It has been awhile since I wrote about Starbucks and their marketing, advertising, history or anything for that matter.
I don't visit them as often as I used to. Only once, maybe twice a week now. I patronize my local, homegrown coffee shops where I feel more welcome. I can take my laptop into my local shops and catch up on some emails for an hour between meetings, which I can't do at Starbucks without paying extra for wireless.
(Although last week I had a meeting at a Starbucks and was able to access the T-mobile wireless automatically without any fees or sign-ups. Must have been a fluke.)
Yesterday, the woman behind the counter said nothing. No, "Hello", No, "How are you", She said nothing. So I waited for her to speak first. Finally, I told her what I wanted, she silently rang it up and asked for my name which she wrote on the cup. I was the only customer in Starbucks at the time, so why did she need my name?
2 minutes later when my drink was ready, did she call my name? Nope. She called out the drink.
Remember when Starbucks shut down their stores for retraining? It didn't stick.
With gas prices at record levels and consumers adjusting their spending habits, companies like Starbucks will suffer, unless they bring back the service and make it an experience to go to Starbucks, not just a cup of coffee.
For more on the Starbucks story, take a look at this from Customers Rock!
Re-Experiencing Starbucks, Update 7 - Listening to Customers
Posted by Becky Carroll on June 26, 2008
Part 7 of the ongoing ReExperiencing Starbucks project with Jay Ehret from The Marketing Spot. Survey at the end of the post - please tell us what you think about the changes at Starbucks!
Slowly but surely, Starbucks seems to be listening. I blogged about MyStarbucksIdeawhen it first came out, and there were a lot of improvements to make. I believe Starbucks has made a real effort over the past few months that they have been up and running with MyStarbucksIdea. I have seen improvements on both the IdeaSite (new term?) as well as in person. Read on…
IdeaSite Improvements
MyStarbucksIdea was heavily criticized when it first came out. The Customers Rock! perspective on it was this - it is good to see Starbucks out there engaging their customers this way. And boy, have they been engaged! Thousands of customer ideas have gone on the site, with the majority of the ideas being about the coffee drinks themselves (no surprise here) and then the atmosphere and locations. What should these ideas tell Starbucks? First, it should tell them that customers are coming for the coffee, so make sure to get that right. Second, customers are still in search of what they used to have at Starbucks, that “3rd place” to hang out and relax with friends.
Maybe customers don’t come up with a lot of new or innovative ideas, but the dialogue is a great way for Starbucks to get inside their customers’ heads and see how they think.
In addition, I am glad to see Starbucks beginning to participate more in the conversation on the site, as well as soliciting direct feedback on how to improve the site. Be sure to click into that post and read the comments; you can watch a little mini-community forming as you go. 
Interaction with Corporate - In Person!
I also had the good fortune of interacting with two gentlemen from Starbucks Corporate recently. Apparently, part of their role is to go out and visit the Starbucks in their area to see how things are going. They stopped me on my way out of the line to ask me about “my experience”. I was happy to share my thoughts with them - about bathroom cleanliness (spotty), about the atmosphere (I like it), about my favorite drink (Passion Iced Tea, sweetened), about how the service seems on weekdays vs the weekends (better when they are busy, I think). I then revealed that I blog here at Customers Rock! and shared about this ongoing Starbucks Project with them. They asked me a few more questions before moving on to their meeting with the local supervisory team.
After they left, the employees there thanked me for my kind words and gave me a free drink. Thanks, guys!
Although I would have loved to see the visitors from Corporate commenting here on my blog, I am pleased to see a team out inspecting the stores and asking customers about their experience. Kudos to you, Starbucks, for getting out there and interacting face to face with customers. It is more valuable than you think!
Please Fill Out Our Starbucks Survey!
Jay and I have put together a short survey to see what you, our readers, think about Starbucks and its “re-Experience” project. Please take just a minute to click on this survey link and fill it out. You could even win, what else, a gift card to Starbucks! We will be sure to report the results here soon.
Also see Jay Ehret’s blog The Marketing Spotfor more Starbucks insight on “The Perfect Frappuccino”, as well as Meikah Delid who is keeping her related Starbucks series going with The Sixth Step for Starbucks. Thanks, Meikah!
Related Customers Rock! posts in the Re-Experiencing Starbucks project series:
Part 2: Transformation Starting
Sphere: Related Content
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