Email to Caffe Nero over cost of wireless internet

Partly inspired by reading Jeff Jarvis' What Would Google Do?, and though sheer surprise at the amount they are charging, I've written an email off to Caffe Nero, the nationwide chain of coffee stores over their fee for using wireless.

I popped along to their Malvern branch on Church Street yesterday, and upon asking whether they had wireless I was told it would cost me over £4 for 45 minutes wireless. Considering that not even Malvern library has wireless yet, I was a little lost.

So I wrote an email to Caffe Nero, berating them for charging for wireless. I'm usually the type of person to get all 'consumer rights' championing. I'd be unlikely to send something back at a restaurant. But once I got home, I decided to follow this up. Here's the email. I'll be posting any replies I get as well.

To: COMPLAINTS@caffenero.com

"To Caffe Nero,

Firstly, I would like to compliment you on your chain of cafes, which I have used on occasion and have been completely satisfied with. I have no complaints about the drinks, food or quality of service.

I was however, surprised when I went to my local Caffe Nero in Malvern to find that you charge over £4 for 45 minutes of access to your wireless network. I understand from your website that this is done through BT Openzone, and it is necessary to purchase time in order to access the network. I assume that this is a system across your cafes, rather than just in the Malvern one.

Considering the amount you are charging for such a short time, I can only assume that this is meant more as a profit-making device than simply a deterant to those who might use a free, open network while outside the cafe. It would obviously be a lot easier to simply make the network secure and charge a minimal amount (say, 50p) for a day's access, if charge at all.

I cannot see how charging such amounts for wireless is doing your business any favours, although I expect you are in a better position to answer that than I am. In Malvern, there are very few wireless hotspots though one of the main other ones (perhaps the only one in the Great Malvern area) is Malvern Theatres Cafe - somewhere I suspect would be one of your main competitors, and who provide it for free.

In a much busier metropolitan area, if you have the same system in place, I would guess that you would loose customers to other cafes who are providing cheaper, longer or free wireless. I understand why you would charge for it. But the number of customers with PDAs, laptops, etc. is only going to increase, and in an age now where so much technology is highly dependent on staying connected, I would tentatively suggest that this current policy is detrimental to Caffe Nero, I would suggest you reconsider it.

Once again, thank you for your general customer service and quality of food and drink.

Yours sincerely,

Kyle Christie"

I'm not quite laying into them but my indignation only reaches a certain point. I don't think I'm out of line in expecting a coffee shop to provide free wireless, am I?

Reply

I had this reply from Caffe Nero today:

Good afternoon Kyle

Many thanks for your email, we always like to get feedback from our customers and it’s great to hear that you are enjoying the store in Malvern. I’m really sorry though that you are understandably unhappy with the charge for WIFI as provided by BT Openzone. Unfortunately the charges are the standard charges of BT, and to offer free WIFI to our customers across 400 stores would be a huge expense for us. Despite this, it is something that we have noted that some retailers have already begun to do, so we are looking at trialling this in a group of stores in May to look at the benefits for our customers against the costs to our business. We hope this will have positive results, and that it will be something we can offer shortly.

Many thanks for your email, kind regards

Kelley Webber

Customer Services Manager

I'll give them credit for getting back to me so quickly and beginning to trail free wireless. I'd have thought it's something they'd have noticed earlier but at least they are beginning to change their policy.