Starbucks 2024 vis-à-vis 2015

I’ve always been fascinated by the Starbucks experience and their impact on modern culture. My last post on them was back in 2015 while working on my MBA.

Taking a quick look at the article I wrote back in 2015 in which I mention Starbucks strategy and the importance of customer service (experience) as part of that strategy. While at the same time contrasting to the Starbucks of today, 8 years later we can clearly see where they are falling short. ?

What was once a convenience has become an inconvenience, especially to those who so valued that one part of their strategy “customer service/experience”.

Starbucks is no longer in competition with other coffee houses on the “craft coffee” front. It now finds itself competing against itself. I said that in 2015 and I’ll say it again “Making good coffee is becoming more of an art rather than a mass production.” Starbucks has all the elements to be successful today like it did 8 years ago. However, Starbucks has found a way to mass produce convenience at the expense of their employees and customers.

It’s 2024 and stepping into a Starbucks (even if you’ve ordered through your app) is an anxiety inducing riddle waiting to be solved. What happened to the, and I quote myself “I enjoy walking into a Starbucks and ordering my drink and waiting for it, I enjoy walking in and seeing all of the baristas wearing their green aprons. I enjoy it all”. This experience slowly decreased, was taken for granted and eventually banished from the Starbucks customer service/experience.

Reading the HBR article titled “How Starbucks Devalued Its Own Brand” which discusses at lengths Starbucks self-commoditization. And the impact of straying away from its “successful strategy of offering customer exceptional experience” made me ponder on my relationship with Starbucks today. When I think of Starbucks I don’t think of the cool coffee shop on the block. Regardless of their attempts to come up with new, cool and hip drinks. I think of Starbucks as more of a Peets Coffee house (you know that other West Coast HQ coffeehouse) that til’ this day remains pretty true to what it was 10-20 years ago, one might argue “their values”.

I believe Starbucks finds itself somewhere between wanting to remain a true classic and/or a young and innovative coffee house. Always adapting to the scene and to the latest trends. I think Starbucks needs to decide if it’s an organization that will change with the generations and or if it’s strong enough to remain authentic and abide by their values knowing they have something no one else in the market does.

As conscious consumers I ask. Is the adaptation genuine? Or is it an act of desperation?

And, most importantly Starbucks- do you know where your going?

Personally, I’m an advocate to the idea that there is nothing worse than losing authenticity. Whether you are Starbucks or an average Joe.

The nature of the coffee house is at contradiction with the speed of life itself. Starbucks has overaccommodated its customer base with digital ordering and in return undervalued their cherished in-store experience.? You can’t have it both ways.

Increased sales while lowering the Starbucks experience is the real problem. As Pine & Dubois state “removing the human touch from its famously handcrafted beverages” is in fact a problem.

Let’s be real, removing the human touch from everything is not just a Starbucks problem but a true societal one. We will stay tuned…

B. Joseph Pine II and Louis-étienne Dubois, How Starbucks Devalued Its Own Brand, HBR, June 26, 2024