Starbucks

Create a third place, outside of home and work, where people can connect with others and reconnect with themselves

With every cup, with every conversation, with every community—we nurture the limitless possibilities of human connection

Create values that drive performance through the lens of humanity

• Create a culture of warmth and belonging, where everyone is welcome.
• Deliver our very best in all we do, holding ourselves accountable for results.
• Act with courage, challenging the status quo and find new ways to grow our company and each other.
• Be present, connect with transparency, dignity, and respect.

Uplift the everyday

The passionate and knowledgeable innocent

Innocents are optimists who want to bring people together through moments of happiness. Equipped with a passion for coffee and a desire to share their passion and knowledge with others, Starbucks looks to "incorporate beautiful, expressive moments with calm confidence through every interaction." They pride themselves on being genuine, thoughtful, and expressive and "believe in the power of both coffee and art to connect people and communities."

Expressive (friendly & joyful) and functional (helpful & clear)

To keep things fresh, relevant, and interesting, Starbucks crafts a tone of voice that:

• Makes things easy to understand,
• Makes customers smile, and
• Makes every word count.

Coffee passion

Starbucks is on a "relentless pursuit" to be the "undisputed coffee authority," by committing themselves to:

• Quality: The journey from farm to cup starts by sourcing only the highest quality beans from the highest altitudes. Beans are then sorted by size, color, and density where only 3% will even make it into the burlap bag. Roughly, 1000 cups of coffee are tried each day to make sure that every sip meets the Starbucks standard.
• Craftsmanship: Yes, Starbucks has high-quality coffee but each cup is expected to be consistent and served quickly with the same passion and theater that Howard Schultz experienced when he visited Italy.
• Knowledge: It is not just enough to serve quality coffee, every employee is trained to know and appreciate the history of coffee and share that passion and knowledge with customers. Roasters are even trained for over a year to use smell, sight, and sound to judge perfection.

Personalization

Starbucks has over 87,000 possible drink orders, not including requests for special temperatures and various pumps of flavor—and baristas are expected to make them all. In fact, the Starbucks 'just say yes' policy, does not allow baristas to ever say 'no' to an order, no matter how crazy it may seem. If ingredients aren't available, suitable replacements are offered or an alternate drink is provided at no charge.

Community

To Starbucks, community is about being a good partner in their stores, in their local community, and globally.

• In stores, Starbucks wants to become the living room for their neighborhood—and it's not just about having free bathrooms or a policy to never rush customers out the door. The entire Starbucks Experience was designed to create a sense of belonging. 
• Locally, Starbucks has 'Community Leads' who work with local citizens and businesses to celebrate local events and provide support through initiatives like youth training programs and counseling for veterans.
• Globally, Starbucks has always worked to improve the livelihoods of their farmers. As an integral part of their community, Starbucks ensures that farmers are treated and paid equitably and offers them leadership training, loans, and guidance.

Shared planet values

The Starbucks environmental promise is to give more than they take. They pride themselves on not just measuring their performance by their financial results, but also by the social and environmental impact they make. They refer to this as their 'triple bottom line.' To measure this impact, Starbucks created a program called 'Starbucks Shared Planet' (PDF) that dictated policies on how they can lower their negative effects on the environment.

Never sacrifice quality for affordability

Even as prices rose during the 2008 recession and Starbucks became known as 'Fivebucks,' a symbol of excess in frugal times, they refused to use cheaper beans to save costs. As Howard Schultz has said: "I don't like using price as a competitive tool because it's not sustainable. I like being in the premium space.'

Ban anything that interferes with the experience

From the start, former CEO Howard Schultz banned smoking in stores, even in smoking cultures, as the smell interfered with the smell of the coffee. Additionally, employees were not allowed to wear perfumes or colognes and even the wall paint was chosen to avoid interfering with the coffee aroma.

Big selling items that detracted from the experience were also removed, which included:

• Warm sandwiches.  These were removed until they could develop a way to eliminate the odor of melting cheese from the air completely.
• CDs and DVDs. These were removed because sales distracted baristas from focusing on pouring the perfect coffee.

