Introduction
I like Starbuck’s menu, and particularly hot White Chocolate Mocha, skim milk with no whip cream. For the purpose of this assignment, I decided to sit in one of Starbuck’s stores located in Virginia and observe its environment. This Starbucks store is located inside the Tysons mall. I have been to this particular store before, but this time it was very surprisingly different in many ways. I did not have anything specific to monitor when I first entered the place. I sat on the Café bar so I can view the three seating sections at the place. There were 5 employees in the store with two standing at the cashier, one taking pre-orders, and two others making the orders. I took a book with me to infer that I am a student, while
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The latter interaction rarely happened. The cashier greets all customer so warmly that you think she is an old friend. The name of drinks at Starbucks are unique, as well as their sizes. I found the order-language used by customers to be very important. A French family, of two parents and a baby, kept telling the cashier that they went two medium mochas. In the Starbucks dictionary, a medium cup size would translate to “Grande”. Another problem is that they have more than one type of Mochas, such as Caramel or Vanilla etc…The third issue is that they should say if they wanted it to be hot or cold. The French family did not know all of this and they seem confused. Jim explained that the situation above happens in nearly all the places, where Starbucks opens for the first time or new customers enter. I found that language used is a good indicator to identify the regulars from the newcomers.
The decorations of Starbucks store are unique and customer-friendly. When a person enters a new restaurant or Café for the first time, they immediately try to identify the proper action and look at how other people behave. Once you walk in at Starbucks, you are guided by the ropes to enter the wait line so you can place an order. An interesting observation was that the first thing most customers take a glimpse at is the ropes. It
After purchasing a drink I settled down to the left of the shop just by the window from this location, I observed several rituals through watching interactions and general behavior. My vantage point of view proved useful in the first trip so it was used for observation in subsequent visits as well. I also obtained information by interviewing an informant. The informant is an employee at the coffee shop: a barista who works mainly in the morning shift. The barista has been an employee at this particular Starbucks for three months. According to the informant, having been on duty during the early morning rush has provided sufficient material, which they have used to observe customer behavior, maybe for business strategy.
Over the past few years, commercial spaces have become areas for multifunction activities. Along with the availability of gourmet coffee, food, ample seating, and free WIFI bookstore cafes have welcomed a clientele that blends leisure, social and work related activities. In this context, a local popular Barnes and Noble bookstore cafe served as the perfect environment to perform a field observation for this assignment and to explore customer behaviors and reasons for patronizing this particular establishment.
This assignment is based on the Starbucks case study; Trouble Brews at Starbucks written by Lauranne Buchanan and Carolyn Simmons (2009). The aim of this paper will be to discuss the the changing consumer experience, competitive landscape and external circumstances affecting marketing opportunities for Starbucks, while determining how Howard Schultz can provide Starbuck’s customers a greater long-term value.
The survey questions mostly consisted of multiple choice questions, two open-ended questions, allowing written responses, and one qualitative response question. These questions were chosen to establish consumers differences and comparative perspective of Starbuck’s competitors, their daily usage of the social media platforms, the coffee shops visited frequently, and their opinions on consumers who frequent Starbucks. The survey contains one matrix/rating scale question ( Appendix I, Question 5) based on how important qualities are when choosing a coffee shop. Lastly, there were two demographic questions. The demographic questions are for a general understanding on consumers behavior based on age group and gender. For an overview of the survey, see appendix I.
Starbucks faces a difficult and controversial management challenge. The company’s most recent market research has revealed unexpected findings implicating that Starbuck is not always meeting customer’s expectations in the area of customer satisfaction. The purpose of this memo is to analyze and provide recommendation on whether or not the company should go forth with a $40 million investment in additional labor in the stores. This $40 million investment is necessary in order to bring service time down to a three-minute interval and ultimately increase customer satisfaction. A marketing strategy and corresponding recommendation will be provided for your approval.
I set out to find a place to begin my observations, not knowing what to fully expect, what I may find. So I decided to look around at what is close to my home that isn’t a place I frequent or have even visited at all. Then it came to me, the Starbucks that is only about a mile away is a perfect place for me to observe subjects that I would consider different from myself, seeing as how I consider such obscene prices for coffee ridiculous. Starbucks is a very popular chain of coffee vendors that describe their product as more about quality than what Americans are used to in typical coffee joints.
Atmosphere: Starbucks’ new design gave people a location to not only go and purchase refreshments but spend time to relax.
In general the coffeehouse industry in the United States was experiencing an increase in coffee consumption per capita due to the “Starbucks effect”. At this time Starbucks was operating approximately 20,000 stores in the United States and was living a fast expansion strategy worldwide.
Starbucks is acclaimed for its superior value proposition in the early 1990’s by creating an experience around the consumption of coffee, a ‘third place’. The brand is positioned to offer the highest quality coffee, close customer intimacy, and warm atmosphere or ambience.
Levendary Café has grown from a small restaurant that offers soup, salad, and sandwiches in Denver to a multibillion quick casual chain that operates 3500 stores around the U.S. The founder of the Levendary Café, Howard Leventhal managed to establish a strong market position for the Levendary Café in the U.S and succeeded in creating a $10 billion
Starbucks first began in 1971 its main goal was to offer a coffee experience that no other coffee shop has done before. As stated in the case study, Starbucks emphasis on customer service included eye contact and greeting each customer within 5 seconds, cleaning tables promptly and remembering the names of regular customers. Starbucks was to reinvent the sense of romance atmosphere sophistication and
Starbuck’s strategy focused on three components; high-quality coffee, intimate service, and ambient atmosphere. Starbucks worked closely with growers in Africa, South and Central America, and Asia-Pacific regions to insure the quality of its product. Starbucks called all employees' "partners" and worked hard to train them with the skills necessary to best serve the customer. The atmosphere at Starbucks was crafted after the European-style espresso bar. The company goal was to create ambience through the Starbucks "experience" and by making the area comfortable, yet upscale.
Starbucks first opened its doors in Seattle’s Pike Place Market with the name being coined from that of Moby Dick’s first mate (Schultz & Yang 1999). It has spread its shops across North America, all over Europe, the Middle East, Latin America as well as the Pacific Rim with an estimated 35 million customer weekly (Michelli, 2008). With tremendous growth from a small time coffee shop, the company has matured to an international icon that today it is one of the world’s leading retailer, roaster and brand specialty coffee (Story, 1971). The company offers whole bean coffees, espresso beverages, and confectionery and bakery items.
According to the researches already done, since Starbucks was built up at the beginning of 1970s, it has been recognized as the customers’ third home, other than their own houses and workplaces. Those bright and clean tables and comfortable chairs, together with the aroma of coffee from brewing the coffee beans, also the convenience that the customers can freely charge their laptops and music players, give the “Starbucks experience” it used to have. However, with the increasing number of the branches, quantities of automatic coffee machines are taking the place of the ones done by hand, also the counters that supply drive-through in order to meet the need of the customers who are driving, began to sell food, drinks, even CD, which forced the “Starbucks experience” to disappear gradually.
The company location is based at Penang, Butterworth Sunway Carnival Mall. The facilities such as free Wi-Fi, comfortable sofas and chairs, dimmed light and quiet relaxing music will help the customers to relax from the daily stresses and will differentiate Starbucks Coffee shop from incumbent competitors. To speed up the customer service, at least two employees will be servicing clients. Meanwhile one employee will be preparing the customer’s order, the other one will be taking care of the sales transaction.