Assume the Universal: Serve the Unifying Truths of Humans
All things are the same except for the differences, and different except for the similarities.
THOMAS SOWELL
Do you believe that people want similar things from a service experience in two different boroughs of New York City (say, Manhattan and Queens)? Do people in New York and New Delhi want the same things from service experiences? A number of research groups have looked at what customers want when they are being served. These studies segment customers by industry, nationality, age, gender, income, and a myriad of other demographic distinctions. While some differences surface across this breadth of variables, a number of service universals remain, regardless of time and place. This consumer research intersects closely with the work of theorists and researchers concerning overall human similarity.
Michelle Gass, president, Starbucks Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), states, “The balance between the universal and the local is much more an art than it is a science. We have global brand standards, and my expectation is leaders who are making decisions have the Starbucks brand in their blood, so they can provide good judgments. I think you have to create an experience where it’s undeniably Starbucks.” Upon assuming her position as president of EMEA, Michelle toured her region, sitting down with partners and customers to understand their views on the company and its offerings. Michelle reported that she had expected to hear more of a desire for local relevance in Starbucks stores, but instead she had heard quite the opposite. Customers want to connect with the key elements that led to brand growth and love in the United States.
Whether the issue is wide cultural differences among employees, customers, or regions, your “love story” or underlying brand value proposition has to translate and your actions have to connect with those you serve. Starbucks has a fundamental service platform and leadership approach that fuels global connections because the company operates from an understanding of universal needs.
For the sake of our exploration, let me guide you through a discussion of universal human needs with insights into how Starbucks leadership is addressing them. Furthermore, I will examine how you can connect to transcendent human service by focusing on attention, appreciation, and community, as well as comfort and variety.
Jean-Marie Shields, director, Brand Strategy, at Starbucks, notes, “The number one request or desire of every human around the world is to be seen and heard. The magic of the Starbucks brand comes from a willingness to actively see and hear our customers on many levels.” At the individual service level, for example, the “seeing” and “hearing” aspects to which Jean-Marie refers come with an initial greeting that acknowledges a customer’s presence and starts a human connection. Karen Joachim, a customer from Albert Lea, Minnesota, notes, “Quite often when I buy something, I feel invisible. Starbucks is a different story. They actually make a momentary but noticeable connection.” Diala, a customer in the Mall of Emirates in Dubai, puts it this way: “I want to feel acknowledged whenever I am in a human interaction. Much more of the time at Starbucks than at many other businesses, I feel like I am noticed as a person, not viewed as a transaction.”
Clearly, it is a challenge for the leader of any business with high levels of transactions to help employees see the uniqueness of the next customer. Barbara McMaster, district manager, Starbucks Northern Ireland, notes, “As a leader, I am responsible for keeping a spotlight on the next customer. Each customer needs to be recognized in the same manner as our first customer of the day. It’s a lot about empathizing and thinking about how I would want to be treated. It’s more than eye contact; with time, it is a matter of actually coming to know your repeat customers. Who is this is in front of me? What are their needs? What can I do?” Going beyond an initial greeting that connects, Barbara’s comment ratchets up the idea of authentically “knowing” and acknowledging those whom you serve. A greeting may signal that you have seen your customer, but to feel known, those customers have to experience you as having taken the time and interest to connect with their uniqueness.
Michelle Gass reports that upon being appointed president of Starbucks EMEA, she and her leadership team sought to strengthen the Starbucks “knowing” or personal connection in her region. “We went back to our universal principal around human connection. What does every person walking the planet have? They have a name. As such, we started considering whether we should ask each customer for their first name and place their name on their cup. We certainly had lots of debate around the possible risks with doing it.” Those risks included the possibility that cultural differences might produce resistance in parts of the region. Michelle notes, “We concluded that the benefits were worthy of the attempt, since a loyal customer might now be ‘known’ as a tall, skinny mocha, but would feel much better walking in our door and having us really ‘know’ them by saying, ‘Hey, Jane, how’s your day going today?’”