Say no to franchises in order to stay more connected with your customers

Although franchising is a quick and easy way to raise capital, "Schultz viewed franchisees as middlemen standing between Starbucks and its customers."

Say no to expansion in order to preserve quality

In the late 1980s, even though it could have tripled Starbucks' sales, Schultz refused to sell whole beans in supermarkets like his competitors. Not only did he want to stay differentiated from grocery store coffee, but he also did not want to jeopardize the Starbucks brand promise by pouring beans into clear plastic containers, where they could go stale.

Close stores in order to retrain staff

Starbucks has closed their stores twice in order to take time to retrain their staff on their values. Not only would being closed cost Starbucks millions of dollars in revenue but competitors used these as opportunities to offer great deals on coffee to lure Starbucks customers away. But to Starbucks, this short term loss in sales was worth it in order to rebuild and strengthen the Starbucks Experience.

Growth is not a strategy, it's a tactic

In 2002, Starbucks' primary goal became to show Wall Street continued growth and increased comparative sales at all costs. As their store count tripled over the next five years, the Starbucks Experience weakened.

The warm environment became a sterile cookie-cutter template that could be easily replicated for new stores; the showmanship of coffee was replaced with button pushing; DVDs, CDs, and stuffed animals were front and center to increase daily store sales; and managers and staff were now trained by just being handed a "thick, three-ring binder of rules, techniques, and coffee information and was simply told to 'read it.'"

Slowly the amount of money each customer was spending in stores began to dip. By 2007, traffic slowed to the lowest levels in history and Starbucks was forced to close 8% of their US stores and let go over 12,000 people globally to stay in business.

Howard Schultz returned as CEO in 2008 and brought with him his own Transformation Agenda that he shared openly with the entire company in a ten part series. He wanted to refocus the company on one customer, one partner, and one cup of coffee at a time. To help free everyone to enthusiastically refocus on what was best for the customer, and not Wall Street, Starbucks would:

• Slow down the expansion of US locations, while closing underperforming stores that were opened haphazardly in the first place.
• No longer report same-store sales.
• Introduce the Pike Place Roast coffee blend to honor their history.
• Revamp their rewards program to build a stronger emotional connection with customers.
• Remove the sale of movie posters, CDs, DVDs, and stuffed animals in order to refocus on coffee.
• Close all stores for half a day in order to retrain baristas on the art of making an espresso.
• Redesign each store to be unique while being warm and inviting.

It took time but by June 2009, customer satisfaction began to rise again and Starbucks stock was on an upward trend rising 41%.

Let loyalists lead the way for expansion

Starting in the 1970s, Starbucks had begun building a customer-base through mail order. These coffee enthusiasts had discovered Starbucks either from vacationing in Seattle or having recently moved from the Seattle area. In their hometowns they began spreading awareness of Starbucks through their network of friends, who then began ordering from Starbucks as well. As Starbucks began to focus on nationwide expansion, Howard leveraged the data he had on this customer-base to decide where to open stores.

Keep it LEAN to improve customer satisfaction

Starbucks started using LEAN management techniques after seeing how one store manager took it upon herself to implement them and saw great results.

LEAN techniques removed any process that wasted time or took away from the customer experience. This allowed baristas to spend more time talking with customers and less time searching for things that were either in the wrong place or completely missing.

But former CEO, Howard Schultz feared that these practices would make Starbucks feel more like a factory run by a corporation rather than a local coffee shop. To avoid this, he ensured that headquarters would only provide the tools and training for LEAN techniques, and left it to the store managers to implement these techniques in their own unique way.

Some of the ways that Starbucks reduced redundancies and waste was to:

• Create color-coded preparation instructions for quick retention and understanding
• Move whips, drizzles, and chocolates closer to where they were needed to reduce steps behind the counter
• Use acronyms on coffee cups to help partners get every detail of the drink right and make those highly customized orders repeatable when they were ready
• Throw out the corporate manuals on supply room arrangements and customize everything for each specific store
• Take orders before customers get to the cash register

These changes might seem obvious but it wasn't until they started looking at every movement through LEAN that inefficiencies became clear. Within 6 months of implementation Starbucks customer satisfaction and quality scores had improved, productivity and revenue increased, and turnover dropped significantly.

