Why did Coppelia's ice cream prices go up? II
By Elena Milagros Godinez
The director of the emblematic Coppelia ice cream parlor, Amaury Martínez, spoke exclusively to Havana's Portal del Ciudadano about the center's strategies to face the new ice cream prices, in addition to several issues of interest to the population. Know the details.
"The main strategy that the facility has at the moment is to compensate the prices with a good service in the entity".
Amaury Martínez, director of Coppelia ice cream parlor.
What happened after the announcement of the ice cream price hike?
After the price increase of the Coppelia ice cream scoop to 9 pesos, on its first day, this very visited commercial entity, was characterized by not having much affluence of public, although also on Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, is when the greatest amount of visits is generated.
Opinions of the people:
Rachel Pantoja (13 years old).
They are good. But when I went in they were out and it took them about half an hour to bring the ice cream and they had changed the flavors and gave you 1 salad per person.
The people are very nice but they were out of ice cream. What could be improved? More cleanliness, better service to attend me. Better offers, things.
Jorge Sosa (58 years old)
I don't come here much but the options and service could be improved a lot. It is one of the most important options in Vedado because of its central location. It is worth paying all the attention and even betting for a better service even if they raise the prices. The most important thing is to maintain quality.
Osvaldo Armenteros (35 years old)
The Coppelia option is always better because of the prices and the quality of the ice cream. This place has to keep working and working well. The service and variety of flavors could be improved and more attention should be paid to the organization of the queue and the theft of ice cream.
On the other hand, the entrance and exit of customers during the day was normal and up to the time of this interview (5:00 pm) no complaints had been received.
Coppelia's workers and directors are aware that the measure, in a certain way, has caused concern or displeasure among the population of the capital city and for this reason another of the strategies is to hold daily morning meetings with the managers of the areas to appeal to them to raise the quality of the service together with the price increase.
The biggest complaints, according to Coppelia's director, are related to the quality of the ice cream, which on several occasions has ice chips. "Every day we are going to communicate to the factory to let them know the people's criteria regarding the product they make", he said.
On the flavors...
"This first day of the measure, Coppelia has kept offering seven flavors of ice cream very demanded by the population (chocolate, almond, strawberry bonbon, strawberry curly, chocolate curly, among others) and we hope to maintain this variety".
Amaury Martínez commented that Coppelia's workers have a Recreatur site where they can interact, but it would be good to have a site so that customers' opinions can also be collected through the digital environment and offer all the information to them about flavors, services and new offers.
"In each area there is an administrator, who is the person who should be attentive to the service and provide answers to any concerns or complaints. If this is not enough and the customer requests the presence of a manager, he or she can immediately call us and give his or her opinion.
It is important that the customer lets us know the area, the day, the time and the concern with the service clearly so that we can take the necessary measures, because then they comment or share on the networks, it reaches us, but we do not know all the details to be able to act accordingly."
Some facts about Coppelia that you should know:
- The commercial entity Coppelia has 5 work areas totaling 700 customers in one rotation.
- Due to the COVID 19 pandemic, at the moment, the company maintains the distancing policy and is not working at 100% of its capacity. People who do not come together, can not sit at a table and therefore the remaining seats are not occupied.
- Coppelia offers ball no. 10, hemispherical and compact.
- It currently has about 9 to 12 specialties.
- As the food industry recovers with the flour, the ice cream will be offered with the specialties that are accompanied by sweets, which we do not have right now due to the lack of flour".
- The specialties that Coppelia is offering at the moment are only related to ice cream.
- All areas of Coppelia are already enabled for payment in cash or by the electronic platform Transfermóvil through a QR code.
- Reservations will not continue, since this has always been a place with a large number of people with a cyclical and fluid service.
- Regarding the queues, we are working to offer a faster service and maintain the required quality, sometimes people delay in the entity because they are socializing with each other and enjoying the ice cream, for that reason the entrance of other customers is also slow.
- The entity does not justify, if during the stay the service is slow and will always take measures in this regard to any communication about it.
- At the moment Coppelia has 310 employees.