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A Fantastic Starbucks Customer Experience Story
I have a great story to tell you.
It’s one of fantastic customer service from a brand we all know and love: Starbucks.
Most of you know I had a craaaaazy summer. I was on the road for 25 weeks straight. To say I was exhausted is putting it mildly.
When I’m home, Mr. D comes into my office and announces, “I’m going to go hunt for coffee,” as if we’re living in the wilderness and he’s hunting for the family’s daily meal.
I always get a tall, nonfat latte. But one particular morning in June, after a few weeks of crazy travel, I asked him to upsize me to a grande.
When he returned, there was a note on my cup:
The fact that the barista at Starbucks knew I was in for a long day because I ordered a larger drink was pretty incredible. I took a picture of it and uploaded to Facebook, but thought that was the end of that.
About a month later, Mr. D came home with another personalized cup:
He explained they didn’t think I was real – that he was making me up – because they’d never seen me.
So, of course, I checked “maybe,” wrote “depends on your definition of real,” and sent the cup back the next day.
In order to determine whether or not our definition of real was the same, he sent me another cup:
And so began our four month relationship, communicating only through cups that Mr. D delivered back and forth a couple of times a week.
It became a great source of entertainment on Facebook, while my friends all voted on how I should answer each question.
Then, after three U.S. trips and one trip to Canada, I made my return – via the cups and Mr. D – to Starbucks.
He continued to keep me on my toes, even as I answered his questions and sent back some of my own, with a new “feature” of our cup relationship.
And then sadness. About a month ago, I learned his last day at Starbucks was coming soon.
I had Mr. D find out when his last day was (this past Sunday) and I went in to meet him.
And now, without any further ado, I’d like to introduce Dan the Starbucks barista who totally rocks, gave me a ton of great fodder for Facebook updates for months, and made me feel like he truly cared about both Mr. D and me as regular customers.
He moved to Chicago to go to The French Pastry School and now has a full-time job as a pastry chef at Sixteen at the Trump Hotel. And you can bet on your life that we will be visiting him there, which never would have happened without the personalized cups.
He took regular Starbucks customers and had such an effect on us, we’ll become dessert patrons at a fancy schmancy restaurant.
The Experts Say
We’ve been talking a lot here about treating customers like people, no matter what your job, and while it’s interesting conversation, I’m not a customer experience expert.
So I asked Jeannie Walters and Adam Toporek to give us their take on why these little things matter so much in today’s 24/7, real-time, digital world.
Jeannie said:
This is a perfect example of how a small thing, a microinteraction, can have a much bigger affect. Customers are people. As people, we each like to be treated as an individual. This small act of interaction recognized you as a unique person, plus it created a relationship when there was no requirement to go beyond the transaction. By interacting in this incredibly human, not to mention charming, way, he gave you a reason to be loyal beyond the coffee. It’s a wonderful reward for loyalty, too. We all want to be recognized.
And, as a side note, this is the topic of Jeannie’s TedX talk on November 9, if you want to learn more.
And Adam said:
We live in a low touch economy. We bounce from transaction to transaction sometimes without any human contact at all. Most of the personalization we do experience falls under the rubric of mass customization — it’s faux-personalization such as reading the name off a credit card or off a Starbucks cup. These gestures are important because they help us feel recognized, but they are not enough to make us feel truly valued.
The reality is everyone wants to feel appreciated. What is so cool about your barista is that he went beyond his job to make you feel special, to take extra time to show that he valued you enough as a customer and person to notice and to care.
So there you have it. A very personal, fantastic story of customer experience and a series of microinteractions that worked phenomenally well.
What experiences have you had or seen that lend to really great customer experience?
I loved this story, as a former Starbucks Barista, and as a life long customer. The interaction I get with the baristas totally makes a difference if I frequent that location. This experience you had made me cry, because it was just so sweet. I wish there were more baristas like him.
@noircorvette I wish so too! My Starbucks experience is just not the same.
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I love stories like this! Wow, the Spin Sucks blog is awesome. Heard about it from a Bean Cast podast. Lot of good stuff here. Nice work.
Jeph
@jephreymaystruck Oh very cool! Which reminds me...I'm on there again next week. Welcome to the world of the crazies!
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It's a great story - I retweeted it - and reinforcement of the power of people, who after all, ARE the brand.
Over here in the UK, though, Starbucks are caught up in a tax row, and also have just announced cut backs to staff benefits - see link below.
So, this is one to watch with interest, ie, will the customer experience degrade if the employee experience suffers?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/dec/03/starbucks-slash-lunch-breaks#start-of-comments
@rodbutcher I've been watching that issue over there. It's not good!
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@MordecaiHoltz Isn't it??
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And this is why I too love Starbucks. It was my first job in high school and I worked there through college as well. I enjoyed it more than working at a restaurant because you truly have an opportunity to get to know your frequent customers. Many of them gave me money for graduation and I will never forget one customer (knowing I was from Hawaii) has grown a plumeria tree in their backyard and made me a lei out of it!
@rachaelseda OMG! That's freaking amazing, Rach. Wow.
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Amazing story ! It's nice to know that there are great people out there still and some sort of personal interaction in this globalized world of ours.
