Starbucks: Delivering Customer Service

A few weeks ago I read a case study of Harvard Business School about Starbucks (Starbucks: Delivering Customer Service). It was generally about the expansion of Starbucks and the results. Starbucks has always been one of the companies that really impress me with the importance they give to customer service. So I want to share my views about this study with you.

I think this case study is trying to tell us two things.

First of all, regardless of how big and how good our company is, we should be careful about company expansion because it is a hard thing to maintain the same environment and culture in each branch. It is also stated in the book ‘Discovering the Soul of Service’ as “Maintaining effective internal company communications, reinforcing the company’s vision and culture, and delivering consistently high quality service – essential success factors – are challenged by expansion.”

Second idea is we should never see a customer oriented investment as an expense. In my interview with Zappos, they also told me that they are doing anything to give a good service to the customers without thinking about the expenses. This may be harmful for them in the short-run, but they are never concerned about the short-term outcomes; what they are interested in are the long-term advantages.

After this case study I started to think that expansion or being everywhere are not the main indicators of success. We should first realize a pace in the existing branches and after that we should think about an expansion. Because the important thing is to have the same culture, same environment in each branch and the main aim of the expansion should be reinforcing the company’s vision.

Another thing that attracted my attention is the process between being a barista and then a manager. It is said in the study that 70% of the company’s store managers were ex-baristas and about 60% of the district managers were ex-store managers. I think this is not only good for motivating the baristas, but also it is a good technique to have the managers understand the importance of customer service. Again for this situation, Zappos is an example of this application; all the new employees are working four weeks in the call center and one week in the warehouse to understand the importance of the customer service. 

I noticed that most of the successful companies have a common aim, customer satisfaction. To sum up, a company should never forget the most important thing is the satisfaction of the customers and they should always be careful about the customer satisfaction gap and service gap and they should not let these gaps grow.  Therefore I think that, giving importance to customer service and company culture, and employee satisfaction are significant steps in the way of success of a company.