Product Presentation and Customer Service
Product presentation and customer service covers how the product is displayed, described, sold and handed over - the point where technical work turns into revenue and trust.
Display
Fill the counter fully but not densely; group by category and price; keep the highest-margin items at eye level and within reach. Use clean glass, correct lighting (warm light flatters crust colour but can dry products), and bake in small batches for freshness. Label every item with name, price and allergen information.
Freshness and rotation
Date-code and rotate the display. Remove products at the end of their shelf life rather than discounting them late; stale product in the case costs more in reputation than in margin. Keep chilled and ambient products physically separate.
Service
Staff must answer allergen questions from a written ingredient source - never from memory or assumption. Suggestive selling works when it is specific: point out that the sourdough is from this morning's bake. Handle complaints by listening, acknowledging, replacing or refunding, and recording the cause so production can fix it.
Worked example
A display case holds 60 items and sells about 80% by midday. The morning bake is 75 items; the afternoon bake is 25. If the afternoon bake arrives at 13:00, cap the morning bake near 55 and hold the rest back, so the case is never empty and never full of stale stock at close. Track sell-through per item for a week before fixing those numbers.
Traps
Describing ingredients without checking the written specification; displaying unwrapped allergens beside open product; leaving old stock at the front; and overfilling the case so products crush and stale faster.