Starbucks & Customer emotions

Why Love Starbucks????

2 inShare

ShareIt’s the typical hype cycle.

• A new product or service is introduced.
• It grows exponentially to take over an industry.
• Everyone loves it.
• Accordingly, they all can’t stop talking about it.
• It goes viral and the media picks up on it.
• It gets bigger.
• Then people find that it will not solve ALL their problems.
• They begin to talk it down because it’s ‘in’ to talk it down.
• The media picks up on it again, whips around 180° and begins to tear it down.
• Then at some point, it all levels/evens out.

Starbucks is at this point now — they rode the hype roller coaster over the past number of years. But I still love them.
Why?  They fit perfectly into my business model. I run a 21st century business:

1. I have a home office where I coach.
2. I have a professional office in Stamford where I meet clients, hold workshops, and coach.
3. I’m regularly on the road to travel, meet new people, network, and bump into friends and colleagues.

Starbucks is perfect for #3. I have a special place to stop off and hook into my email and network (free wi-fi). Their products are consistent from store to store, so I always get my Venti Zen Green Tea (with only one teabag) for $2.07 (a deal). Their staff is always polite, engaging, and sometimes even fun to interact with. I meet clients in-person to go over their strategy for 2011 instead of dragging them down to my office. And I write my daily blog (as I am doing right now).

What does this mean to you? Well . . . Starbucks is a business entity that I love. In 2011, how can you position your business to make your clients LOVE you? Think about it:

• Do you deliver a consistent customer experience where you make your client feel comfortable? Do you develop a ‘safe space’ where they can grow, relax, expand, and grow their business or career?
• Do you provide a flexibility to allow them to personalize their experience?
• Do you offer various locations (physical and virtual) to allow them to use your products and services?
• Do you try new ideas, new products, new services?
• Do you have a loyalty/membership program to reward and retain your best customers?
• Do you have an upsell area to get your clients to buy more stuff?
• Do you partner with related industries to grow your business?

You might not like Starbucks and that’s fine. That’s not what this post is about (it’s how I love Starbucks). But you can’t argue that they have a compelling model that scared market leaders like McDonald’s and Dunkin Donuts to mimic a lot of their offerings.

WHY HATE STARBUCKS???

Of course, lots of people like Starbucks. You don't build up a worldwide empire of more than 2,200 locations with a business plan that doesn't appeal to anyone. And Starbucks is far from the worst corporate neighbor the world has seen, with an environmental mission statement, progressive labor benefits and a host of cooperative charitable activities.

Still, a lot of people clearly hate Starbucks. Which is particularly interesting, given that coffeehouses in general don't typically inspire that type of extreme emotion. When was the last time you heard someone say they hated Java Man in Hermosa Beach or Sacred Grounds in San Pedro? Probably never. You either love those places, or you just don't go there. Hatred seems reserved for Starbucks and its corporate imitators.

So why do people hate Starbucks so much? The answer is readily available by just walking into one.

The interior of your typical Starbucks is a classic example of co-optation. The company has succeeded by taking elements of the coffeehouse counterculture and marketing it to masses in a more generic form. Instead of original art on the walls, you have graphic ensembles created by a team of artists for every location. Instead of the eclectic musical tastes of the staff, you hear quirky jazz selections which are available on a Starbucks CD if you want to listen at home. And instead of the coffee drinks and unique blends of your typical independent coffee house, you have the Frappuccino®.

Something always seems false in a Starbucks. Most coffeehouses encourage people to stay as long as they want, but most Starbucks near me have 15-minute limits on all parking spaces. Most coffeehouses encourage people to hang out and play board games. Starbucks will sell you a board game. Most coffeehouses have a unique environment.

All Starbucks look the same on the inside, even the one down the street from me in the barely-disguised former Kentucky Fried Chicken building. When you see a person in a Starbucks hunkered down with a notebook at a table -- not an unfamiliar sight in a coffeehouse -- you are tempted to wonder if the novel he writes will be the literary equivalent of the faux environment in which he sits. More likely. he is just doing his Social Studies homework.

Garrison Frost

ENGAGE WITH STARBUCKS!!!!

Though Starbucks has done some effort on building meaning customers relationships and engagements. It seems like customers’ engagement of other coffee brewing companies like Dunkin’ Donuts is doing better than Starbucks. In terms of fan community, Starbucks seems to have a remarkable group of followers, and a comparable reluctance to engage them in storytelling.  The company sends out frequent emails, but these are usually no more than announcements of a new flavor, or of an offer promoting reduced prices.

So people may feel frustrated when they receive email from Starbucks.  Customers who like Starbucks would prefer hearing the stories of the baristas who make the coffee, the buyers who source the product in exotic places, or to see pictures and hear tales from the lives of the people who pick the beans.  As a fan of storytelling and imagery, they want to “feel” and smell the coffee, not just know it is on promotion.

In addition, customers would like to read stories of outstanding customer experiences, of great service, of humorous experiences, of why people go to their favorite Starbucks and what they feel when they are there.  For a company such as Starbucks, getting consumers to share their stories would be a relatively easy task. But for the time being, customers’ engagement in the company is merely in the functional level.
In sending out promotional messages, Starbucks is still putting their product and the promotion of their product at the center of story.

Sources:

[1] Fan engagement at Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts, http://www.johnsadowsky.com/?p=670

[2] How Starbucks Builds Meaningful Customer Engagement via Social Media,

http://www.openforum.com/idea-hub/topics/marketing/article/how-starbucks-builds-meaningful-customer-engagement-via-social-media-1