Starbucks
Summary
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The roastery showed us the future of Starbucks, representing a higher class coffee establishments that offer higher quality coffee with a “Charlie in the Chocolate Factory” type feel. Within the roastery, the culture definitely represented the “hang out” feel that Starbucks strives to establish in all of their restaurants. The coffee that they offered was no ordinary coffee. While a typical Starbucks will offer a brew that may be a combination of beans from a variety of South American farms, this specialty coffee is brewed from beans from just one elite farm.
Starbuck’s provided storytellers that made the visit more of an
experience than just a normal visit to a coffee shop. This
represented the ubiquitous Starbucks mentality that says that
Starbucks is more than a coffee shop, but also a place where
consumers go for an experience. Within the roastery, enhancing
the experience aspect, you have the opportunity to see the
coffee beans as they are heated, sorted, so on and so forth.
Like a ride at Disney, they even have their own coffee-themed
gift shop to commemorate the Starbucks experience. "Leading the Starbucks Way" explains how not only Starbucks employees are so passionate about their products, but also how Starbucks has shot into notoriety and developed its popularity through establishing human connections, and this theme was evidently still prevalent today with the passion of our guide and the Starbucks employees. In fact, Starbucks has become so popular that they no longer put their name on their cups; they trust the general population to see the logo and know the brand.
Key Takeaway
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There is always the potential to make money in new ways by creatively rethinking a business model. The model that Starbucks uses has been very successful for them, but they are now realizing that not all of their customers want to pay between $2-7 for a cup of coffee; some are willing to spend more. By specializing and utilizing the power of the brand, they stand to make money at an incredible margin by offering coffee that is more personalized, being from a specific region.
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The Starbucks Roastery experience also showed how good customer service had the ability to make a trip to a coffee shop into a full experience. Part of the experience was created by the knowledgable guide who toured us around the facility. He was extremely well informed on where the beans came from, the process to turn the beans into beans viable for brewing, and he was able to answer every question that we asked him.
