Starbucks Design and Management of Its Service Encounter - Case Study Example

Tutor Title Subject Name Increased competition in the global arena has forced companies not to rely only on value superiority, but to enter into customer experience through ultimate service design and management innovation (Lovelock et al., 2009). The reason for following these paths not only ensures immediate customer bond, but ensure long-term emotional bonds by creating experiences that the customers would remember. This memories and emotional bonds between suppliers and consumers ensure customer loyalty and future sales. A good example of the service encounter and sustainable management is visible in the Starbuck case. Starbuck has designed itself in a manner that creates unforgettable service encounter; by ensuring their contact, personnel are skilled in customer handling living customers with a memorable experience. There are drawbacks in the Starbuck service encounter, but they are resolvable. Starbucks Design and Management of its Service Encounter When it comes to the service encounter, Starbucks stands out as one place where customers will always feel the touch of the brand experience, enforced by the employees. Explaining this in a diagram 1 shown below, Shirley et al. (1991) pointed out why Starbucks service encounter design and management left a great impact on its customers. Diagram 1 Starbucks has designed its service encounter in a manner that uses its employees as the basis of its service encounter. To achieve this Starbucks ensures that its employees culturally fit their work location starting from how they facially express in relation to their target market, to the language they use and the demeanor they express towards others. However, as expected not the same for employees whose service range was in their intolerable zone, as expected Starbuck over the years had noted that that resulted in inadequate service to the customers, which led to zero repeat customers. To achieve this Starbuck ensured they had a system that ensured each employee was within their desired service range, a decision that resulted in good service for the company, which in turn resulted in repeat customers. Where employees only fitted within areas of tolerance, their service was adequately resulting in the same result. Where services were, inadequate Starbuck went ahead to check what was the cause sometimes with surprising discoveries. An example is of this is the discovery that though some employees were in their desired working zones sometimes their performance was below par. The situation was mainly because of the failure to connect with the customers’ cultural expectation or poor physiognomy, demeanor or language leading to misunderstanding. Relationship Established Between the Starbucks Contact Personnel and the Customers Starbuck puts a lot of effort in ensuring that the contact personnel establish a good relationship. To do this is created a blue print to work with as depicted by Sarah (2012) in diagram 2 and diagram3 which in detail explains the relationship between the customer front stage and backstage. Diagram 2 Diagram 3 To ensure that Starbuck remained in close contact with the interests of its customers, Starbuck engages in vigorous training for its personnel on customer handling and personal presentation of its products and themselves in accordance with its blueprint. Just to show how serious this is in 2008 following the recession Starbuck closed all its 7100 for three hours. In what New York, Michael (2008) expressed as the campaign orchestrated to revive warm, friendly feel. Resulted to a total of 426,000 man-hours costing 21,300 hours, and total wage of $3 million spent to see Starbuck had its customer service experience branded rightly to fit the satisfaction of its customers (Barbara, 2009). In a study by Gwinner et al., there are three benefits that customers connect to, as explained by Alex and Claire (2008), this are; (1) social benefits that the customer gets i.e. personal acknowledgment by employees, familiarization of the customer to the employees resulting to friendship. (2) Confidence benefits, which ensure what is expected is what is given, while reducing anxiety and trust in the provider. (3) Special treatment like fast service, additional services to those paid for as benefits act as the loyalty activator, which cements a customer to the company. Starbucks employees manage to exhibit these three elements every time they are with a customer a factor that ensures loyalty within the customer ranks. When a customer walks into Starbucks, you will most certainly be welcomed with a smile wrapped up in good friendly attitude. Finally, Starbuck employee training pays off when its workers meet customers’ expectations by ensuring superior experience (Ken, 2012). Service Encounter experience in Starbuck Personally, I visited Starbuck my entry welcomed by a smile as expected and a nice welcome by one of the employees. I patiently waited for my turn, which was done fast and sat in silence watching other customers immersed in conversations while enjoying the tasty coffee. The relaxation inside the coffee shop was so much that you could feel it, carry itself forward like the perfect symphony. What got to me was the amount of time Starbuck Baristas portioned to each of their customers. They walked around briskly measuring each step carefully. They talked less and listened more. Responded quickly in the friendliest way I know. Only one of their workers who I supposed was new was a little shy and confused an order while delivering to the customer next