Mobile learning for baristas and coffee shop owners from Modulbank’s CafeStore project
Entrepreneurs and baristas have something in common: neither sits at a computer all day. The former are always on the road or in meetings, the latter behind the counter. That’s why mobile learning is the best fit for them, and 98% of students at the CafeStore barista school choose it.
Client
Modulbank is a bank exclusively for entrepreneurs. It provides financial services and also creates useful products and services to help businesses. CafeStore is a Modulbank project and Russia’s first platform for coffee shops. It’s a full-fledged ecosystem that covers as many coffee shop needs as possible, from buying beans to leasing equipment.
Making coffee is a specialized activity that requires particular knowledge and skills. Even in the project’s early stages, it was clear that professional skills training was needed too.
Peresunko
Two years ago, the first flagship training center for baristas, managers and coffee business owners opened in Moscow. Initially, we planned this training only in an offline format, since the skills are mostly practical. And we trained that way for a year.
As the project grew and expanded geographically, we asked ourselves: how do we train people in the regions who also want to take courses but can’t travel to Moscow?
That’s when we realized something had to change. We overhauled our entire education system. Some courses, such as sanitary standards (SanPiN) training, we moved fully online, and others partially.
Challenge
Cafe Store’s training programs needed a digital platform. The project’s specifics set special requirements for it:
- Users are grouped by company. A client (legal entity) must appear on the platform as a separate company, and its users as employees of that company.
- Training oversight within companies. Coffee shop managers must be able to track employees’ success and see their learning progress, and project curators must be able to see reports for each company.
- Training sign-up and automatic list generation. Users must be able to sign up for additional courses, webinars or in-person master classes at the training center.
- Chats and direct messages. The learning platform had to become not just a channel for gaining new knowledge but also a platform for a community of entrepreneurs. Users needed to be able to talk in private chats and send direct messages to curators.
At first, the training organizers assumed the desktop web version would be the main learning platform. But user feedback showed otherwise: participants preferred to learn on their smartphones. Future baristas would set their phone in front of them and repeat the instructor’s actions from video lessons.
That’s how the branded CafeSkills app came about, and today 98% of students use it.
Peresunko
Among the professional courses on our platform today is a basic module for baristas. It covers everything a person needs to know before starting hands-on in-person training: all the theory on working with equipment, proper work behind the bar, basic coffee knowledge, etc.
All of this is in a microlearning format — short modules of videos, texts and tests that are easy to complete on a smartphone. Participants arrive at the training center for the practical course already prepared and can focus on hands-on skills.
Solution
The CafeSkills app helps coffee shop owners train staff in a convenient mobile format. But the app’s capabilities go beyond remote learning.
User and manager dashboards. Employees track their own progress, and managers track their teams’ progress.
Mobile knowledge base. All the important information about equipment (instructions, documents) and signature coffee drink recipes.
Course catalog. The option to choose and sign up for online or blended learning.
Webinar streaming. Users join live-streamed lectures and master classes from leading coffee industry experts on their smartphones.
News. Important information from the Cafe Store team: news, announcements, useful links.
Chats and direct messages. A private community for coffee-loving entrepreneurs.
FAQ — answers to common questions about the project and training programs.
Peresunko
Why does a bank teach its clients to make coffee? So that employees’ skills and qualifications grow, attracting customers with delicious coffee and memorable service. So that every coffee shop gets stronger and the business expands. And the Talent Rocks platform helps us with training.
The platform turned out to be so convenient and the support team so responsive that we decided to move our own internal training for the sales team and business assistants into the app as well. We’re now building an internal knowledge base and individual modular courses, and running webinars.
For Cafe Store clients, we are also filming and producing a new online course, “Coffee Theory,” plus a business course for owners on running a coffee shop.
