In 1999, SOHO Coffee Co. was a fledgling company based in Cheltenham with big ambitions – which it has gone on to fulfil with the help of business tools and support of a firm of experts from Stonehouse.
The brainchild of Superdry founder, Julian Dunkerton, SOHO Coffee Co. was bought out by Penny Manuel and business partner Chris Copner, who then took the company on a journey of considerable growth.
At the end of 2021, the business had 40-plus stores across the UK, Spain, Portugal and Qatar and was on track to returning to its pre-pandemic turnover of £10 million – and SOHO Coffee Co. has now paid huge credit to Nimble Elearning for helping it develop its winning culture.
Kelly Foxall, SOHO Coffee Co. operations training manager, came across Nimble Elearning’s stand at the World of Learning trade event in 2018 and realised immediately she had found the tools that would allow her team to create the ‘bespoke training without any fuss’ it wanted.
Foxall said: ‘We realised the system fitted our brand guidelines, plus the same has been true for the Nimble courses we’ve bought ‘off-the-shelf’. We could brand them easily too.
‘It was the way that Nimble delivered something that looks uniform and ‘slick’, without a great deal of experience, that made them stand out from the rest.’
She added: ‘The team at Nimble are fabulous, always available for discussion, advice and feedback. Course reviews are invaluable and incredibly helpful. Knowing that the Nimble team are on hand gives me great confidence if I run into any issues.’
Foxall said using the online programmes had improved ‘the reach of the learning and development department and the learning culture of the business’.
SOHO Coffee Co. now also uses Nimble’s tools to train its aspiring managers, too.
