Starbuck Online Analysis

Starbucks Coffee

5 C's: Customer Needs, Company skills, Competition, Collaborators, Context

1. What factors accounted for the extraordinary success of SB in the early 1990s?

* Placed value first via "value proposition:"

a. Coffee

b. Customer

c. Atmosphere

* Profits were secondary to the customer

* Equal emphasis on both Hard and Soft skills

* Everything was tied to the customer, even expansion (to provide a service and the SB experience to the public at-large)

* Customization

* Retention ("partner" benefits)

a. What was so compelling about the SB value proposition?

i. Placed the Customer and service to the customer above everything else

b. What brand image did SB develop during this period?

i. "The people's coffee"

ii. Home base

iii. "Where everybody knows your name"

2. Why have SB's customer satisfaction score declined?

* Looking at customers who are usually more satisfied hence the reason they come back so often.

* Lost site of the initial vision

* Too much emphasis on what they felt needed to happen, which was speed up the process and have faster service. I don't mind waiting when they know my name and show/pretend that they care.

b. Has the company's service declined, or is it simply measuring satisfaction the wrong way?

i. Both, company has become just as the art. Describes them and a wholesale department store for coffee that is a safe bet, but has since lost its intimacy.

ii. The way SB measured satisfaction was not accurate b/c they were asking people who obviously came there for a reason. They should have put a poll out to the general public both users and non users of their product

3. How does SB 2002 differ from SB 1992?

* Has become more mechanical.

* Customization has equated to the need to move faster and keep the wait time down which in turn has hurt the intimacy factor

* More profit based (otherwise speed would not be an issue

* Drive through, (how intimate is that?

4. Describe the ideal SB customer from a profit standpoint.

* Always on the go

* Long days and long nights so needs a constant stimulate

* Maintain