Starbucks: One Win. One Loss.
After striving for seven years to become my local SB’s “Customer of the Week,” I finally made it. I thought there would be more fanfare than there was–a sign by the barista (”Bill is our customer of the week”) and a free drink per day. Oh well. Not sure what I expected.
That’s the Starbucks win.
The loss though is a peek inside a company — and how even the greatest ones can make mistakes. (I recognize this is just one transaction that went bad.)
My friend Ron Rosenberg is sponsoring a “Health Care Customer Service” symposium for a large group of healthcare executives–100-200 high level people. He recognizes the customer care situation facing health providers. (Have you been to a doctor lately?)
He brought in a top speaker who wrote a book about the Starbucks Experience. Ron, thought, “Hey, I’ll buy 200 $5 certificate cards from Starbucks and give them out.”
Then, he thought, “Why don’t I call SB’s and tell them what I’m doing and see if they want to have a few of their people there, maybe to hand out the certificates?”
I’m sure Ron was thinking, “Let’s give the participants an experience of great customer service.” Two of the attendees were even considering putting a Starbucks in their medical facility.
But guess what Starbucks said?
No. We will not agree to participate in the Executive Forum. No reason. No explanation. Just–No.
Hmmmmm. As he was telling me the story and getting to the punch line, I thought for sure he was going to say the SB Regional Manager not only agreed to do this, but would also throw something else in the mix–maybe a larger certificate, or maybe a scone, or maybe a free song on iTunes, or something.
Or I thought he was going to tell me the SB Reg’l Mgr was going to come in personally and make an appearance–maybe even to say a few words.
But no. Even Starbucks makes mistakes from time to time. Even when their stock is in the tank. Even when they announce they’re going to slow down new store openings to focus on revenue building at existing stores.
We’re all excused for a slip-up in customer service. But in the new economy, when it’s hard to get in front of decision makers, and when every move you make–good or bad–is one step from the internet (read Seth Godin’s new book, Meatball Sundae for more examples), you had better think about the implication of a minor slip up. I don’t know if Ron will tell the attendees what happened. But he told others–who told others–who told others.
Actually he should tell the attendees about his experience so they can all learn from the incident. If you’re a healthcare provider (or any business for that matter), do you realize that each customer you have is a potential blogger/podcaster/publisher/referrer? And the experience you give your customer can be easily transmitted to others (maybe hundreds–maybe thousands). The internet can be your friend to spread the good word.
It can also be disastrous. I’m sure someone at Starbucks has a Google Alert for anything written about them. And I’ll probably hear from them. And I’ll blog about that conversation too, if it happens.
I’ll write more on great customer experiences in future posts. Have you had any great ones to tell me about? I’ll spread the word….
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February 3rd, 2008 at 12:31 am
My wife and I are Starbucks addicts ourselves.
Our whole family of five gives each other Stabucks cards for birthdays and such.
I fully believe they’re in a death spiral caused by trying to grow too fast, do too many things outside of their core business and have had to hire too many people who do not understand sales, marketing, nor customer service.
There’s a lot of too’s in there, that’s why I had to write a post about The Power of Too’s a few days ago.
February 8th, 2008 at 11:25 am
Unfortunately, this is an all too common story.
I am sure we have all experienced bad customer service at some point and over the past two decades the tail-spin has continued.
It’s not just Starbucks – the kid at the movies, cashiers at Trader Joe’s having conversations with co-workers while ringing me up( a personal pet peeve of mine, either talk to me or just ring it up) and don’t even get me started with customer service at Wal$Mart or Kmart.
“Cheap Stuff = Bad Service”
At Nordstrom, they use my name, they are courteous and polite, and their pricing is at a premium. I can go to Ross and get last years items at a tremendous discount, but the clothes are on the floor, the racks are a mess, and the too few cashiers do not enhance my shopping experience.
To me the most grievous offenders are the cable and satellite TV companies. From thick “Indian” accents, to tedious phone support procedures (…is your computer’s power cord plugged into the wall? Great, so I can help you more, can you tell me if you see anything on your monitor…ACK!) They believe they have us by the “short hairs” and act accordingly.
But I do have ONE good story. And this is a great story, from a great company, who charges more for its services then almost any of its competitors – American Express.
I expect to have at least one positive experience with the companies I give my money to, but on a consistent basis, whomever I talk to at AE, the experience is positive, very positive. They are friendly and courteous and use my name. The person on the line has quick access to my account information and has the power to actually do something.
In conversations with family, everyone tells me that AE is over priced – not for me, the most expensive card I have, I will always keep – the cheaper one’s, I rotate out every 12-13 months.
But to turn the positive into a negative, the good companies are only doing what should be done. Good service is remarkable today, because there is so much bad service and that is sad.
What is the reason for all this terrible customer service? Someone once said, “…you get the government you deserve…” well, we get the customer service we deserve. It isn’t the companies’ fault, it isn’t China’s fault, and it isn’t the “bad” economy, global warming or even Halliburton’s fault.
I blame the Beatles…