Starbucks: Delivering Customer Service

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- From Starbucks perspective, do you think Starbucks should encourage more self-service to increase productivity in Singapore? Explain your answers.

Have you ever been to a Starbucks coffee house during peak times in large city such as Shanghai or Singapore? If so, you might have experienced more-than-premium prices, a packed coffee house, long waiting times and customer service which definitely underperforms compared to the usual Starbucks experience. Many supermarket chains for instance have thus introduced more self-service in order to keep up with the challenges mentioned above. Knowing that this is a suitable solution for your local Fair Price or Giant, does self-service also yield opportunities for coffee houses such as Starbucks?

As mentioned earlier, the customer base of Starbucks can be divided into two parts. Historic as well as new customers. Encouraging more self-service would ultimately result in a loss of the “original” Starbucks experience which is highly valued by some part of the company’s customer base. But what does this imply? Self-service in that respect would create a much more impersonal atmosphere but isn’t that name on the coffee mug or the small talk we are having with a partner of Starbucks that little bit of individual touch we are all secretly searching for when going to Starbucks? Self-service moreover also lacks customization possibilities. So what about the Frappuccino with extra cream that I used to like that much. Will customization still be possible? For that reason, self-service should in my opinion only be considered as an appropriate alternative to sell standard product, but there has to be a different solution once the product portfolio comprises more complex/customizable beverages.

So far it pretty much seems as if self-service is not the right way for a company like Starbucks. Nevertheless, increased self-service enables Starbucks to reduce its staff and therefore cut costs. A decrease in costs could directly be passed on to the consumers which would especially satisfy the new customer base and could possibly contribute to the acquisition of a large number of new customers. Another significant advantage of self-service is an increase speed. Standard products could just be chosen from a shelf while the barrister could really concentrate on customizing beverages and realizing special requests. Eventually this might constitute a means of counteracting crowds at peak times.

All in all, it is to conclude that there is definitely not one single solution to Starbuck’s service strategy. Neither a pure self-service approach nor the opposite would be favorable when taking into account the challenges and the companies product portfolio. By putting more standard products on the shelf, Starbucks could potentially solve issues such as long waiting times or high beverage prices. Nevertheless, it is crucial to further offer customized beverages as well as the well-known Starbucks experience centered around individual service, in order to not lose an important pillar of their branding.