In the United States, asking customers for their names and placing the names on their cups has not consistently been a required standard, and partners had never been required to place their names on their uniforms. However, in March 2012, Starbucks launched its “names on cups and names on partners” campaign in EMEA. In addition to asking for customers’ names, Starbucks baristas began wearing name tags on their aprons. An online video and paid advertisement content introduced the United Kingdom to this concept:
Have you noticed how everything seems a little impersonal nowadays? We’ve all become user names, reference numbers and IP addresses. That’s why at Starbucks we’ve decided to do things differently. From now on, we won’t refer to you as a ‘latte’ or a ‘mocha’, but instead as your folks intended: by your name. Ok, we know it’s only a little thing but hey, why don’t we buy you a coffee … and you can introduce yourself. We’re Starbucks. Nice to meet you.
To see the actual commercial, point your web browser to http://tinyurl.com/lecr7d2 or direct your QR reader here:
As predicted, some people in England were skeptical about the “first name” approach to personalization. For example, Chris Hackley, professor of marketing at Royal Holloway, University of London, told the BBC, “Some people might like being called by their first name, but I think many will be indifferent, and some might feel awkward—like it’s over-familiar, or a bit of an intrusion into privacy…. It’s a bogus personalisation of an economic relationship. Friendship needs to be genuine.”
While I certainly agree that privacy is paramount for customers and employees today, providing a first name that will be written on a cup or that is placed on a barista’s apron is not perceived as a threat by most people. Additionally, customers are free to choose the name they provide or to elect not to offer a name at all. Typically, in cases of resistance, customers will provide playful names or baristas will simply draw something like a smiling face on their cup. While Professor Hackley notes that friendship needs to be genuine, I am of the opinion that Starbucks leaders are seeking a connection that is more personal than a “hey you,” but that is less intimate than friendship.
Dirk Nickolaus, Starbucks district manager in Germany, talks about the speed of acceptance for offering names in Germany: “When we first started asking our customers for their first names, it took some people by surprise, and it was a bit challenging for us. Now I hear our customers say, ‘Wow! I used to walk in and the baristas would recognize me and know my drink, but now they actually address me by name. It feels welcoming.’”
Despite growing acceptance of the practice of putting names on cups, there are real downside risks, not the least of which are misspelled names or other inadvertent errors. While breakdowns can and will occur in the use of a customer’s name, they happen in all aspects of human interaction. The goal of leadership is to create the right environment for human connection to occur and to help staff members manage the inevitable issues that surface. The success of name badges and name seeking in the EMEA region has had additional functional benefits. Michelle Gass notes, “Customers and partners have told me about improved handoff accuracy by having names on cups. It can be quite unsettling if a customer isn’t sure if they are grabbing their cup from several on the bar. The last thing you want to do is leave the store and find you’ve taken the wrong drink. So now your name gives reassurance that you are getting your beverage.”
The positive benefits of names on cups and names on partners in EMEA has prompted leaders in other regions to more systematically engage in a similar process. At the Starbucks 2012 Global Leadership Conference in Houston, Cliff Burrows, president, Americas, noted that he had been inspired by Michelle and her team to make names on cups and names on partners a standard practice in the United States, Canada, and Latin America. Cliff added, “It’s a way we can innovate. It’s a way we can differentiate. And it’s a way we can strengthen that relationship between our partners and our customers.” As a result of this commitment, Starbucks leadership has developed training tools to strengthen connections with customers by helping partners learn and use the customer’s name and personalize the customer’s cup. At the center of this training is an appreciation that baristas have an opportunity to build deeper relationships with the people they serve (particularly regular customers) by learning their names and appropriately calling them by name.
