Starbucks: Delivering Customer Service

Starbucks: Delivering Customer Service

Define the Problem:

How can Starbucks maintain their internal goal of rapid store development on both a national and international scale, while refocusing their sights on customer service and satisfaction, which plays a vital role to customer retention and overall success?

Decision Factors:

The service innovation of Starbucks’ Stored-Value Card has proved greatly successful to customer service in its short lifetime. (See Appendix B)

Good pay and benefits keeps Starbuck’s employee turnover rate low

Store locations in nearly every state with over 150 major metropolitan areas served providing high convenience and service to customers nationwide (See Appendix A)

Company has used no set marketing plan (or finances) to promote

An overall customer perception of “corporate monster” Starbucks is emerging with beliefs in such statements as, “Starbucks cares primarily about making money”, and “Starbucks cares about building more stores” on the rise.

Starbucks maintains consistently powerful and steady sales despite heavy competition in all arenas (See Appendix G)

Strategic distribution alliances with Kraft Foods and Pepsi Company have proven successful in terms of distribution of product, and in increased sales

Prior revenue increasing strategy depended on rapidly building more stores to reach all customers segments in nearly all aspects of their daily lives. (See Appendix A)

Relevant Information

Starbucks is in their 11th consecutive year of at least 5% increases in sales (See Appendix G)

Each $6 Million in profit/loss contribution translates into a penny a share

Successful customer service policies such as the “Just say Yes”, and “Customer Snapshot” techniques have proven successful thus far (See Appendix B)

30% of individual store revenue is soon cannibalized by the opening of other Starbucks...