The Starbucks Experience

This book is more about people than coffee. As the CEO of Starbucks said, “We are not in the coffee business serving people, but in the people business serving coffee (p.28).”  Take a look at the stories below and you will see.

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Barista Bernadette Harris confesses, “I didn’t like making Frappuccinos®. I wasn’t always happy to leave my line of hot drinks to make a drink that took twice as long! One customer helped me gain a different view of the blended beverages. This woman would come in every evening and order a mocha Frappuccino® blended beverage. She was always in a hurry, and we would barely converse. One evening she came in and mentioned that her husband was in the car. Then she thanked us for always delivering the drink in such a nice way and said that though she personally never drank Starbucks, it was the only thing her husband could stomach after this chemotherapy (p.75-76).

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Michael Cage writes on his “Marketing and Entrepreneurship” blog, at 5 a.m. and he decided that it was time to take a break. His first thought was to reward himself with a predictable favorite, a vanilla latte. He hopped in his car and drove to his local Starbucks, anticipating his treat the whole way.

“As I pulled to the store,” he explains, “I knew something was terribly wrong; the sign was still dark, and the lights were off inside. I stopped the car and went up to the door to look at the hours. It was an hour before they opened, so I turned around to walk back to my car and figured the coffee would have to wait … And then the lock was thrown, the door flew open, and one of my regular barista stepped out and asked me whether I wanted something to drink.” As Michael says, “Starbucks ‘gets it.’”

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And here it is, my favorite story:

“There was a wonderful regular customer,” says Kimberly Kelly, a current Starbucks licensed store operations specialist, “in her seventies, named Irene, who had been a teacher and a principal. She and her husband visited daily – coming to Starbucks was an event for them. The husband always had on a sport jacket, she was dressed very elegantly and they would order the same thing: a tall coffee and an extra cup so they could split it. They’d also order one muffin and two forks and a knife to share that as well. The couple would take their coffee and their muffin, and they would go slowly over to their table and spend maybe an hour or so visiting with each other and enjoying their time together.”

Kimberly said the couple stopped coming into Starbucks, and she worried about them. One day she ran into Irene at a bank, and Irene shared that her husband had died of a sudden heart attack. Kimberly encouraged Irene to join her back at Starbucks after she finisher her banking. Kimberly continued, “Irene came to my store, and when she approached the counter, she stood there and said, “Kimberly, I just don’t know what to order because we always shared items.” I simply said, “You know what, I’m going to share that cup of coffee and that muffin with you today.” We sat down and talked for about 30 minutes. She told me about how she missed her husband and how hard it was for her to move on. A few days later, Irene came back to my store. She was dressed in a beautiful outfit. She said, “I’m ready to do this by myself now.” Irene asked if she could order a smaller cup of coffee. She took the muffin, one fork this time, and the knife. She split the muffin and told me, “I guess I’ll just have to make it last for two days (p.77-78).”

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That is how Starbucks makes its coffee extraordinary. What experience do you have in Starbucks?

Michelli, Joseph A. (2007). The Starbucks Experience. NY: McGraw Hill.