By taking a simple step like asking people for their first names, Starbucks leadership is systematically differentiating the brand. Karen Mishra, marketing professor at Meredith College and coauthor of the book Becoming a Trustworthy Leader, highlights the power of differentiation through relationships. In the course of my research, I happened upon an online Twitter post from Karen in which she shared her surprise at receiving a birthday note on a Starbucks cup. During a follow-up interview, Karen added, “The partners at my Starbucks know me. Tanya is the manager. We lived in Durham years ago, left for a couple of years, and when we came back, Tanya still remembered me and my husband.” Karen notes that she is impressed by Tanya’s memory for customers’ names and how much she knows about her customers. Karen adds, “When training new hires, Tanya will say, ‘Okay, now, Justin, this is so-and-so, and they’re married to so-and-so, and this is their drink.’” Karen asked Tanya about this ability to remember people, and Tanya responded that people should be remembered and that she makes a point of learning the name of one new person every day. It is in the context of that commitment to “knowing” that Karen posted the microblog entry that caught my eye. On Karen’s birthday, her husband let her sleep in and went to Starbucks to get her coffee. When he was asked where Karen was, her husband mentioned that it was her birthday. Karen notes, “Any time one of us isn’t there, the baristas at that store will write our names and a little note like ‘hi’ on our cups, but this time it was a special birthday message signed by my ‘Starbucks family,’ and I just had to share it online.”
Because a group of baristas at a single store, led by a manager like Tanya, cared about seeing, hearing, and knowing their customers, Karen was compelled to share a message about the differentiated care she received at Starbucks. Karen’s status as a marketing professor and an author on brand trust was probably not a consideration for the barista who wrote Karen’s name and birthday wish on her cup, but clearly that simple act of acknowledgment has led to a story through which Starbucks itself has been acknowledged.
Are you paying attention to your customers’ need to be seen and heard? Would you go so far as to say they feel understood and known? In your business, customer knowledge may require more than remembering names and drink preferences. However, by getting to know your customers, you will probably differentiate yourself through transformative customer relationships.
Worldwide, customers want to be appreciated for their business. In fact, one of the most powerful opportunities for building loyalty occurs after the sale. Do your employees say thank you, offer a warm farewell, and invite customers into future opportunities to connect? At a leadership level, are you creating an environment of gratitude and structuring your business to demonstrate appreciation for loyal patronage?
When I wrote my first book about Starbucks in 2006, I had spent the prior two years occasionally talking with the company’s leaders about the absence of a corporate loyalty card program. At the time, the typical response I heard centered on the possibility that such a program might dilute the perceived value of Starbucks products. Like many businesses operating in the robust economy of the late 1990s and early 2000s, Starbucks leadership knew the value of repeat business, but wasn’t rewarding customer loyalty. All that changed for Starbucks in June 2008, when the company made its first significant move toward a rewards program. Aimee Johnson, vice president, Digital Commerce, Loyalty and Content at Starbucks, established the rationale for the program by noting the brand was unveiling “bold consumer-facing elements to further enhance the Starbucks Experience and deepen the relationship with our customers.” By creating an account, loading a Starbucks Card with funds, and paying an annual membership fee of $25, a customer could participate in the Starbucks rewards program and receive, among other benefits, a 10 percent discount on most purchases, a complimentary birthday beverage, and two hours of free wireless internet (at the time, Wi-Fi was a paid service that was available only at some Starbucks stores—more on that in Chapter 8). Ron Lieber reviewed Starbucks initial effort at loyalty rewards in a 2008 New York Times article and noted, “We all want to be recognized for our loyal patronage…. Starbucks is a company that others look to as a model. What it does with this program will influence plenty of businesses that deal in higher-dollar products. And that is why I’m glad to report that Starbucks is indeed considering some sort of elite status. It is also studying ways that card use can speed up your visit and is looking for ways to make the giveaways more generous. Big, ambitious loyalty programs evolve over many years. So it will be fascinating to see what Starbucks adds to the mix.” As Ron predicted, Starbucks has continued to refine its loyalty reward concept to include special status and streamlined ease of use. Starbucks also did away with paid subscription as a point of entry and expanded the perks associated with membership. As a Gold-level member, I routinely receive announcements and member benefits that complement the free food or beverage item that I receive with each twelfth purchase.