Ensure that your vendors align with your values

Starbucks fully owns the coffee procurement process and all of their roasting facilities, but what about everything else? All other aspects of the supply chain are strictly monitored through what is called the Starbucks Coffee and Farmer Equity (CAFE) Practices. This helps to ensure that all vendors align with Starbucks values and quality standards.

CAFE Practices, developed by Starbucks staff, judge vendors on a set of over 200 indicators. Anyone scoring a 60 or above receives enhanced pricing and contract terms, while anything less requires you to go through the time and expense of re-verification in a year.

But even before CAFE Practices launched in 2004, vendors have always been judged on four criteria:

• Economic transparency: To reduce costs and improve efficiency through extensive service, cost, and productivity metrics.
• Social responsibility: To ensure a safe, fair, and humane work environment.
• Environmental leadership: To protect water quality, improve soil health, preserve biodiversity, reduce agrochemical use, and conserve water and energy.
• Quality: To ensure consistency by measuring everything from the altitude, variety, and even shade density of the coffee farms.

See the CAFE scorecard.

Think locally, not globally

In 1999, Starbucks opened their first store in China and a year later they expanded into Australia as well. By 2022, there were 4,200 stores in China and in Australia, 70% of its original 90 stores were closed. The difference? In Australia, Starbucks expanded rapidly and did not take the time to adapt to local preferences. In China, however, Starbucks took a more localized approach by:

• Adapting their menu to contain beverages based on local tea ingredients and foods that were more attuned to local tastes
• Incorporating traditional Chinese elements into the look and feel of their stores
• Working with local partners to source ingredients
• Adapting their recruitment techniques by inviting parents of potential staff to orientation days to get to know the brand better

Create a culture that fosters pride, inspiration, and respect

At the age of 7, Howard saw his injured father tossed aside by his employer leaving his family with no money and no safety net. When Howard became CEO of Starbucks, he "wanted to build the kind of company that (his) dad never got a chance to work for;...a place where partners feel proud, inspired, appreciated, cared for, and respected...When partners...feel proud of (Starbucks), they willingly elevate the experience for each other and customers, one cup at a time."

Become a servant-leader

Instead of staff working to solely serve their manager, at Starbucks managers exist to serve their teams. Leaders ensure that staff has what they need to do their job and serve as role models on how to live the company's values. Ultimately, the way they treat their staff is exactly how their staff will treat their customers.

At Starbucks to be a true servant-leader, you are expected to:

• Hold open forums at least once a quarter allowing partners to ask whatever questions they want, including "How much money do you make?"
• Celebrate partner achievements in front of other partners and with hand written thank you notes.
• Visit stores, roasting plants, and walk the floors of the office daily to chat with partners with no other agenda than to see how they are doing or ask if they need anything.
• Pay close attention to how people might interpret your actions, including who you talk to, the tone of your voice, and your body language.
• Invite partners to email you directly and answer each one personally.
• Visit stores and do the job of the baristas with positivity, joy, and playfulness. And yes, this includes cleaning the bathrooms.
• Accept that there will be times when partners spend too much on surprising guests, and let it go without any disciplinary action.
• Volunteer to show that community involvement is a prized value.

Let your employees monitor leadership

Former CEO, Howard Schultz created a 'Mission Review Committee' as a way for staff to voice their concerns through surveys about any company policy or leadership behavior that they feel opposes Starbucks' mission or core values. This opened communication with employees and helped hold leadership to higher standards resulting in improved policies like paid leave for adoptive parents.

