“Did you know that coffee is actually a cherry? The bean is the pit of a coffee cherry fruit.”
That’s just one of the tidbits Hrag Kalebjian, co-owner of Henry’s House of Coffee in San Francisco, likes to share in the newsletters and different automations he sends to customers. “It’s how I build lasting relationships with our e-commerce customers and show them that we’re coffee experts.”
Coffee has always been part of Hrag’s life—you might say it runs through his veins. His family’s tradition of roasting started with his father Henry, who grew up making coffee to serve in his own father’s bakery in Lebanon.
After immigrating to the United States in the 1970s, Henry’s passion for roasting coffee eventually drove him to start his own family business. In 2013, after 10 years working in corporate finance, Hrag joined forces with his father and took Henry’s House of Coffee online. He created an e-commerce store with WooCommerce and knew he needed to find a way to follow up with customers when his online sales started to grow.
“I created automations in Mailchimp, so I wouldn’t have to manually reach out to all my customers about their purchases,” Hrag says. “And I think they help take the place of things my father would have done prior to technology. People used to call the store to place an order and talk to my dad. They’d hear his accent, they’d joke with him. Automations help us tap into that feeling. I send emails like Henry’s and Hrag’s top coffee picks to make it feel like we’re talking right to our customers.”
