As soon as I logged on my account for iGoogle, the article about Starbucks caught my eyes.
I am always excited to know about some brands having good stories. Starbucks is one of them.
This is the article I read.
Starbucks Plans Return to Its Roots
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/20/business/20sbux.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=business&adxnnlx=1205987045-NAYnpxMsVILhPTuRi0pxYA
Before present ecomomic downturn in America, Starbucks already had several problems. After the success of Starbucks, a lot of coffee special brands start business with their own philosophy and even existing famous food brand like Dunkin Dounet jump into new product line; coffee. As Starbucks was growing, it naturally tried to extent the number of stores. However, in some areas, the competition among the same Starbucks stores locating close each other started to cannibalize. And for the efficiency, the company started adding technology like massive automated espresso machines. As the result, efficiency might be better, but the colour of the own culture of Starbucks seemed to become vague.
Moreover, because of the present economic situation, Starbucks is also suffering from the difficulty. [After Mr. Schultz returned as chief executive 11 weeks ago, he quickly announced 600 layoffs and the closing of 100 of the least profitable Starbucks stores in the United States. He also said Starbucks would stop selling a line of breakfast sandwiches that were served warm, creating an aroma that overwhelmed that of the coffee in stores.](extracted from the article) And he is planning to restore the brand image; high-quility coffee.
Mr. Schultz and other managers also made community site for customers. http://mystarbucksidea.com/
I think the idea of community site is really good. Because Starbucks already has many loyal customers and they are encouraged to share their opinions they have whenever visiting Starbucks. Through the website, Starbucks can see the needs of the customers closesly.
This is the most popular idea in the community site. (There are many suggestions like offering free internet service)
This customer suggested offering free drink with Starbucks Card. So, I checked what were the benefits in using Starbucks Cards.
There are some benefits, but customers also want 'free drinking' benefits.
Just as a break, I would like to talk about my experience of one coffee house. During my stay in Sydney, I used to visit one coffee house 5 or 6 times a week. Before I had never been a loyal customer of any restaurants or cafes, but it was the first time. One of my two friends introduced me this cafe named 'The Coffee Club'. My first impression was that the atmospherewas quite and cozy with big tables and enough space and friendly. It was a perfect place to read a book or meet friends. And coffee? Iced Coffee was especially great. At first, I just visited there alone once or twice a week(because the price was a little bit high for me), and met some loyal customers at the cafe.(Yeah, we became friends after that.) One day, my friend said next time I did not pay for drink when he was there because he had the VIP membership card and when ordering one drink, he could oder another one for free. From the time, I started to visit there more often and be friends with staffs, and introduced my other friends the cafe. Our groupwas getting bigger and bigger.(sometimes we stayed there more than 6 hours) One of my friend said the cafe was almost like his house becausehe visited there in the morning, afternoon and evening a day! I could find myself being a loyal customer there, too. Not like my friend, but I was visiting there almost everyday and spending a lot of money on it. I could not stop dropping by the cafe not because of the coffee, but because of the culture and atmosphere of there.
Starbucks is a good coffree house, but I have never been attrated to stay there. It is important to firm the core value of the company and give benefit through it, but cathing the needs of the core customers also important. One small change by taking the customer's idea might bring a big benefit to the company. /posted by 20500580
