Do You Offer Starbucks-Style Service? (You Should)
October 16th, 2008 by Jeb Foster
Perhaps this story is getting a little old, but it’s one I’m going tell any way because it bears repeating.
While the ubiquitous coffee chain has proven to be as vulnerable as other businesses to the economic downturn, there is still a lot we can learn about the company that started out small yet went on to inspire this Onion headline: New Starbucks Opens In Rest Room Of Existing Starbucks.
Starbucks grew to its behemoth size for a lot reasons, but one reason that stands above the rest is this: they offered things that were typically available only to the wealthy–fancy coffee, good lighting, attentive service–and gave them to everyone. They gave Joe Sixpack the Plummer an espresso shot of luxury (literally and figuratively).
A couple weeks ago, I blogged about the ‘nice premium,’ the extra amount people are willing to pay for excellent service. Turns out, people are willing to pay a lot. The opportunity for you, since offering excellent service costs you next to nothing, is to offer it for free–and to everyone. That’s essentially what Starbucks does: they treat everyone who walks in with an attentiveness that’s usually only reserved for the guy or gal in the corner office.
And that’s one of the reasons people love Starbucks. So I’ll close with a rhetorical question:
Were you as friendly to your last lead as your Starbucks barista was to you this morning?
