The Characteristics of Starbucks Coffee Shop - Essay Example

Starbucks Coffee Shop Inserts His/Her Inserts Grade Inserts (22, 03, 2009) TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Introduction. 2. Short analysis of the characteristics of the chosen service.. a) Intangibility b) Inseparability c) Variability/heterogeneity d) Perishability 3. Service blueprint/flowchart analysis.... a) Starbucks' service blueprint i. Physical evidence ii. Customer actions iii. On stage/visible contact employee actions iv. Backstage/invisible contact employee actions v. Support processes b) Critical analysis of Starbucks' blueprint c) Recommendations to improve the blueprint 4. Appendix 1... 5. Appendix 2... 6. Conclusion... Starbucks Coffee Shop Introduction In this essay I am going to analyze a physical service in my area. The service that I have chosen for the project is Starbucks Coffee Shop. Starbucks is a reputed brand and famous for its coffee. However, other items are also available here, like food items. This essay will first of all analyze the characteristics of Starbucks and then the various activities that take place in the shop from the time that a customer enters the shop till he leaves. After that the criticisms against the service will be discussed and recommendations will be presented as to how the service can be improved. Short analysis of the characteristics of the chosen service Intangibility The Starbucks brand has been known not only for its coffee and food, but mostly for being one of the companies which incorporates customer service as part of its brand proposition. Over the years, Starbucks has positioned itself as the third place, next to home, and office or school. This so-called Starbucks experience embodies the intangible aspect of the store's brand offer. The core products that Starbucks offers are tea, coffee and pastries. However, even though being a coffee shop does not confine the Starbucks brand as a store where such products can be bought. This intangible (Gabbott & Hogg, 1994) that accompanies the products that consumers pay for is comprised of the total experience they get in the form of service from the shop's crews. Inseparability Apart from the physical product such as coffee and food, the service in the Starbucks requires customers to participate in the service. This according to Wolak, Kalafatis and Harris (1998) is the inseparability characteristic of service. Because consumption cannot be separated from the provider which is the Starbucks' staff, what Starbucks offers can only be achieved by the customer by participating in the service, i.e. placing her order, and paying and waiting for her drink. That is, it is required on the customer's part to personally take part in the service, which they do so by queuing in the line and waiting for her turn, placing the order that they desire and then waiting for it, either on the table (for food) or at the counter (for coffee). This is the inseparability of Starbucks. Variability/heterogeneity The third dimension of service according to Gabbott and Hogg (1994) is the heterogeneity of the service. In terms of Starbucks' service, its variability lies in the difference between employees at the service counter who greet the consumers. While the way employees get orders from employees and serve them their drink vary less, the methods as regards employees approach to interacting with the employees varies in terms of the way they greet their customers. This is because in the former action, the idea behind the action is the same; that is, the employee takes the order, processes it and delivers it to the customers. In the latter performance, although the idea is the same, there are reasons for variations that depend on the employees' ability to interact with the customer. Perishability The fourth dimension of service is perishability or its dependence on time as regards its consumption (Wolak, Kalafatis & Harris, 1998). Starbucks' service is perishable in that as the customers become more aware of the inability of supply of service, they can opt to get out of queue and just leave the store when they become dissatisfied. The long waiting lines show the insufficient supply of service in Starbucks which could lead to complaints from customers, if not losing them before they can purchase and consumer the service. This would cast a bad impression of the brand and the shop has to be taking actions to avoid it. Service blueprint/flowchart analysis Starbucks' service blueprint Physical evidence The physical evidences are what the consumers take notice in order to gain cues as regards the quality of service in the store (Bitner, Ostrom & Morgan, 2008). Because of the intangibility of service, in order for consumers to reduce the risk of the service purchase, these evidences serve as important cues from where the consumers can base their decisions to purchase. The physical evidences that provide consumers cues as regards the level of quality of service that Starbucks provides include the company's website, the furnishing within the store, the appearance of the staff such as their uniform, the manner of service delivery as apparent in their behavior, and the quality of the core products that they purchase. These physical evidences are where the consumers look at in order to assess their decisions whether or not to enter the Starbucks store as they create perception as regards the quality of the service. Customer actions Determining the customer actions is the most important part in blueprinting a service as it is through the customer actions that the subsequent service strategies are crafted in order for a brand to reinforce its positioning in the process (Bitner, Ostrom & Morgan, 2008). In order to create a good Starbucks experience, the customer actions should first be determined. The customer actions as regards the fulfillment of service starts when the customer gets inside the store, queues as she waits to place her order, places her order, pays for her order, waits for her drink, either stay on a table and finish her drink and get out of the store, or get out of the store after she gets her drink. When a customer orders food instead of coffee, she undergoes the same processes: queues as she waits for her order, places her order, pays for her order, but she waits for her order to be served by the crew on her table, eats her food then gets out of the store. On stage/visible contact employee actions After the customers' actions have been laid out, the subsequent employee contact actions are determined as equivalent responses to these customers' actions. These employee actions are included in the line of interaction with the consumers where 'the moment of truth' (Bitner, Ostrom & Morgan, 2008) occurs. The visible contact employee actions include greeting and getting the customer's order, processing the customer's payment, and delivering the drink. For food purchases, the visible contact employee actions include greeting the customer and