to me. My last take saw me leave with a good feeling that led me to seek the experience of others My search landed me on the experience by Barbara Far fan (2009), which narrated about an interaction she witnessed between a Starbucks barista and a longtime customer. When a customer's turn had come the barista had exclaimed, “where have you been?” the customer's reply was long. All the time the barista expressed politeness and listening, and then when the long explanation ended the barista asked, about her Lattes?” The customer replied, she still did, when the barista walked away; the customer woman turned to her friend and said, she could not believe she recalled that. She expressed she had been away for a very long time; this drew a vivid expression impressed by the barista and on all in those in the line. As a result, an acute example of WOM (word of mouth) at work as depicted by (Han & Ryu, 2012) Bret (2013) despite being a great fan of Starbucks was to experience a dismissive manager at a Starbuck located near Keystone, after pointing out the price menu did not match the charged price, on two occasions. To his surprise the manager responded by giving him free coffee and commenting they were only human. These despite being unavoidable are among the few cases that result in bad customer experience, which hurt loyal customers. As Groth and Grandey (2012) points out the problem could be a difficult customer or service failure both of which are the responsibility of the company in question to ensure they are resolved smoothly where a difficult customer is involved and ironed out through constant training and retraining where the service provider is responsible. Recommendations for Starbuck First, I would recommend a redesigning of the menu, which I thought, did not fully represent the hidden drinks, which created some friction when ordering. The experience became apparent happened to me when I ordered only to realize what I wanted was in the maze, as expected I called on the barrister for a change of the product that as you would expect didn’t go too well despite the smile. Secondly, I recommend the consistency of information between the frontline and the back office to avoid cases like those of Bret Simmons. It equally applies to improving communications between the staff. Thirdly, If Starbucks would increase awareness on its products and the general store environment it would make it easy for the customer who feels lost and ignorant of Starbucks system. Fourthly is the issue of the wrong orders combined with long queues, which steal away the warmth of the Starbucks. Few people love waiting in long queues, simply increasing the service points would be a lasting solution. Lastly, it would help improving the compliments and responsiveness to thank customers; sometimes the baristas feel plastic in a way. Starbuck should have its policing system that would ensure managers did not rub on the workers wrongly or worse the customers by constant monitoring to elevate the baristas mood at time of work. Conclusion When it comes to the customer vs. the service provider, the customer is always right. However, it is the responsibility of the service provider, for example, Starbucks to ensure the customer have good encounter by ensuring its personnel are skilled enough in customer handling. It creates a win, win situation between the customer and the contact personnel who enforce the blueprint of the service provider. As elaborated Starbuck stands out as one of the best, service providers to showcase personal encounters with the customer. References Barbara Farfan (2009) Starbucks’ service cannot stop store closings, but customers still love the brand [Online] available from http://retailindustry.about.com/od/2009usretailanalysis/a/starbuckscustomerservice.html [accessed on 9/8/2014] Bret L. Simmons (2013) Bad Service From Starbucks [Online] available from http://www.bretlsimmons.com/2013-03/bad-service-from-starbucks/ [accessed on 9/8/2014] Groth, M & Grande, 2012, ‘From bad to worse – negative exchange spirals in employee-customer service interactions,' Organisational Psychology Review, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 208–233.. [Online] available from   http://opr.sagepub.com/content/early/2012/06/06/2041386612441735 [accessed on 9/8/2014] Han, H & Ryu, K 2012, ‘Key factors driving customer’s word of mouth intentions in full-service restaurants,' Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, vol. 53, no. 2, pp. 96–109. [Online] available from http://cqx.sagepub.com/content/53/2/96 [accessed on 9/8/2014] Ken west, 2012, Customer Experience Spotlight on Starbucks National Business Research Institute. [Online] available from http://www.nbrii.com/blog/the-customer-experience-starbucks/ [accessed on 9/8/2014] Lovelock, C, Wirtz, J, & Chew P, 2009, Essentials of Services Marketing, Prentice Hall, Jurong, Singapore.. [Online] available from http://www.researchgate.net/publication/254084309_Key_Factors_Driving_Customers_Word-ofMouth_Intentions_in_FullService_Restaurants_The_Moderating_Role_of_Switching_Costs  [accessed on 9/8/2014] MICHAEL M. GRYNBAUM Published February 27, 2008. [Online] available from http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/27/business/27sbux.html[accessed on 9/8/2014] Shirley A. Hopkins, Willie E. Hopkins, K. & Douglas Hoffman,1991 [Online] available http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=1509545 [accessed on 9/8/2014] Sarah Gamier 2012 Starbucks Services Marketing Presentation [Online] available http://prezi.com/n9trneqyzktr/starbucks/ [accessed on 9/8/2014] Read More