Starbucks: One Win. One Loss.
Saturday, February 2nd, 2008After 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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