Reinforce your culture through your office design

Walk around the Starbucks Support Center (aka. headquarters) and you will find a space that feels like a Starbucks coffee shop:

• Art inspired by countries where coffee is grown cover the walls
• Images and graphics celebrate their history, mission, and values
• Coffee trees grow year-round under skylights
• Couches and chairs are clustered together around coffee tables for meetings
• No cubicles can be found anywhere—just shared work spaces that promote collaboration

With some employees not needing to go in every day, Starbucks has made some desks shared and bookable, allowing for even more open space for collaboration.

Perform culture audits, and then do them again, and again

Throughout the year, Starbucks will continually perform culture audits to measure the cultural health of their company. This 10 question anonymous survey is sent to staff asking questions like:

• What makes you proud to work here?
• How does Starbucks support your professional development?
• Is risk-taking encouraged? What happens when you fail?
• How do you as a manager (or how does your manager) support and motivate your team?
• What are some of the ways the company celebrates success?
• What role do company values play in hiring and performance reviews?
• What's one thing you would change about the company if you could?

Get out there and find inspiration from other businesses

It is a common practice at Starbucks to send staff out on reconnaissance missions to see how other businesses operate—not just coffee shops but any service business. Armed with notebooks, they observe and document everything: what they see, hear, taste, smell, and feel. They later brainstorm ideas on how to enhance the Starbucks Experience.

As former CEO Howard Schultz says: "When people can see things, feel things, interact with things, that is then when their minds actually begin to shift."

Hire partners, not employees

Starbucks employees are called partners because that's what they are: part-owners.

Howard Schultz wanted to create a company that shared its success with all employees. This lead Starbucks to provide full health-care benefits for full- and part-time employees, free college tuition, and stock options through the Bean Stock program. All of which are sacred to the company and will never be taken away, even when pressured by Wall Street during the Great Recession.

Schultz felt that if employees were directly tied to the company's success, they would be empowered to have the same attitude, morale, and spirit as the CEO. This sense of belonging increased employee retention, cut training and recruiting costs, and improved the customer experience as customers saw the same face greet them each day.

“In a store or restaurant, the customer’s experience is vital: One bad encounter, and you’ve lost a customer for life. If the fate of your business is in the hands of a twenty-year-old part-time worker who goes to college or pursues acting on the side, can you afford to treat him or her as expendable?”-Howard Schultz

Make every interview a conversation, not an interrogation

Interviews are not about imparting your role as a manager but showing you are a servant-leader. Before discussing qualifications in the interview, Starbucks chooses to get to know the candidate on a personal level first.

A favorite first question for former CEO Howard Schultz was "What is the last book you read?" This helps determine if the candidate is a curious person that will look to grow and learn on the job. He also asks about family and interests to make sure candidates share the same passion, commitment, and values as Starbucks. As Schultz has said: "One or two people who are not consistent with your values can have a significant negative impact."

Set clear standards for service excellence

On their first day, each Starbucks partner (employee) is given a little 'Green Apron' book that fits neatly into their apron pocket. The book outlines the Five Ways of Being. which is the framework that the Starbucks Experience is built upon.

1. Be Welcoming: Offer everyone a sense of belonging.
   It's not just about writing a person's name on a cup. It's about taking the time to know their name, needs, and preferences when they walk in the door. As a study aid, some partners even keep spreadsheets containing customer preferences.
2. Be Genuine: Connect, discover, respond.
   Connect with customers, so they know they are not just a "wallet with a human attached." If they are visibly having a bad day, try to make it better. Discover their wants and desires by asking questions that require more than a 'yes' or 'no' answer and listening to their response. You might just learn about needs that they didn't know they had. Finally, respond with respect and attention no matter who they are.
3. Be Considerate: Take care of yourself, each other, and the environment.
   Don't just think of the now but be mindful of the future well-being of everyone and everything. It's not just about short-term gain but rather long-term survival and prosperity.
4. Be Knowledgeable: Love what you do. Share it with others.
   "Sharing knowledge with customers makes for more sophisticated consumers." They in turn begin to understand, appreciate, and explore the subtle nuances of what you have to offer.
5. Be Involved: Connect with one another, with the company, and with your community.
   Look around to see how to make things better, and then act on it. Partners have hosted open-mic nights, provided free-training to the unemployed, and even taken sign language lessons, so they can communicate with their customers.