@GillianatMAG Pretty fun, huh??
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Your Starbucks story is amazing! As they say, you can't make this stuff up. I've shared it out on my blog as well and people love it. Thanks for your comment too.
My husband and I love Starbucks probably as much as you and your husband and the people that work there are typically over the top friendly but that is a big part of what their brand is built on. Fun, friendly, customer service that makes you want to keep going back.
@TacklingOurDebt Thank you for sharing it on your blog! It's crazy how something like this makes a person's day. I think, in this digital world, we forget to treat each other like human beings.
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This is why it's so important to enable all employees to work "off-script". Everyone is in marketing and customer service, even if they aren't. Every person in your company can plus or minus your brand, and companies like Starbuck's, Southwest, Dell, ThinkGeek that let their employees be HUMAN are kicking the stuffing out of companies that require robotic and slavish adherence to the approved playbook. Love this story.
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@JayBaer I LOVE ThinkGeek! Awesome company and love their irreverent sense of humor.
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@Tony Vignieri Wow! It even got Tony to comment!
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Great post. I've been working in customer service related jobs for more than 30 years and I can tell you from experience that every personal touch counts. I've been fortunate enough to have several customers become friends and my life is so much richer for it.
@Aunt Bs Kitchen It's so important yet we all seem to forget about that personal touch. I'll bet your customers love having you as a friend.
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@CanadianBudgetB Thank YOU for including it in your weekly wrap-up! I just wish it'd come with oatmeal cookies.
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@delwilliams Yes, they did! It's been all over the place, as is evidenced by all the social shares.
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I am Dan's dad and we love the story. He gets his wit from his papa. We are very proud of him,
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@Gtrowe24 You SHOULD be proud of him! He's awesome. One of my very favorite people. And I can tell, by this one comment, he clearly gets his wit from you.
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I know both Dan _and_ his parents and can attest to the fact that they're all pretty awesome!
It’s all about customer engagement. Mr. D. gets it, knows it and lives it. He’s a natural at it. I bet he has great parents.
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@ShepHyken Did you see his dad commented up there ^^??
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@ginidietrich @ShepHyken I just did! That is awesome.
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@shep@hyken.com I bet he does! When I see someone behaving badly, I always assume their parents were terrible people, so it would be reasonable to guess that his parents must have been great. Wonderful point!
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Great story Gini! I am not sure it will make me switch from Caribou to Starbucks, but I am strongly considering it! What a win-win for you & Dan! If everyone could see that doing good or producing good was a cyclical thing, our world would be so much brighter! I love this!! Pay it forward!
@thefaxgirl Mmmm....I do love the chocolate covered espresso beans at Caribou.
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@Todd Nevins I"m glad you enjoyed it!
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I have a pattern of being a day late, but I saw this yesterday, and it was nice to read a happy story this week!!!
Exactly to @jeanniecw , @Adam | Customer Experience and your points, this just happened over the weekend at Perfection Tire: I've been going there for years but I don't know if these guys know me by name or not so I called to make an appt not expecting them to know who I am. I said, "This is Lisa Gerber and I need to make an appt to..." and he goes, "LISA GERBER?!?!?! never heard of the lady!!!" very jokingly.
As ridiculous as that sounds, he immediately boosted my mood. I was thinking to myself - look what this guy did, I'm all sitting up straight and laughing with him! Tiny things like that make the customer feel special and don't cost a dime. and it wins loyalty.
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@Lisa Gerber It cracks me up he would say that to you! LOL!!
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@Lisa GerberExactly! It really doesn't have to be huge. It's typically a series of little things. I mean, you will remember that moment, right? It's just a moment, but it is all it takes!
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Such a beautiful story. And a customer experience story that I wish could be replicated by more places.
Do you think anything in his training had driven him to do this? Or was he a diamond in the rough. An anomaly. A fluke. A CS genetic mutation.
Finding a barrista who remembers name's is a find. Finding one who create's his own customer engagement and loyalty program is whole new level!
Starbucks should have been throwing money at this guy to tour nationally and run seminars on customer engagement. They're crazy to lose him!
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@liamgooding This guy is clearly a customer service diamond, but the magic is that Starbucks gives him permission to deliver it. They trust him, and the culture inspires him. There is no way a service trainer could tell employees about this tactic—it comes from the heart and charm of a person who understands a service relationship. HR lesson: Hire awesome people and get out of their way.
@liamgooding I think it's probably 75% him and 25% training. He kind of rocks. And your guest post for us rocked, too! I will stop by there later this week.
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What a great story! Its always the little things that make the difference - I hope Starbucks know they have a great service team!
@chemam I submitted the story to them so I hope they pay attention!
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@ginidietrich I am a Starbucks partner and just wanted to let you know that I came across your story on our Starbucks Partners Facebook page. So not only did they see your story but they shared it with all of us! I'm glad such a small thing has touched so many people.
@AlexisKing @ginidietrich What is really amazing is that Gini has been sharing this story with us as it unfolded...we all feel like we know her Barista, or at least we've all envied her for having him. This post was just the culmination of one rockin customer service story.
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@AlexisKing Oh yay! I'm so glad to hear it! He is one of your rock stars!
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