Starbucks Case

MKTG D30 – Marketing I

Starbucks: Delivering Customer Service

Submitted to

Professor Ian Fenwick

Submitted by

Suthiphan Snitwongse

D530092

November 8th, 2010

Executive Summary

Starbucks, an international coffeehouse chain based in Seattle, Washington, is the largest coffeehouse chain in the world, with over 17,800 stores in 49 countries. Starbucks, initially founded in Seattle as a local coffee bean roaster and retailer, has expanded rapidly. In the 1990s, Starbucks was opening a new store every workday, a pace that continued into the 2000s.

Starbucks’ business idea was to create a chain of coffeehouses that would become a ‘third-place’ for everyone, apart from their home and offices. Shultz believed that people needed another place, a place where they could go to relax and enjoy others, or just be by themselves. He envisioned a place that would be separate from home or work, a place that would mean different things to different people.

Starbucks’ brand strategy was to create an ‘experience’ around the consumption of coffee, an experience that people could weave into the fabric of their everyday lives. The success of the branding strategy and of the company has three components; the coffee, the service, and the atmosphere. The primary focus of the company in these three main components was the main driver of success of Starbucks in the early years. None the less, as the company experience exponential growth and expansion, some effort in these three components that made the brand a success were diluted resulting in the declined in customer satisfaction which signaled the brewing of the problems that lies underneath.

Through thorough analyzes of the Starbucks: Delivering Customer Service, Harvard Business School case, together with external research, this paper will try to point out the problems; causes and effects; support the investment plan with logical reasoning and give further recommendation for Starbucks to streamline its...