Become the undisputed authority

To be a coffee authority at Starbucks requires extensive training through the 'Coffee Passport' program.

The program begins with each employee receiving a dense Coffee Passport Tasting Guide (PDF) that contains everything you ever need to know about coffee. After studying each Starbucks product in the book, partners join a group tasting. They are encouraged to write notes in their passport like "earthy and herbal" or "full-bodied and smooth." A completed entry earns them a stamp or a sticker in their passport.

Baristas have 90 days to complete the entire book and then have the option to become 'Coffee Masters' and don the coveted black apron. This can take an additional three months of training and requires baristas to ace content-based tests and lead multiple coffee tastings.

Use real-life scenarios when training

To reinforce the Starbucks Five Ways of Being (the guiding principles of the Starbucks Experience), Starbucks uses two types of training exercises to help their employees anticipate customer needs and to help build their confidence and team camaraderie.

'Conversations and Connections'
Each week, a lesson will focus on one particular Way of Being. Partners are given a customer comment card and must evaluate and discuss how the barista made a positive impact on the customer's experience.

Role playing
Both baristas and managers review customer comment cards and are then asked to reflect on the experience. They are asked to answer questions like:

• Name three behaviors that detracted from or enhanced the service.
• Which Green Apron Book behaviors could have made this situation a more positive experience for the customer?
• How would you act or coach the partner in this situation?

Make training into a game...literally

The 'Starbucks Experience from the Inside Out' game can be best described as 'Dungeons and Dragons' meets your neighborhood coffee shop. It is all about challenging partners to anticipate needs, recognize non-verbal cues, empathize, and have some fun.

• Objective
  Secure a human connection with a customer.
• Components
  Dice and game cards.
• Set up
  In each round, one player plays the part of the barista, another plays the customer. The customer roles the dice to determine what's happening in the store, such as the length of the line and time of day.
• Role play
  The customer draws a card that explains their visual cues to act out and the internal experience of what they are feeling. They then role play with the barista using body language and words but without actually saying what is written on the card. The barista tries to make a connection with the customer using the principles from their training book, the Green Apron Book. Anyone not participating in this round, provides feedback on how the barista embodies the Starbucks Experience.
• Winning the round
  The customer decides whether or not the barista successfully made a human connection and delivered a memorable experience.

Create moments of connection

Baristas knowing your name and order while also adding a personalized note on your cup was only a piece of what Howard Schultz had in mind when he was crafting the Starbucks Experience. He envisioned every cup of coffee being an opportunity for customers to connect with one another. As he saw it, coffee is a great conduit to conversation and social interaction, and he wanted to create a place between home and work where people can come, relax, share a moment with each other, and feel like they are part of a community.

"When our customers feel this sense of belonging, our stores become a haven, a break from the worries outside, a place where you can meet with friends. It’s about enjoyment at the speed of life—sometimes slow and savored, sometimes faster. Always full of humanity."

Turn unhappy customers into loyal fans

To Starbucks, negative experiences are considered opportunities to strengthen their relationship with unhappy customers and learn from them on how to make the Starbucks Experience better. In what is referred to as the 'LATTE Method', partners are trained to:

• Listen to the customer. Recognize the signs that a customer is upset, whether it is tapping their foot or crossing their arms, and then engage with them to see what's wrong.
• Acknowledge the problem/situation.
• Take action and solve the problem. Either they can solve the problem or look for an alternative solution. Saying no is never an option.
• Thank the customer. Make sure unhappy customers know they are valued by thanking them for their business and then listening to and recognizing their problems.
• Explain what you did. Never hide behind store policies but take the time to explain why the problem has occurred.

Create your own language

"I'll have a venti upside down half-caf breve cap" might sound like gibberish to some, but to Starbucks regulars, it's all part of the lingo.

Instead of a small, medium, and large, Starbucks has their infamous tall, grande, venti, and trenta (the last two being trademarked sizes). They also have their own grammar, when ordering: Size comes first, then syrup and milk preference, and finally your primary drink.

