PROBLEM STATEMENT
Starbucks has discovered that they are not always meeting their customers’ expectations in the area of customer satisfaction. Starbucks has to come up with an action plan to address this issue, considering its significant correlation and impact to sales and profitability.
SITUATION ANALYSIS
Company
Starbucks is acclaimed for its superior value proposition in the early 1990’s by creating an experience around the consumption of coffee, a ‘third place’. The brand is positioned to offer the highest quality coffee, close customer intimacy, and warm atmosphere or ambience.
Customers
However, data from the market research team has shown that there is a shift on Starbucks’ brand recognition in customers’ perception, as indicated by the increase in the number of respondents who strongly agreed with the following statements (data 2000 and 2001 respectively):
‘Starbucks cares primarily about making money’ --> up from 53% to 61%
‘Starbucks cares primarily about building more stores’ --> up from 48% to 55%
Exhibit 1, ‘The Top Five Attributes Consumers Associate with Starbucks Brand’, has further convinced the fact that being welcomed - only 39% respondents strongly agree - is the last attribute among the five.
While this market research data might partially be true, there is another justification confirming its validity. Although there are significant changes and expansions in customer base and demographic profiles, customers tend to use the stores the same way from 1990’s to 2000’s. Unfortunately, newer customers tend to have lower appreciation towards Starbucks’ brand (Exhibit 2).
These findings are quite daunting even though revenues from these years remain positive and increasing. Sooner or ...
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... for this training. It is also necessary to make sure it is not overdone and get to the point of being annoying instead of friendly and helpful.
Implement a reward system for employees based on customer satisfaction. It can be tied directly to bonus or an award like ‘Best Employee of the Month’.
Present an incentive programs through Starbucks’ SVC (stored-value card) such as free 1 cup after 10 purchases. The free cup can be limited in price, size, or even the products themselves. The SVC is proven to be successful in terms of reducing transaction times and doubling the number of visits to Starbucks. With the additional deal, it is no doubt that more customers will use this card.
As far as the contradiction data provided by company’s Customer Snapshot, it is compulsory to revisit the frequency, methods, attributes measured, and acceptance standard of this practice.
To achieve the quest of improving the customer experience, they are providing the customers with extraordinary service, a friendly environment, and high-quality products. The customer’s experience with Starbucks has defined their visits with the saying, “one cup at a time, every day” to indulge their visits. This statement led the company to adopt their mission statement of, “To inspire and nurture the human spirit - one person, one cup and one neighborhood at a time” (Starbucks Corporation,
Koehn, N., Besharov, M., & Miller, K. (2008). Starbucks Coffee Company in the 21st century. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Publishing. Retrieved from http://custom.hbsp.com/b02/en/implicit/viewFileNavBeanImplicit.jhtml?_requestid=36673
In order to bring Starbucks back to the glory which it was when it initially started, the company needs to halt expansion, increase marketing efforts, and work towards a better “Starbucks experience”. During the years before 2008, Starbucks was rapidly expanding at a rate which no one expected. Due to this, the company was hit hard during the 2008 recession. One of the best ways which Starbucks can help its image is by working to get back to the original “Starbucks experience”.
Starbucks Coffee (2014) mission statement is “Our mission: to inspire and nurture the human spirit-one person, one cup and one neighborhood at a time.” Starbucks values go beyond serving a cup of coffee to customers. Starbucks values go to the lengths of providing the highest quality of coffee; improving the lives of people who walk through the door; treating employees as partners; making sure shareholders receive incentives; providing a place for customer to escape the stress of life and enjoy a day with family and friends, and to be the most recognized and largest coffee retailers worldwide. According to Starbucks Coffee (2014), “Starbucks is fully accountable to get each of these elements right so that Starbucks-and everyone it touches-can endure and thrive.”
In 2002, unexpected findings of a market research showed problems regarding customer satisfaction and brand meaning for Starbucks customers. The situation was unacceptable for a company whose overall objective is to build the most recognized and respected brand in the world. Starbucks was supposed to represent a new and different place where any man would relax and enjoy quality time, alone or with others. But the market research showed that in the mind of the consumers, Starbucks brand is viewed as corporative, trying to expand endlessly and looking to make lots of money. This huge gap between customers' perception and Starbucks' values and goals called for immediate action.
Visit Starbucks.com and you enter a virtual world of delight. Consumers can “sample” over 30 blends of coffee; find Starbucks coffeehouse locations, or learn about Starbucks Hear Music®, where customers can “burn personalized CDs, use listening stations to explore musical recommendations, enjoy a handcrafted Starbucks® beverage, or surf the web at (a) T-Mobile Wi-Fi enabled coffee bar” (Starbucks, 2008). Starbucks uses their website to communicate with their consumers about their company’s mission, social responsibility, business ethnic and compliance, diversity relations and press releases. Consumers can even read about the latest “rumor responses” that Starbucks wants to clarify about misinformation regarding the company. From the “click” of a button you can shop for Starbucks merchandise or check the balance on your Starbucks Card, the Starbucks website has got their customers needs in mind.
