshing.

Q: Why should customer excellence always be a priority? And how does your organisation ensure this?  

A: Customer excellence goes beyond generic service – it is more than just providing exceptional service. It’s a strategic and organised approach to delivering a consistent, ‘on-brand’ customer experience that continually magnifies the brand’s value and reinforces its promise.

Today, customers are raising the bar on service expectations and organisations that fail to take customer service seriously will find themselves at a distinct disadvantage. When the service experience does not align with customer expectations, this leads to frustration and trust is undermined, resulting in brand erosion.

Therefore, we aim to unleash the full potential of our brand and make customer service distinctive so that it holds as much value as our brand’s core processes. Great customer service can be a compelling, consistent and sustainable point of differentiation.

It adds value to the target market by emphasising the essence of the brand. Ultimately, it is about making the brand greater than the sum of its individual parts.

Involvement from top-level management is essential for researching customer service expectations and designing service standards in order to meet them. Their commitment is also necessary for conducting customer insight research, creating the operational infrastructure and fostering a culture that uphold these standards.

Additionally, marketing plays a significant role in shaping and communicating accurate customer service levels to prevent gaps between customer expectations and service delivery, ensuring satisfied and loyal customers.

Q: What is your organisation’s approach to customer excellence?

A: At Barista, customer excellence is one of our core values. We have embedded this principle into our organisation’s DNA through continuous learning of consumer insights, systematic and progressive training programmes, open communication and the use of advanced technology to deliver the best possible customer service.

It is a collective responsibility shared across all departments of Barista and includes the involvement of top-level management.

Moreover, their passion, commitment and dedication are necessary to establish the operational infrastructure, control mechanisms and corporate culture that preserve these standards.

One of our core beliefs is that high sales volumes are a byproduct of quality customer service. Therefore, we always encourage and empower our outlet managers and their teams to focus on delivering a branded customer experience that drives customer excellence, rather than simply providing a service to our customers.

Q: And what are your organisation’s future plans?

 A: Barista is now the largest cafe chain in Sri Lanka with 45 locations. We continued to grow even through the COVID-19 pandemic, opening 35 new cafes and four Barista Express outlets during the past two and a half years.

Our growth strategy is centred on the transformational agenda we set and have strictly followed since 2018. Our company operates on six core principles – to claim undisputed coffee authority in Sri Lanka, be the best value generator for coffee, engage and inspire employees, ignite emotional attachment with customers, expand our presence and create innovative platforms for business growth.

We aim to become the undisputed leader in the coffee sector, steadfastly pursuing expansion despite challenging market conditions. Our expansion efforts will continue this financial year as well with 10 new outlets scheduled to open in strategic locations over the next two quarters.

At Barista, we remain confident that the future holds promise, coffee continues to be a staple for consumers, and our brand equity and relevance will continue to grow, making our organisation’s growth potential stronger than ever.

And to meet this challenge, we have assembled a formidable team of people who share a common goal.

Telephone 2552180  |  Email info@barista.lk  |  Website barista.lk