What’s noteworthy about the evolving Starbucks reward program, now called My Starbucks Rewards™, is how it addresses not just a need in the United States, but a global desire to be acknowledged as a valued customer. Since launching the program in the United States, Starbucks has progressively rolled out similar reward programs around the world. In 2010, a blogger in Singapore noted, “After many years of not having any sort of rewards/loyalty program … [Starbucks] finally launched a card! … It’s definitely good to be rewarded after being a regular customer for many years.”
In announcing its first-quarter results for 2012, Starbucks leadership reported that the company had gained 413,000 new members of its loyalty program in December 2011, increasing total membership to more than 3.7 million. The reward program in China demonstrated exponential growth, with 250,000 participants enrolled since its inception approximately 10 months earlier. In North America, the purchases made under the My Starbucks Rewards loyalty program represent almost 20 percent of Starbucks Card purchases.
Ying, a customer from Bangkok, Thailand, says it best: “I notice when employees say thank you for my business, and I also notice when managers appreciate their employees and leaders appreciate their customers. I see all those things happening at Starbucks. Nowadays, I particularly feel valued and appreciated for my purchases by the loyalty rewards I receive in return.” In a world in which so much investment is made in marketing and advertising goods and services, the simple act of saying thank you or rewarding customers for their loyalty can go a long way toward securing their repeat business and emotional engagement.
REFLECTION ON CONNECTION
1. What universal needs for service is your business addressing?
2. When it comes to seeing, hearing, and knowing your customers, what are the strengths and opportunities for your business? Are you connecting with each customer verbally and nonverbally upon first contact? Do you go from listening to customers to customer knowledge on which you can act?
3. Do you have an appreciative business culture? Is that appreciation demonstrated in service interactions through the way managers treat frontline workers and the way leaders craft customer rewards and recognition?
John Donne’s classic poem “For Whom the Bell Tolls” begins with an observation of the human condition relevant to most business leaders. In it, Donne says, “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.” In essence, people may enter your business individually, but many of them seek the opportunity to connect with like-minded individuals to experience the benefits of community.
Some business leaders have a heightened awareness of the human craving for community, while others have failed to help connect customers to something larger than themselves. I vividly remember sitting in a Fast Company magazine “Circle of Friends” group in Las Vegas, Nevada, in the late 1990s. In 1997, the founders of the magazine created an opportunity for regular readers to get together to talk about the ideas raised in each issue of the magazine. While that community building at Fast Company was fairly innovative at the time, online groups and discussion boards have since proliferated.
Similarly, Starbucks leadership has demonstrated innovation in building a community that consists of customers and partners; in addition, it has added a key element of social activism. Community service involvement occurs year-round at Starbucks, and the leaders set ambitious goals to motivate partners and customers to contribute 1 million hours per year in support of causes that have a meaningful impact. Starbucks has dedicated a website to helping partners and customers connect (community.starbucks.com), giving listings of upcoming projects and blogs and stories of past activities. In addition, the website confers virtual community service badges as a way of recognizing those who progress from being a new volunteer up through the level of community change maker.
In addition to its year-round efforts, for the past several years, Starbucks has declared April to be the Global Month of Service. In April 2012, nearly 60,000 Starbucks partners and customers, local organizations, and community members provided more than 700,000 individual community service acts that made a difference in more than 34 countries. More than 230,000 hours of service were donated, and 2,100 community service projects were completed in the one-month time frame. The global resonance of a program that builds purposeful community is reflected in the 50 percent increase in projects completed and 45 percent increase in volunteered hours when compared to prior-year levels.
Clearly, the level of participation in the Starbucks Global Month of Service is high and growing, and the projects are producing substantial positive benefits. For example, the 2012 Global Month of Service included projects such as 250 volunteers in Vancouver, British Columbia, building pathways, storage shelves, and cubicles in support of the Strathcona Community Centre to assist inner-city youth programs and 395 volunteers in Shanghai, China, sprucing up the Gumei community in the Minhang District while assisting local residents to reuse waste material and engage in organic gardening.