getting her order, processing the customers' payment, telling the customer that food would just be served on her table, and delivering the food to the customers' table. Backstage/invisible contact employee actions Apart from the employee actions that are visible to the consumers, the invisible contact employee actions also contribute to the level of quality of the service the store provides the consumers although they are beyond the line of visibility to consumers (Bitner, Ostrom & Morgan, 2008). The Starbucks experience, apart from the visible contact employee actions, these invisible actions also play a huge role in the process. When consumers order coffee, the invisible contact employee actions include the preparation of coffee or tea, cleaning the store, as well as cleaning the room where the food and drinks are prepared. Support processes Starbucks' support processes include internal actions within the company. These may include backdoor services such as accounting procedures, procurement of store supplies, etc. These support processes are also important such that proper procurement of supplies will ensure both the quality of the materials used in production of the customers' orders, as well as the availability of supply in order to ensure that what the consumers order are available in the store. Critical analysis of Starbucks' blueprint The Starbucks experience has been laid out in blueprint in the previous section. After the customers' actions are determined, the subsequent employee visible and invisible actions that comprise the service are known as well as the support processes that contribute to the quality of service, the blueprint can be critically assessed in order for the experience to be improved and modify the service in order to match the customers' expectations and reinforce the essence of the brand. Starbucks' current service blueprint has a lot of weak spots which warrant suggestions for improvement. The service blueprint of Starbucks has shown a number of weak spots for the company. Because a service is a performance (Gabbott & Hogg, 1994), Starbucks lacks the 'prologue and introductory scenes' in its blueprint. As a consumer gets inside the store and looks for cues regarding the quality of the service in Starbucks, the first thing that she could do is to queue in order to place her service. The interaction between the consumer and the employee occurs only during the customer's turn to place her order. As according to the psychology of waiting lines, queues can have an impact on the consumers' perception of the quality of service of that is offered by the company. The initial interaction between the consumer and the employee in order to neutralize this negative impact of waiting is lacking in the Starbuck's blueprint. The only interaction between the consumer and the employees occurs during the customer's turn to place her order. However, in order to minimize the negative effect of consumers having to queue for a long time, the interaction between the consumers and the employees at the counter is reduced. This interaction between the consumer and the employees at the counter provides tremendous opportunities for the employees to reinforce the brand. But because of this constraint, brand fails to make most of the opportunity to exceed the consumers' expectation by connecting with the consumers well. For coffee purchases, consumers may opt either to stay or leave the store right away. As the consumer leaves the store, the opportunity for the employees to deliver the quality service by connecting to them is gone. Therefore, either some point between the customer's leaving or while they are waiting for their drink, Starbucks can inject activities where employees can interact with the consumers. The dead spot between the customer's waiting for their drink and the customer's leaving is another weak spot in the Starbucks' service blueprint. As for food purchases, there are more opportunities for employees to interact with the consumers and provide better service quality. Different from coffee purchases, consumers usually wait for their food to be served on their table. The longer the consumer stays in the store, the more opportunities employees have in terms of interacting with them and provide better quality service. As consumers wait in their tables, Starbucks can incorporate activities that could enhance consumers' experience inside the store. This is another weak spot that Starbucks need to address. Lastly, like any kind of performance, the customer's exit to the store provides a good point of conclusion of the service. This however, is not utilized by Starbucks. The customer's perception of the quality of service can be determined by this last point of conclusion within the store. The store does not have activities that will enable employees to interact with customers to conclude the service, in order to leave a lasting impression as regards the Starbucks' experience from the point of view of the consumer. Recommendations to improve the blueprint After the Starbucks' blueprint has been assessed, the analysis has shown a lot of weak spots that require recommendations in order to improve Starbucks' service quality. Determining the customers' actions, as one of the steps in laying out the blueprint is indeed a very important process which provides a company the company a clearer picture on the spots that warrant improvement in order to improve the level of quality of the service that the company offers and determine the optimal level of employee performance (Parasuraman, Zeithaml & Berry, 1985). The Starbucks' brand does not only stand for the quality of the products it sells; it is better known for the quality of the service that the brand offers which constitutes the whole Starbucks experience. Consumers willingly pay a premium not only for the products that the store offers, but for the overall experience that they hope to gain in the process which includes the store's ambience, the service of the employees and Starbucks' positioning as the 'third place' next to home, and office or school. From the analysis of the blueprint, the first weak spot that has been identified is the company's lack of activities that serve as 'prologue or introductory scenes' to consumers. As mentioned in the previous section, when consumers enter the store, they immediately fall in line as they wait to place their orders at the counter. The initial point of interaction occurs only during the customer's turn to place her order at the counter. Prior to this point, there is a huge opportunity for the employees to interact with the customer especially as the customer queues. Although there are some instances when employees greet customers as they enter the stores, the greetings are usually the standardized ones which lack warmth, which is the essence of the brand. As Heskett et al suggests, service quality is comprised of service recovery as well as providing service to the customer at the first point