Starbucks Coffee, Tea, and Spice opened its first store in April 1971 in the Pike Place Market in Seattle, by owners who had a passion for dark-roasted coffee that was popular in Europe, but hard to find in the U.S. (Harrison et al., 2005; Venkatraman & Nelson, 2008). The company’s mission was to provide Seattle with the best access to dark-roasted coffee, and sought to educated customers about the product. As a matter of customer education and acceptance of the product, Starbucks grew and expanded into the successful domestic market it is today. Much of this success can be attributed to a focus on the total customer experience and s...
The retail environment is filled with competition creating a need for each individual establishment to offer its customers more than just a product. The producers of the product have to provide an experience in addition to the product, an experience that creates loyal customers and encourages repeat visits. Stores, such as Starbucks, have capitalized on this idea and have expanded from 1 store in 1971 to over 11,784 locations as of July 2, 2006 (Starbucks Coffee, 2006). The coffee sold at Starbucks is perceived as a premium coffee and the price charged for this product is much greater than the price charged at other locations. The question is what warrants this price difference, and why are consumers willing to pay more for Starbucks coffee
Starbucks is currently the industry leader in specialty coffee. They purchased more high quality coffee beans than anyone else in the world and keep in good standings with the producers to ensure they get the best beans. Getting the best beans is only the first part, Starbucks also has a “closed loop system” that protects the beans from oxygen immediately after roasting to the time of packaging. They did this through their invention of a one-way valve which let the natural gasses escape but keeping oxygen out. This gave them the unique ability to ensure freshness and extended the shelf life to 26 weeks. Starbucks isn’t only about the coffee, it’s also about a place where people can escape to enjoy music, reflect, read, or just chat. It is a total coffee experience. The retail outlet has been responsible for much of Starbucks growth and has contributed substantially to their brand equity.
“Starbucks was named after Starbuck, first mate of the whaleship Pequod in Herman Melville’s Moby Dick…Starbuck was pluralized for ease of use” (Burks, 2009, p. 1). Now President, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer, Howard Schultz formed Starbucks Corporation in 1987 after purchasing the name Starbucks, six stores and a roasting plant from previous owners, Jerry Baldwin and Gordon Bowker (Burks, 2009). Starbucks operates under a successful value chain management strategy. Their value chain encompasses a systematic approach to the way business is done. Robbins and Coulter (2012) point out, “A good value chain involves a sequence of participants working together as a team, each adding some component of value” (p. 520). Starbucks continually reviews every aspect of their business; from the organizational culture to values and ethics to strategy, planning and operations, management control and finally human resources and performance management, searching for those items that don’t contribute to the “Starbucks experience” which is what makes the Starbucks Corporation a successful business model.
With the coffee markets, continuous growth, Starbucks must position itself as the most preferred coffee company. Starbucks has been looking at several Roasteries, offering different types of coffee experiences such as: pour-over, siphon, clover, specifically roasted Reserve coffees on-site from a scoop bar, and interactive experience with bars and baristas. Targeting the upper-middle income group is essential to Starbucks success while still offering the premium Roastery experience but at a lower cost. Additionally, lunch hours, have been the fastest growing segment for a number of years. Improved food
...nscious as some consumers are. However, Starbucks uses their preferences and adapts to it so as to satisfy their consumers.
Starbucks is a worldwide company, known for is delicious brews of coffee and seasonal varieties of tasty drinks for any occasion. Starbucks opened with two main goals, sharing great coffee with friends and to help make the world a little better. It originated in the historic Pike Place Market of Seattle, Washington in 1971 by Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegl and Gordon Bowker. The creation of Starbucks’ name came from the seafaring tradition of early coffee traders and the romance evoked from Moby Dick. At the time, this individual shop specialized in the towering quality of coffee over competitors and other brewing services enabling its growth to becoming the largest coffee chain in Washington with numerous locations. In the early 1980s, the current CEO Schultz saw an opportunity for growth in the niche market. After a trip to Italy he brought back the idea of a café style environment of leisure and social meetings to the United States we now see in Starbucks locations today. Schultz ultimately left Starbucks to open his own coffee shop, Il Giornale which turned out to be a tremendous success. Fast forward a year later, Schultz got wind that Starbucks was going to sell all their components of Starbucks including their stores and factories, he immediately acquired the funds to buy Starbucks and linked both operations. Within five years he was able to open more than 125 stores starting in New England, Boston, Chicago, and gradually entered California. He wanted Starbucks to be a franchise system based on the mission of telling the truth and emphasize the quality,
In addition to being best-known supplier of the finest coffee and promising only the highest quality products, Starbucks emphasizes firm values, provides guidelines to enhance employee self-esteem. This is to ensure continued customer satisfaction. Moreover, diversity has become a priority to providing an inviting environment to all consumers. Starbucks continues to abide by a strict, slow growth policy in which they set out to dominate a market before moving on to expand, thus history has shown this strategy to be successful for Starbucks, making them one the fastest growing companies nationwide.
With clear core values towards providing quality coffee, the best service, and atmosphere, Starbucks has enjoyed great success since it was founded 30 years ago. The company has being doing very well for last 11 years with 5% or more store sales increase, even with the rest economy still reeling from the post-9/11 recession. However recent research, conducted to Starbucks, have showed some concerns regarding company’s problem meeting customers’ expectations.