StarbucksEssay Preview: StarbucksReport this essayWritten Case Analysis ÐÐŽV Starbucks: delivering customer service1 – IntroductionThe StarbucksÐЎЦ case presents three main issues:Єh Starbucks believes that it is not meeting its customersÐЎЦ expectation;Єh If Starbucks should believe in what customers are telling to them;Єh Company have lost its initial brand recognition;Based on this issues I will present analysis and recommendations for each one, using exclusively data from the case to support my recommendations.2 ÐÐŽV Insights and analysis from StarbucksLooking at StarbucksÐЎЦ market research, more specifically the customer satisfaction research, it is possible to identify a gap in the relationship between Starbucks and its customers.
2.1 Starbucks¦Market ResearchThe study presented in the report is not for sales, but is for measuring the strength of your Starbucks experience. As your customers continue to pour in, they will find the Starbucks store the best place to drink coffee. If you have any issues, please don’t hesitate to contact us!Our goal was to find out who are the best customers in your brand. Using that data provided in support of the report and all relevant factors, we would use the data to create a ranking within the “Best Starbucks Experience” category. As a result, we could determine if there is a gap between our own experience and the perceived sales of our store. This is the focus of this study.1.3 Relations of Starbucks to Customer SatisfactionIn our previous study from 2011, we found that if a customer has a strong connection that’s shared over a period of time, but this connection is not strong enough to influence the purchasing of their brand-based product, there is a negative effect of Starbucks on their customer’s satisfaction. We found a negative relationship in our data as well, suggesting that, after a negative customer experience, most consumers become dissatisfied with the store. In addition, if the store is not strong enough to inspire strong support for the brand-provided product, the customer base tends to feel bad about their purchase. If we could measure the negative relationship among customers, this would indicate to consumers the negative impact their experience has had on the brand value and perceived sales of their brand, perhaps as a marketing point to boost their brand reputation.[1]3.5 Starbucks ¦Customer Satisfaction ÐÐŽSays Starbucks are the Best Quality ExperienceI want to find the best store that you can be in. If you find that everyone is buying the best-quality product, you will get feedback on your experience. You also might have to have a strong experience with Starbucks to feel the same. You probably want your current store to be the best that you can be at, right? The next step is to understand the brand. Because of our findings, I’ve created our own survey with some data from the survey and some of my own sales. I’m giving a short explanation for how the survey is done, but hopefully you can follow along.1-3. Sixty percent of responses indicated that they were satisfied within three hours: (1) 1. Starbucks has a good idea of how customers feel about their brand and their experience; (4) 1. Starbucks does have a great customer service and feel good about where Starbucks is at; (5) 1. Starbucks is a good place to stay; and (6) If you are not currently a customer of Starbucks, why are you in a Starbucks? If you are, you have already been in Starbucks for close to a year. If you are not, why are you spending
2.1 Starbucks¦Market ResearchThe study presented in the report is not for sales, but is for measuring the strength of your Starbucks experience. As your customers continue to pour in, they will find the Starbucks store the best place to drink coffee. If you have any issues, please don’t hesitate to contact us!Our goal was to find out who are the best customers in your brand. Using that data provided in support of the report and all relevant factors, we would use the data to create a ranking within the “Best Starbucks Experience” category. As a result, we could determine if there is a gap between our own experience and the perceived sales of our store. This is the focus of this study.1.3 Relations of Starbucks to Customer SatisfactionIn our previous study from 2011, we found that if a customer has a strong connection that’s shared over a period of time, but this connection is not strong enough to influence the purchasing of their brand-based product, there is a negative effect of Starbucks on their customer’s satisfaction. We found a negative relationship in our data as well, suggesting that, after a negative customer experience, most consumers become dissatisfied with the store. In addition, if the store is not strong enough to inspire strong support for the brand-provided product, the customer base tends to feel bad about their purchase. If we could measure the negative relationship among customers, this would indicate to consumers the negative impact their experience has had on the brand value and perceived sales of their brand, perhaps as a marketing point to boost their brand reputation.