of contact (1994). One suggestion to this scenario is for Starbucks to place employees that would serve as ushers as the consumer gets inside the store. This is the best point of contact where Starbucks can reinforce its brand essence and make a good initial impression to the consumer, and can show responsiveness and empathy on the part of the employees (Presbury et al, 2005). The usher can do the usual greeting, but in a more personalized manner which denotes warmth in order for Starbucks to reinforce its positioning. The ushers can accompany the consumer to the queues, ask the consumer about her order and if possible to place the consumers' order in a small written piece of note to be presented to the cashier. The usher can also suggest other items to consumers. The usher actually replicates what the employee at the counter will do while the latter gets the customers' orders. The major difference, however is that the time consumers are queuing, which can have a negative impact on the perception of the service especially when the queue is long, can be turned into an opportunity for interaction where the employee could reinforce the brand positioning. This can also give consumers the perception of being 'serviced promptly' as the employees are responsive to their concerns the moment they enter the store. The next point of interaction between the customer and the employees is at the counter where the customer places her order. As previously mentioned, there is a tendency for consumers who fall in long queues if the time for placing an order at the counter is very long due to the personalized chats and greetings. Due to this, employees at the counter are forced to minimize their interactions to save on time and serve more customers in the process. This leaves a little opportunity to enrich the interaction between the customers and the employees. With the above suggestion that involves the usher, because the customer already has a written note as regards her order, the time the employee at the counter spends with the customer can better be utilized by enriching the interaction by a more customized approach such as small chats and greeting than spending the time to get the order. As the consumer gets an initial impression from the usher, this impression will later be reinforced through the interaction with the employee at the service counter. Another weak spot that is identified in the analysis of the blueprint is Starbucks' lack of activities during the time a consumer waits for the drink. The impression that the usher and the employee at the counter can be reinforced by adding activities when the consumers wait for their drinks. It is not necessary for Starbucks to add additional employees for these sorts of activities. Any activity that will reinforce the brand or make the customer's waiting time more valuable should be included. As the psychology of waiting suggests, even the shortest waiting time can be perceived as longer. So it is important to put an activity that could divert customers' attention from the time they need to wait before they get their drink. Before the customer's exit to the store is one of the most important points as opportunities for Starbucks to enhance the customers' experience. Before customers get to leave the store premises, the conclusion of the performance has to be realized. Only when the initial impression is sustained all the way through to the conclusion, or when the customer leaves the store will the whole experience be remembered by the consumers. Being the last point of interaction, this is usually the part that the customer remembers most, and from which she bases her evaluation of the service. The same usher can accompany give a personalized farewell greeting to the consumer in order to conclude the service. The first impression of the company's responsiveness to the consumers' needs that the usher has instilled during the first contact should be sustained all the way through to the end of the performance of service. As apparent in the recommendations, adding another role in the employees' current work responsibilities is crucial in the enhancement of the service blueprint of Starbucks. The usher's role aims to seal the dead spots of interaction and turn them into opportunities where employees can interact with the customers for them to reinforce Starbucks' positioning as well as increase the quality of service that they provide the consumers (Schostack, 1987). As Starbucks make the interactions between employees and customers meaningful by these additional roles, the company's employees are said to become 'the living brand' (Bendapudi & Bendapudi, 2005). Through the increased interactions, Starbucks now have the ability to communicate its brand promise as well as reinforce its brand essence through its employees. The role of the ushers can be standardized and incorporated in the Starbucks' service blueprint. Apart from this, the ushers will play a huge role in terms of Starbucks' service recovery procedures. With the presence of an employee that is available to respond promptly to the consumers' concerns, consumers will have more opportunities to voice out their concerns immediately, and encouraging feedback from them in order for management to further improve the quality of the service. The employees as ushers are an important factor in gathering feedback in order to improve the Starbucks' service quality (Scott, 2009). Conclusion From the above analysis of the Starbucks Coffee Shop we can conclude that although the service provided by the shop is great, and the brand is a reputed one, there is plenty of room for improvements. To summarize, the customers' visits to the shop should be personalized and the customers should be given all due attention that is possible. At their entry to the shop they should be greeted warmly. While they are waiting in the queue they can be diverted from their boredom of standing by various activities. And then, while placing their order, the employee should interact with the customer apart from simply taking the order and delivering it. This would allow for a better impression of the company's service for the customers and would enhance the brand's reputation. Appendix 1: Starbucks service blueprint for coffee and food Appendix 2: Starbucks IMPROVED service blueprint for coffee and food References Bendapudi, N & Bendapudi, V. May 2005. "Creating the living brand." Harvard Business Review. Bitner, M. J, Ostrom, A. L., & Morgan, F. N. Spring 2008. "Service blueprinting: a practical technique for service innovation." California Management Review. Volume 50 Number 3, From CMR.Berkeley.edu. Gabbott, M. & Hogg, G. 1994. "Consumer behaviour and services: A review." Journal of Marketing Management. Volume 10. Heskett, J. L., Jones, T. O., Loveman, G. W., Sasser, Jr., W. E. & Schlesinger, L. A. March-April 1994. "Putting the service-profit chain to work." Harvard Business Review. 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