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Marketing Plan For Starbucks Coffee Company

Decent Essays

Following the September 11th, 2011 attacks on America’s World Trade Centers and Pentagon, the United States economy slowed to a preservation stage and in 2002 Starbucks Coffee Company was burdened with declining sales like many other companies. There were two areas that Starbucks needed to focus on to retain their customer loyalty. First, it was reported that “customers’ expectations in customer satisfaction” were not being met by their 4, 500 stores. Secondly, the condition and store cleanliness had been declining and required corporate wide attention to address the problem. Ms. Christine Day, Starbucks ' senior vice president of administration in North America, was in charge of improving these issues and really satisfying their …show more content…

“When Starbucks has polled its customers to determine what it could do to make them feel more like valued customer, ‘improvements to service- in particular, speed of service- had been mentioned most frequently (Moon & Quelch, 2006, pg 11)”.

The need for cleaner stores is another issues that needed to be addressed. Market research discovered that Starbucks ' customer base was evolving into a younger crowd. They were well-educated and tended to be in a lower income bracket than Starbucks ' more established customers. With this reduced visitation level of the stores and changing customer base, Starbucks had to ensure quick service and provide a clean, well maintained environment to meet customers’ expectations. A well maintained Starbucks store includes overall cleanliness and neat appearance, clean bathrooms and clean countertops. Starbucks needed to address the environment issue as well, which their data indicated that people come for the coffee and an ambience that makes them want to stay. A solution to this was adding more seating areas to encourage lounging and layouts that were designed to provide an upscale yet inviting environment. With a younger customer base, many stores became a social “hangout” which had to be inviting and beneficial for the customer to stay and utilize the environment, products, and drink coffee or tea. From personal experience, this

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