[1]3.5 Starbucks ¦Customer Satisfaction ÐÐŽSays Starbucks are the Best Quality ExperienceI want to find the best store that you can be in. If you find that everyone is buying the best-quality product, you will get feedback on your experience. You also might have to have a strong experience with Starbucks to feel the same. You probably want your current store to be the best that you can be at, right? The next step is to understand the brand. Because of our findings, I’ve created our own survey with some data from the survey and some of my own sales. I’m giving a short explanation for how the survey is done, but hopefully you can follow along.1-3. Sixty percent of responses indicated that they were satisfied within three hours: (1) 1. Starbucks has a good idea of how customers feel about their brand and their experience; (4) 1. Starbucks does have a great customer service and feel good about where Starbucks is at; (5) 1. Starbucks is a good place to stay; and (6) If you are not currently a customer of Starbucks, why are you in a Starbucks? If you are, you have already been in Starbucks for close to a year. If you are not, why are you spending
Nevertheless, it is important to go more deeply in this analysis and interrelate all information from the case. Because, in doing so, we can figure out some inquiries that will lead to recommendations:
1 ÐÐŽV If customer satisfaction is going doing, why in the Exhibit 7, exactly the same items which are pointed out in the Exhibit 10 as key attributes in creating customer satisfaction, have performed well over time? For instance, cleanliness is the first item in Exhibit 10 and, according to Exhibit 7, Starbucks has improved this point over time.
Legendary Service, which is scored positively when a store creates a good enough experience for customers to inspire the customer to return, is according to Exhibit 7 also increasing its percentage of four and five stars, which means, higher quality service for customers.
2 ÐÐŽV How reliable is this research? Are the customers really answering what is important for them and about what differentiate Starbucks? What kinds of customer (new or established ones) answered this research?
Considering these questions, and at same time looking at Table 1 and Table 2 (in this paper), it is possible to see that the unsatisfied customers are those ones that has started visiting Starbucks less than two years ago, the ÐЎЧnew customersÐÐŽÐÐ. These new customers, according to Exhibit 8, have different perceptions compared with established customers and also spend less money (according to Exhibit 9). Due to these different perceptions, the new customers can not perceive the differentiation of Starbucks, for example: atmosphere, friendly staff, premium coffee, and so on.
Table 1: Exhibit 8 adapted from StarbucksÐЎЦ caseTable 2: Exhibit 9 adapted from StarbucksÐЎЦ caseIn Exhibit 10 it can be seen that only 13% for new and innovative beverages are cited as a key contributors to customer satisfaction, but 77% of coffee sales come from beverages.
In order to reinforce these comments, Figure 1 in this report shows also a relationship between customer dissatisfaction and new customers, the fact that established customer (53% of total customers) contribute 85% of Starbucks revenues.
Figure 1: Figure A adapted from StarbucksÐЎЦ caseThe purpose of showing these relations is to see the ÐЎЧbig pictureÐÐŽÐÐ. The StarbucksÐЎЦ issue that has caused the gap between the stores and the customers. First of all, the problem is not about customer service in the stores, nor cleanliness, nor too feel and unfriendly staff, etc.
Rather, is a lack of identification which customers and target customers, leading to the third issue presented in the introduction: the loss of brand recognition upon which Starbucks had built its reputation in its first years.
Starbucks started to differentiate itself from a small and common coffee store, when Mr. Schultz joined the Starbucks team and thereafter traveled to Italy, and brought from there the culture and the European experience of drinking coffee.
StarbucksÐЎЦ brand strategy and recognition is based on its ÐЎЧlive coffeeÐÐŽÐÐ mantra and to keeping the national coffee culture alive, and these factors were represented by three components: (1) coffee itself, (2) high quality customer service and ÐЎЧcustomer intimacyÐÐŽÐÐ; (3) the special atmosphere existent in each store.
With this strategy and philosophy Starbucks experienced its success. However as the company multiplied its stores without a specific marketing brand strategy, it started to disconnect from its initial value proposition, mentioned in the previous paragraph, and, consequently, Starbucks started to attract new