Excerpts From This Book Will Help You Create An Environment That Encourages Employee Innovation
Chika Ebuzor
Author | Certified Digital Marketing Associate | Digital Media Content Strategist
I started reading this book titled: The Starbucks Experience: 5 Principles For Turning Ordinary To Extraordinary, and I decided to share some ideas that stood out for me regarding creating the right environment for employees to take charge, own the business and use their initiatives to create innovation.
I hope that you will find it useful.
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Yet through its principle of Make It Your Own, Starbucks has succeeded in creating a unique model that encourages partners at all levels to pour their creative energy and dedication into everything they do.
No manager can tell employees how to bring out their individuality while functioning effectively in accordance with the business’s priorities; no scripted customer service approach can make this happen.
But leaders at Starbucks have provided a structure that allows partners to infuse themselves into their work, so that they can inspire customers in legendary ways. The leaders call this the “Five Ways of Being”:
? Be welcoming
? Be genuine
? Be considerate
? Be knowledgeable
? Be Involved
To reinforce these concepts, Starbucks management developed a pamphlet that fits neatly into a partner’s apron pocket and is appropriately referred to as the Green Apron Book.
This book offers concrete ideas on how to personalise relationships with customers by giving to, connecting with, and elevating customer interactions.
Instead of overwhelming folks with reams of minutiae and too-rigid instructions, it gives guiding principles of the environments they hope to create and legendary service they strive to provide. This is leadership at its best: simple instruction provided in an appealing way, with a spirit that offers hope.?
? Be Involved
From the perspective of Starbucks leadership, being involved means active participation “in the store, in the company, and in the community.
Involvement in the Business
Starbucks management makes a point of listening and responding to the ideas and suggestions of partners. The result of this interest is that partners frequently take responsibility for suggesting and championing new product ideas based on the input they get from customers.
By involving themselves in product development and expansion of services, partners take a proactive approach to the future of the business.
Rather than waiting for cues from the home office, everyone at Starbucks is charged with searching for new and better ideas for meeting and exceeding customer needs.
Be Involved in the Community
Community involvement can take many forms, from creating a community meeting place, to supporting community events, to staff volunteering in community-related activities. Starbucks leadership encourages and supports engagement in all of these areas. Starbucks store manager Nerieda Hernandez shares a simple way in which Starbucks partners offered.
Involvement in the Store
One of the best ways to become involved is to look around your office or store—much like a crime scene investigator— for clues on how to make the customer experiences and the business better.
Be knowledgeable
When Starbucks leaders ask partners to “be knowledgeable,” they are encouraging employees to “love what they do and share it with others.” In the information age, no matter what we do for a living, we add value to our efforts when we gain work-related knowledge.
More important, as we become more informed, our value to the business, our self-confidence, and the real impact we have on others all increase. Not only do Starbucks managers encourage partners to enhance their expertise in the areas of coffee and customer service, but the leadership also offers formal training opportunities and incentives for acquiring that knowledge.
In addition, Starbucks executives understand something that few business leaders do: sharing knowledge with customers makes for more sophisticated consumers. As a result, these customers develop a passion for your products and services and are eager to explore the subtle nuances of what your business offers.
Be Genuine
Starbucks leadership helps partners embrace the idea of being genuine and the importance of that idea to the Starbucks Experience.
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The concept of what it takes to be genuine is fairly straightforward, but profound. At Starbucks, being genuine means to “connect, discover, and respond.” Focusing on these three elements in each customer interaction forms a quality relationship.
By contrast, how many of us have been served by people who gave the impression that they couldn’t have cared less? Customers aren’t looking for best friends; they just want a positive connection, and they want their needs to matter.
They resent being treated as if they were just wallets with humans attached. In order for a connection to occur, a person has to feel heard. Genuineness requires listening through both verbal and nonverbal channels.?
It is through this listening that baristas like Angela anticipate the needs of their customers. Angela recalls, “It was Saturday, and this poor woman who was just an emotional wreck came through. It was her first visit.
Our menu can be a little intimidating, so she stared and then ordered just a plain coffee. When we asked her if she was sure she didn’t want to try something else, she explained that she was confused and overwhelmed, and she looked like she was about to cry.
In the meantime, we had someone make a Toffee Nut Latte, because who doesn’t like that? We said, forget the plain coffee; we made you this Toffee Nut Latte—on the house today for you to try.
She was thrilled! She drove off, and we didn’t think much of it other than that we were happy to have made her happy.”
But the story gets better, as Angela explains. “A couple of days later, we got flowers sent to our store thanking us for ‘saving her life.’ Her letter explained that she had been having a really, really bad day.
After she had visited our store, she had a piece of joy in her and was able to take care of her problems and even help someone else to feel better. She is now one of our regulars.”
Be Welcoming
While most individuals would not think of inviting guests into their home, only to ignore them, many business leaders fail to make their companies equally inviting. At Starbucks, “being welcoming” is an essential way to get the customer’s visit off to a positive start.
It is also the foundation for producing a predictably warm and comfortable environment. It enables partners to forge a bond with customers so that infrequent visitors become regulars, many of whom end up customers for life.
Barista Joy Wilson shows what is possible when staff members put their own individual style into being welcoming, “I’m the drive-through queen at my store. I always set out to do the best job I possibly can.
One of the ways I do that is I learn people’s names and drinks and the name of their dog and where their kids go to school and whatever else I can find out about them.”
Joy is serious about knowing customers’ names. In fact, after work she enters information about her customers into a spreadsheet, which she later reviews. Starbucks leaders helped Joy appreciate the importance of being welcoming and praised her approach.
Paul Ark in Bangkok provides a perfect example of how a Starbucks partner made him feel truly important.
A self-proclaimed “sucker” for Frappuccino? blended beverage with raspberry syrup, Paul hadn’t been to the Chidlom Starbucks in almost two months, but as he was standing behind two other customers in line to order, one of the baristas looked over and said, “Grande Vanilla Crème Frappuccino? with raspberry syrup, right?”
Paul was shocked, but the experience made a deep impression on him. As he notes, “Most companies chant ‘customer service’ like some mantra, as if printing it enough times in their corporate glossies means they are actually paying more than lip service to the concept.
On Companies benefit when all employees understand business priorities and look for ways to bring their individual creativity and passion to meet those objectives.
? By being welcoming, Starbucks forges a bond that invites customers back to visit again and again.
? To be genuine means to connect, discover, and respond.
? Listening is just one part of creating a connection with customers. Businesses also need to discover each customer’s needs and unique situation and then find ways to meet those needs.
? Being considerate is less about being polite and more about being mindful of the needs of others while creating win/win situations. It should empower you to act in ways that consider the needs of others.
? Be knowledgeable, love what you do, and share your knowledge with others. ? In a knowledge and service economy, we add value to a business by enhancing the customer’s experience.
? Be involved—in your store or office, in the company at large, and in your community
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