There are so many people working behind the scenes at the Port City Java offices and roastery in Wilmington, not to mention our 27 cafes across the Southeast, that picking just ONE to feature each month is a difficult task. But thanks to the awards ceremony during our 2019 Annual Conference, Kim Crane was clearly someone that deserved a bit more attention from the "Meet Our Team" series! So we conducted a quick interview to learn more about this key employee, who helps all PCJ franchisees, their managers and our office team as well. Introducing, Kim Crane, Office Manager:
I started working with Port City Java on June 4, 2004, as a part-time AP/AR clerk. My job was to take care of all the day-to-day accounting responsibilities of the corporate cafes. I also calculated weekly royalties for our franchisees, along with entering roasting purchases that were sent by all locations, so orders could be processed and shipped.
After about a year with the company my position was made into a full-time salaried position. About two years later they gave me the title of Office Manager.
The role that I have now has changed over the years that I have been with the company. Within each department, I play a different role to help them get their jobs done. I am able to get different departments different statistics and reports they need in completing their job. I guess I am the keeper of an enormous amount of information. If a co-worker comes to me with a question, and I don’t have the answer, I know where to find the answer.
Q4: What do you do that helps support the PCJ franchisees and their cafe managers?
Over the years I have seen policies change, new products tested and new food and drink recipes. Some things worked very well and other choices did not. The one thing that stayed the same for all these years was that we give our guests the best hospitality. This a big reason that our guests come back day after day, and year after year. They feel like they belong. We make them feel like they are a part of our family. This is not only at the café level - this also spread out to our franchise partners and cafe managers too. We work hard behind the scenes so that what they see, on the other side, is our staff making guests feel truly welcome.
Q7: Over the past year or two, what's been the most exciting development you've seen implemented across the 27 Port City Java cafes?
The best development that we have done in the past few years is the new mobile app program. This is a program what we had talked about doing for years, but were not able to make it work correctly with the old point of sale system we had in place. Maybe we set our standards too high, but our thoughts were that, if we are going to do this we are going to do it correctly. I think that the outcome of getting that mobile app in place is great. A rewards program was something that our guest have been asking for us to put in place for a long time. Our guests are extremely happy that we now have the app in place and our franchisees see the benefits in greater brand loyalty.
We genuinely thank Kim Crane for her time and congratulate her recognition as "Employee of the Year", and on the 15th anniversary she'll be celebrating with Port City Java in just a few months!
If you want to profit from the coffee house business systems that Port City Java has established over the past 24 years, click here to learn about new mulit-unit franchise opportunities now available in the Raleigh market!
