Member Article

Starbucks: 3 Inspirational Ways it Develops its Staff

Most companies understand the need for investing in external branding and marketing efforts. However, for companies that rely on high volume of face-to-face customer interactions, it is ultimately the thousands of front-line employees that create the experience and face of the brand.

Starbucks almost singlehandedly revolutionised the coffee industry by introducing a new coffee era that is made up of Lattes, Macchiatos and Frappucinos. However, Starbucks stands for more than just a cup of coffee; it’s about the relaxed atmosphere, the excellent locations, and the personal nature of the product/customer service. Its baristas have been the deliverers of this message.

It’s the company’s training program that has played a big role in its worldwide success, but what exactly makes Starbucks’ training stand out? Let’s have a look at 3 unique methods it uses:

1. Starbucks University

Starbucks has started to offer its own classes, called Barista Basics and Barista 101, which can even earn their students college credit. For example, the City University of Seattle, offers one-and-a-half credits for each class and three credits a piece for higher-level management courses.

Other colleges also recognise the Starbucks training for academic credit through the American Council on Education’s College Credit Recommendation Service; a service that reviews and approves or disapproves workplace courses. It’s up to colleges and universities whether they are happy to accept the credits or not, but 2,000 institutions have already given their approval.

2. Turning a Complaint into a Latte

Starbucks’ baristas can react fast and serve you in double speed because they have become masters in the art of repeatable routines through extensive training and drilling. Starbucks employees have dozens of routines which they can apply when things become hectic. There is the ‘Connect, Discover and Respond’ system for taking orders when there are a rising number of people waiting in the queue, or the ‘What What Why’ approach to communicate or to give criticism. This is why you can walk into a Starbucks and anticipate exactly what you can expect.

Starbucks discovered, for example, that many of their employees were having problems dealing with cranky under-caffeinated customers. Therefore, it developed a series of steps for their staff to go through to help them improve the way they respond. It is called the ‘Latte Method’ of responding to unpleasant situations and it involves:

• Listen to the customer
• Acknowledge their complaint
• Take action to resolve the problem
• Thank the customer for bringing the situation to their attention
• Explain the customer why the problem occurred

The staff can work out their own personal ways to handle each step and then they have to role play it over and over again in difficult situations with imaginary customers, until it becomes automatic.

3. Starbucks Brews Inspiration for its Employees

Recently, Starbucks also invested a whopping $35 million in Barista loyalty by organising a Leadership Lab conference. The nearly 400,000-square-foot immersive “Leaders’ Lab” walked the participants through a two-hour interactive journey that brought Starbucks’ mission statement and leadership imperatives to life. By bringing in 1,000 lighting instruments, 445 chain motors, 120 speakers, 21 projection screens, and 5,000 live coffee plants into the conference centre in Houston, Starbucks pulled out all of the stops to enthuse its employees.

The goal of the event was to energise and inspire nearly 10,000 store managers, connecting them with the company’s core values and motivating them to be just as enthusiastic about its lattes as the caffeine aficionados they serve them to. By turning the conference centre into a Starbucks theme park, the Leadership Lab provided effective training to its employees in a way that fits Starbucks’ corporate culture. However, not all companies are as theatrical as Starbucks, so training should vary accordingly.

Starbucks is living, and successful, proof of the importance of training. For companies who are inspired by these examples to provide more creative training to their staff, but lack the internal resource, there are many global training companies who consult on staff development. So there’s little excuse not to invest on creating a more brand-enthused culture that benefits both staff and customer loyalty.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by GP Strategies .