The Starbucks Experience

I just finished a book called The Starbucks Experience: 5 Principles for Turning Ordinary into Extraordinary by Joseph A. Michelli. It's a book about coffee; it's a book about leadership and company practices; it's a book that -- as few books have -- made me really think about changing based on what I read. While I realize this post skirts the line of belonging in my food-only blog, I feel it's close enough for me.

I've never been a fan of Starbucks. While I am a dedicated coffee drinker, I've always had a problem with the concept of paying almost $3 for my coffee. This, of course, stems from the fact that I find most of Starbucks' regular coffees to be too strong for me, so I opt for a nice tall latte instead. Maybe half of the problem (to me) is that Starbucks doesn't have a blend that I find to be "drinkable" for me. I wouldn't say that my experiences at Starbucks have been bad, but nor have they been great or even wonderful. I would say that they were normal, run-of-the-mill, I'm-just-another-customer type of experiences. Really, I don't have a problem with that.

I have three cats. And, I have a weird compulsion to never run out of anything. This means that I have several boxes of 20 lb litter sitting in the house next to boxes of freezer bags, a case of soy sauce, and more ketchup than any one household knows what to do with it. Even before I run out of litter, I will buy more at Petsmart while I'm buying food simply because it's on sale. J has only to hear, "Look! The litter is $3 off per box!" and he turns to start loading boxes into the cart. He doesn't even give me a weird look. He only answers with, "How many do you want?" Anyway. Apparently, Petsmart has a relatively-new general policy that their cashiers should try to initiate friendly conversation with their customers. For sure, this is a fine goal, but it gets to be rather annoying sometimes because it's now expected. Of course, when you see a cart coming with several boxes of litter and a 15 lb bag of cat food, the question is always "How many cats do you have?" I've begun to pre-empt them as I walk up saying, "I'm sure it's hard to believe, but I only have three cats." Somehow, when I originally started writing this segue about Petsmart, I had a point. I think it was that forced interaction with your customers sucks. Too bad. Now you know that I have weird mass shopping habits and four bottles of oyster sauce in the closet.

So back to my story about Starbucks. While I've always been content with my less-than-spectacular experiences at Starbucks, after reading this book, which talks all about how Starbucks partners (that's what they call their employees there) go out of their way to be super friendly and create great experiences for all of their customers, I feel almost disappointed that I've never got that feeling from one. Sure, all their people have been nice enough though seem generally distracted. I've actually mostly felt especially that I was not in the "in-crowd with Starbucks" and it always turned me off. Now I feel like I expect more from this company simply because they've put it out there that they want to be legendary.

However, I think what really impresses me is what a global environmentally and socially conscious company Starbucks appears to be. It's true that I don't follow too much about what's going on these days, trying to really just stay aware of the major issues. And sure, I'll look more into it before I really go spouting out about it, but there are some things I read that I did like:

- Starbucks sells only (I think) Fair Trade Certified coffee. Also, if coffee farms meet a list of standards that Starbucks has set (such as improving conditions for the workers and opening their books so Starbucks can see how they are paying their people), the coffee farm will get a contract for their coffee at a premium price.

- Because of this, Starbucks actually pays more for their coffee ($1.26 per average) than other coffee companies.

- For every hour that a Starbucks partner volunteers somewhere, Starbucks will donate $10, with a maximum of $1000 per project. This one thing really means a lot to me. My company talks a lot about how great it is to volunteer (especially with the company-supported charities), but they don't really go beyond that except to send me ten million emails in December to donate to the United Way. J's company (which ironically is owned by mine) takes it a step further, which I like. Not only do they encourage their employees to volunteer, but they also allow them to do it on company time. I should qualify this by saying that they can't just volunteer for anything during company time. There are a few select projects on certain days that fall into this special area. But still. To me, this is a real example that they stand behind their words on volunteering. I donate money to some select charities, and I always stare at the box marked "my company matches donations." My company, to the best of my knowledge, does not match donations. But I so wish that they do! So anyway, I just find that a company who donates money based on the time that their employees volunteer well... I just think that is awesome.

So what is this long ramble about in the end? Well, this book has probably achieved its goal. Not only am I going to look more into Starbucks' practices to see if they really are as socially and environmentally conscious and pro-active as this book says, but if they are, I will not only become a customer, but I will probably also buy their stock!

And just in case you are wondering how I ended up with a book like this in the first place, I borrow a lot of cookbooks from the library, and I like to go to the "popular books" shelves to look at what is popular and usually newly released. Cookbooks fall into the 741 area, and apparently books on leadership and self-help, like this Starbucks book, fall into 658, which is the shelf directly above my cookbooks.