In addition to mobilizing direct opportunities to serve in the community, Starbucks leaders have engaged customers to determine who should receive a portion of Starbucks grant money. A 2012 program referred to as “Vote.Give.Grow” allowed Starbucks Card holders to register at www.votegivegrow.com. Once they were registered, customers could vote weekly throughout the month of April concerning the recipients of $4 million in grant funding from the Starbucks Foundation. While other forms of direct corporate giving will be discussed in Chapter 11, suffice it to say that Starbucks leaders continue to look for ways to partner with customers to do “good” in the world.
In Asia, for example, customers were able to connect with members of their community through purchases of Muan Jai®, a mix of arabica coffees from Thailand and other Pacific island countries. By purchasing this coffee blend, customers in Thailand and elsewhere helped improve the environment and the socioeconomic conditions of hill-tribe coffee farmers and their families in northern Thailand. A portion of the proceeds of the Muan Jai blend was contributed directly to the farmers. Not so coincidentally, in the Northern Thai language, Muan Jai means “wholehearted happiness.”
One additional example that had reach both within the United States and across international borders was an alliance forged between Starbucks leadership and the HandsOn Network to create the “I’m In!” campaign. After U.S. president Barack Obama was inaugurated for his first term, Starbucks offered free beverages to individuals who pledged five hours of volunteer time through the HandsOn Network. The HandsOn Network is a subsidiary of the Points of Light Foundation, with 250 volunteer action centers in 16 countries worldwide. The response to the “I’m In!” campaign was more than 1.25 million pledged volunteer hours worldwide.
Jeremy Tolmen, a customer in San Diego, California, reports how he connects with Starbucks through its commitment to community. “I was in Starbucks at a launch party for a nonprofit I work with, and I had my non-profit’s shirt on. I started talking to a Starbucks partner named Kate. She asked about our non-profit and if we needed coffee for our event. It turns out Kate was the store manager, and she ended up donating all of the coffee for our event, along with five or six boxes of Tazo tea, and all the additional supplies we needed for our coffee bar. She even put together a Starbucks basket to raffle off; it had a pound of coffee in it and two mugs. I think it’s amazing that a humongous corporation like that can be so generous and connect on such a small community-based level.” Amazing, generous, connection, and community: Jeremy’s words capture the unique and powerful opportunity that leaders have to forge special relationships with customers by community building. All leaders have the opportunity to look at their businesses as offering more than products or services. With good stewardship and a willingness to think beyond the tangible benefits and attributes of their product offerings, leaders can create places of belonging and purposefulness for their customers.
It seems that humans have contrary needs for both predictable comfort and variations from the predictable. In other words, we want our comforts to remain stable and yet to have sufficient variety to avert boredom. In a social context, irrespective of where people live, they want to manage the inconsistencies of life by having what Starbucks offers, namely, a pleasing physical location where they can relax, unwind, and savor their favorite beverage. It is a place of comfort for locals and travelers alike.
Helen Wang, author of The Chinese Dream: The Rise of the World’s Largest Middle Class and What It Means to You, notes that even in countries like China, where the historically preferred beverage has been tea, Starbucks has deployed staff training and inviting physical locations to foster aspiration, comfort, and success: “The chic interior, comfortable lounge chairs, and upbeat music are not only differentiators that set Starbucks apart from the competition, but also have strong appeal to younger generations who fantasize about Western coffee culture as a symbol of modern lifestyle. Starbucks [also] understands the value of its global brand and has taken steps to maintain brand integrity. One of Starbucks best practices is to send their best baristas from established markets to new markets and train new employees. These baristas act as brand ambassadors to help establish the Starbucks culture in new locations and ensure that service at each local store meets their global standards.”
Uniformly executing against brand standards and consistently creating a welcoming physical environment allow people to develop daily habits and rituals that comfort them. One blogger noted, “I suppose I’m a creature of habit…. I just run through Starbucks on my way to work…. I do have to admit, as a single person, it’s nice to start your morning with a friendly face that actually knows you. A few of us have developed a strange little Drive Thru window friendship.”