By creating their own language, Starbucks draws customers deeper into their brand while also creating a sense of community and shared values. To help new customers along, there is a 'Make It Your Drink' language guide and baristas are trained to repeat your order back in Starbucks lingo making a “small cappuccino with an extra shot and foam” into a “double-tall cap, extra dry”.

Create a multi-sensory experience

The Starbucks Experience is not just about coffee. It's about engaging all of your five senses with an experience that is warm and welcoming.

• Taste: With thousands of combinations to choose from, each order is personalized to the customer's liking. Samples are made upon request and any drink will be remade without question if you're not completely satisfied.
• Smell: Upon entering, the aroma of freshly ground coffee creates a full-bodied suggestive, rich aroma reinforcing a commitment to quality.
• Sound: In-house music curators carefully select interesting, cool, lesser known songs that keep customers relaxed and inspired. “It’s the music that we’d want to hear on Sunday morning in our home when we’re reading the paper and drinking coffee.”
• Sight: Stores are carefully designed so customers can watch and be inspired by the artistry that goes into the making of each drink. Soft colors, reclaimed wood, and pleasant lighting are all carefully selected to create a friendly ambiance.
• Touch: From the feel of the coffee mug to the high quality seating upholstery, everything is aimed at encouraging you to relax, unwind, and stay awhile.

Pay attention to the small details

Whether it's lowering the height of espresso machines so customers can better connect with baristas or providing round tables so that coffee-drinkers flying solo didn't feel alone, all details matter to Starbucks. Store designers even work as baristas first to better understand what is needed by both employees and customers.

Starbucks also uses daily checklists to maintain a strict focus on the small details. They cover everything from cleaning counters to checking the café every 10 minutes. But these checklists also do something else: Free-up partners (employees) to get out from behind the counter, observe the store from the customer's perspective, and look for new ways to deliver extraordinary experiences.

Connect and collaborate with customers online

Instead of using their website to speak at customers, Starbucks launched "My Starbucks Idea" in 2008, so they could speak with their customers.

The idea was simple. Create a platform where customers can share and suggest ideas on how to make their favorite Starbucks products even better. After creating a profile, customers could write, categorize, and submit their suggestions for others to comment and vote on. The most popular topics would prompt Starbucks 'idea partners' to chime in, collaborate, answer questions, and even begin making the idea a reality.

Although risky leaving partners to deal with potential trolls, Starbucks felt this was the most authentic and honest way to communicate with their customers. In its 10 year run, hundreds of ideas were implemented including remote pay, reusable cup sleeves, and the relaunch of salted caramel hot chocolate.

And yes, this took a lot of employee power adding up to 50 staff spending 8 hours a week monitoring posts.

Create ads that express your personality and embrace your values

During the Great Recession, McDonald's began running billboard ads attacking the high cost of Starbucks coffee with their Four Bucks is Dumb campaign. In response to this, CEO Howard Schultz worked with creative agency, BBDO, to create a commercial that didn't attack others, but instead, showcased Starbucks' personality and their belief in the power of community. On November 2nd, the following commercial was aired only once, during Saturday Night Live.

Forget traditional advertising, just surprise and delight people

Pop quiz: A lone coffee cup is resting on top of a cab as it slowly starts to pull away—what do you do?

If you are the type of person that runs up to warn the cab driver, you would have been pleasantly surprised to receive a Starbucks gift card from the cabbie.

This clever empty magnetic cup was used as a way for Starbucks to surprise and delight potential customers. Instead of advertising in traditional ways like billboards, Starbucks prefers to find ways to bring joy into people's lives. They have even been known to have unadvertised free ice cream socials on hot days and free cups of 'Calm' on Tax Day, as well.

Choose a brand name that sounds powerful

Believing that 'st' words sounded powerful, Starbucks founders were inspired by the character Starbuck in Moby Dick. The name fit as it "evoked the romance of the high seas and the seafaring tradition of the early coffee traders." Now all they needed to do was an 's' at the end to make it sound more "conversational."