Starbucks: Delivering Customer Service

Case Analysis: Starbucks was founded in 1971 by three coffee enthusiasts, Gerald Baldwin, Gordon Bowker, and Ziev Siegl. During the management of the original owners, Starbucks was specialized in selling premium whole coffee beans. When Howard Schultz joined the company in 1982, he had a different vision for the company. Instead of selling just whole coffee beans, Schultz wanted to open espresso bars and sell the final product, brewed coffee, to the customers. Schultz wanted to make Starbucks coffeehouses the third place for Americans, after their home and work. The key to establish Starbucks as the third place was to provide premium coffee to customers along with exceptional service and an atmosphere where they could relax and enjoy their coffee. Of the three key components, maybe the most important one was the customer service. The key to providing exceptional customer service was through well trained employees, the partners of Starbucks. The company attained high customer satisfaction by providing its partners necessary hard and soft skills along with great benefits in order to attract the right people. It was Schultz’s this vision that helped Starbucks grow from a local premium whole coffee beans seller store to an international brand name with over 5,000 stores around the world.

As of 2002, Starbucks sells premium hand-crafted coffee beverages, food items, whole bean coffees along with equipments and accessories with approximately three quarters of the sales being from coffee beverages. Starbucks was aggressive in product innovation and was determined to introduce a new drink during every holiday season. Through this approach it aimed to keep customers coming in to the stores and reach out to as many variety of customer base as possible. In order to provide exceptional customer service, the company implemented the “customer snapshot” program where they would rate each store on various categories. However, snapshot doesn’t provide a real insight as to what...