While many of us lead companies where customer contact is not a repeated daily occurrence, rituals can still be created around seasonal product offerings or even annual events. For Starbucks, these seasonal rituals include such things as the global rollout of Starbucks® “red cups” to coincide with the Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday season in the United States. The worldwide appeal of the red cups is evidenced by a website titled countdowntoredcups.com, which is not affiliated with Starbucks. Even before there is an announcement of the cup’s release date, the website posts wording like “we’re still waiting for official confirmation from Starbucks, but our guess is that it starts November 2nd.” As a result, a countdown clock clicks away based on the website owner’s best guess.
In addition to the countdown to red cups website, the internet is flooded with photos that people share when they hold their first red cup of the season, as well as with tweets and blog posts like, “Today is the day! … we stopped by our favorite neighborhood Starbucks and there… low and behold … the Mother Ship … Red Cup Day. That alone just makes me happy. I don’t know what it is about those happy red cups but for me it marks the beginning of the holiday season and just puts me in the mood for cookie baking, snuggling by the fire and enjoying your family and friends…. I did a happy dance with the baristas, (my husband tried to hide and pretend he doesn’t know me).” When you have people doing happy dances with your team members, you know you have produced a comforting ritual.
The allure of the red cup not only results from its seasonal presence but emerges from the changing design of the cup from year to year. It is the combination of the predictable and the anticipation of change that strengthens interest. Surely you have grown tired of brands that provide predictable products but fail to add new or exciting offerings. Or, by contrast, maybe you have lost your interest in a company when it removed an iconic product to accommodate an endless parade of “just arrived” or “new this year” items. Thanks to a strong core set of offerings, seasonal introductions, and a small set of enticing new products, Starbucks leadership drives customer loyalty, comfort, and enthusiasm. Tracy Olsen, a U.S. citizen teaching in Korea, notes, “I love Starbucks. It’s the only place I can get a chai tea latte in Daegu. It’s the place where I can get a comforting experience of home and enjoy new and interesting products. I can also enjoy some products that are unique to the culture of which I am a part.” While Chapter 7 will look at how Starbucks adds unique elements to product selection, environment, and service delivery, Tracy’s comment reflects the comfort derived from the right mix of predictable and varied offerings.
REFLECTION ON CONNECTION
1. What do your employees and customers value? What causes, events, or educational opportunities might serve to bring together a community of customers or a unity of customers and employees? How might you play a facilitating role in building social connections among like-minded people?
2. What aspects of your products or services create comfort or a sense of stability for your customers? How can you enhance the comfort aspects of your business? What products at the core of your business should remain constant?
3. What brands do you view as striking an effective balance between consistent delivery of legacy items or services with a mix of new product or service offerings? What percentage of stable to new items best suits the needs of your customers?
Let’s assume you have identified ways in which you can serve underlying human needs through your products, services, and community involvement. Furthermore, let’s assume that you have just launched a branch of your business in a new setting (possibly on the other side of your state or even on another continent). How do you know whether your brand will be well received? Moreover, how will you know whether you are creating a sustainable connection?
For Starbucks leaders, initial acceptance in a new market can often be seen in the enthusiasm of people who anticipate a store’s opening or by the lines that occur at its launch. In October of 2012, for example, Starbucks, accompanied by its joint-venture partner Tata Coffee Group, made its long-awaited entrance into India with a flagship store in Mumbai.
Starbucks store in Mumbai, India.
Approximately a week and a half after the opening, Shymantha Asokan wrote the following in an article for the Guardian: “During the past 10 days, sweaty queues of up to 50 people have formed outside an old colonial building in downtown Mumbai, while a security guard operates a one-in-one-out policy. These hopefuls are not trying to get into an edgy new nightclub or shake hands with a visiting politician. They are waiting for up to an hour to go to Starbucks.” No celebrities and no edgy entertainment venue; just the first Starbucks to come to India.
