Starbucks has a disease. Its disease is the removal of any "art" from its processes. No art? No specialized or skilled artists. No artists? Pretty much anyone can do the job. Which means pretty much anyone will. The same lackluster customer service experience that can be had at most fast food chains can now be had at Starbucks.
I've noticed more and more that on the rare occasions I go to Starbucks, I no longer feel the vibe. I feel like the person taking my order is just doing that. They're not excited about coffee or building a relationship with me, they're just typing in my order and trying to smile. There are always exceptions to this, but fewer and further between it seems.
I ran into this headlong yesterday... my kids love vanilla milk (the little boxes from Horizon) and so we will occasionally drive through one of our local Starbucks to get them vanilla milk, and I usually pick something up for me just to test the waters again.
The greeting lacked enthusiasm in a big way, but OK, whatever. I ordered my drink and two Horizon vanilla milks. The guy takes a second and repeats my order, but says "chocolate" instead of "vanilla". Maybe it's just me, but those words don't sound anything alike. Clearly he wasn't listening. Fine... so I say "vanilla" immediately because since I already said it when I ordered, it should trigger some mental activity in the order taker to understand that he got it wrong.
Long pause. He says, "could you repeat your order?" I ordered three items, all of which they should be intimately familiar with. How hard is that? So I said "nevermind" and drove off (to a different Starbucks which isn't far out of the way... Shrek 2 comes to mind!).
I was fed up. It was a little thing, but it points to a big problem for Starbucks, IMO. Even if top-tier coffee isn't their thing, customer relationship IS their thing. If they blow that with poorly trained, fast-food help, I think they got issues. Big issues.
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