Content Marketing Today

Authenticity at Starbucks: Coffee and People, Yes. The Corporation, No

Bureaucrats are bouncing baristas, as they move to shut down 600 Starbucks stores. 

It may not be the same everywhere, but in our Southwest corner of Florida, Starbucks is shutting down nine of their stores.  This is likely to have an impact on their local reputation that may well be replicated around the country.

As far as I’m concerned, the Starbucks experience is as much about the people who look after you as it is about the coffee.  They do a brilliant job of hiring so that even though they don’t pay gigantic wages, they manage to staff every store with a set of employees who care about what they do and about the needs of their customers.  Those employees are the all-important people component of their content marketing.

I might be wrong, but it looks to me like faraway bureaucrats have made decisions about their customers and about their employees that might have a short term positive affect on their stock price, but is not going to endear them to the communities in which they operate.

Here’s what’s going on within our Bonita Springs microcosm of Southwest Florida:

• They are shutting down three of four stores, each of which is located adjacent to a critical mass of local coffee drinkers. Each of the doomed locations is from a one half mile to 2 miles from that population center.
• The one remaining store will be four to 6 miles from that same population center.
• Each of the soon to be shuttered locations have from good to great locations, with lovely interior and exterior settings.
• The remaining store, although within a nice new shopping center, Coconut Point, is on its northern fringe–and is not within easy walking distance of most of the trendy retail shops.  Moreover, it’s setting is much less pleasant than those of the stores being shut down.
• The employees here, as everywhere, have not been told when their individual store will shut down.  They know only that they will be given 30 days notice once the word comes down.
• These unlucky baristas are somehow expected to provide the same level of cheery, thoughtful service in the face of an uncertain future.  Who could blame them for being a little cranky?  Surprisingly, they still do a fine job of looking after their customers, albeit with a somewhat bittersweet air.

Authenticity Out the Window Along with the Baristas!

Perhaps I’m going off the deep end with my rant, but I know I’m not alone as a ‘ Save Our Starbucks’ movement has arisen around the country and in our community.

I believe Starbucks has forgotten something very important.  When you place so much of your positioning on authenticity, you had better behave authentically not only with your customers, but with your employees.

In our local market, they have made some dumb tactical moves by eliminating the stores closest to the most coffee drinkers.  But their big strategic mistake is to treat their employees shabbily as a result of their own bureaucratic screw ups that led to overbuilding stores and overpromising investors.    They are now in the process of alienating customers all over the country who have grown fond of their local baristas and who empathize with their uncertain status.  The Starbucks experience is as much about the people as it is about the coffee.  These days, it’s easy to find good coffee.  But it is always hard to find great people.  And, now for Starbucks,it may also be hard to find great customers.

As for me, the closest Starbucks will be 4 miles away and at $ 4 a gallon gasoline, that’s about 3 miles too far.  So, I guess we’ll be buying Peet’s coffee over the Internet and brewing it at home.