Customer Hazel Hardijzer understands the eagerness with which people anticipate a Starbucks opening in markets around the world. According to Hazel, “Starbucks opened at [Amsterdam’s] Schiphol airport around 2007. I remember that getting our ‘own’ Starbucks was something very special for us. Having traveled quite a bit by that time, I had experienced Starbucks in other countries and could report that I had ‘been there, done that’ and enjoyed the unique treat of the Starbucks coffee experience.” When customers are eager to get “their” own new store or are willing to wait an hour to get through the line at a store opening, you know that your product has appeal. But as the hype and novelty wear off, will you be able to sustain the enthusiasm and keep the cash register ringing?
For Starbucks, international success is validated by the company’s financial sustainability or growth in many regions of the world. Much like the story of Starbucks success in the United States, growth came fairly swiftly during periods of global economic prosperity and positive brand reputation (although there have been exceptions in an occasional market; see Chapter 7). Even during sustained global economic challenges, Starbucks has been experiencing stability throughout North America and Europe, with strong growth noted in Latin America and Asia. For example, in 2012, Starbucks launched its first store in Costa Rica as a joint-venture partnership with Corporación de Franquicias Americanas and also opened a Farmer Support Center in Colombia. Latin American growth plans also include hundreds of new stores in Brazil and more than 300 new openings in Argentina and Mexico by 2015. Pan Kwan Yuk, a reporter and commentator who specializes in emerging markets, suggests, “As in the U.S. before Starbucks came along, there are few places in Latin America where one can just sit with a book or a laptop and while the day away.” From the standpoint of stability in the rest of the Americas, Starbucks achieved the landmark of 25 years in Canada in 2012. Canada is Starbucks oldest and largest international market. In 2013, Starbucks marked 42 years of operation in the United States, with nearly 11,000 stores across all 50 states.
Some of the greatest growth of the brand is occurring throughout Asia, with 500 new stores planned to open in fiscal year 2013. More than half of those openings are in China alone. Also, 2013 marks the opening of Starbucks 1,000th store in Japan, the first international location of the brand outside of North America.
According to a report in MSN Money in August of 2012, Asia was contributing approximately 13 percent of Starbucks profits. At the time, John Culver, president, Starbucks China and Asia Pacific, noted, “With high-store margins and low-store penetration, given the size of the country we are in the very early stages of what we think this market can ultimately reach.” China will probably eclipse Canada as Starbucks largest market outside the United States in 2014.
Overall, at the start of fiscal year 2012, Starbucks anticipated 1,200 new store openings (representing growth of approximately three stores per day), with the bulk of them likely to occur outside of the United States. These numbers suggest that the Starbucks connection is robust and thriving globally, thanks in large measure to the leadership’s ability to position the brand to meet the product and the universal emotional, social, and lifestyle needs of customers from very diverse backgrounds. Even with that strong universal platform, however, Starbucks leaders, like those in every successful broad-sweeping company, have had to find ways to enhance the local relevance of their offerings—which happens to be our exploration in Chapter 7.
Customers want to be seen and heard.
While cultural difference may affect how you demonstrate it, a willingness to seek personal connections with customers will help your business stand out from your competitors.
A goal of the leadership should be to create the right environment for human connection to occur and to help staff members manage the inevitable challenges that emerge during human interactions.
By getting to know your customers, you are likely to differentiate yourself from the many brands that try to sell without listening.
One of the most powerful opportunities for building loyalty occurs after the sale, with your employees saying thank you, offering a warm farewell, and inviting customers into future opportunities to connect.
Leaders must create an environment of gratitude and structure the business to demonstrate appreciation for loyal patronage.
All leaders have the opportunity to look at their businesses as offering more than products or services. Leaders can create places of belonging and purposefulness for their customers.
Demonstrate innovation in building a community that consists of both your customers and your employees; in addition, consider adding an element of social activism.
Human beings want their comforts to remain stable, and yet to have sufficient variety to avert boredom.
While many of us lead companies where customer contact is infrequent, rituals can still be created around seasonal product offerings or even annual events.
