the-attaction-of-starbuckss-products(星巴克产品的吸引力).docx

The attraction of Starbuckss product By Outback ChenIntroductionStarbucks is an incredible multinational corporation that owns over 16,000 coffee shops around the world with over a hundred million regular customers. As we can see that advertisements of Starbucks are seldom shown in the media, for what reasons Starbucks wins so many customers. In this essay, some reasons about the product of this “largest coffee kingdoms attraction” causing the popularity will be analyzed. It is clear that the product in Starbucks coffee shops includes both their items for sale as well as services they provided and these two parts will be discussed in this essay.Starbuckss productsIt is easy to know that the main product for a coffee shop is coffee. The popularity of Starbucks deeply relies on the high quality of its coffee beans and its emphasis on its CSR based on its products. High quality of coffee bean There is no doubt that the quality of coffee provided, to a large extent, depends on the quality of the coffee bean used. Therefore, to make sure customers requirements can be satisfied; Starbucks purchase excellent coffee beans (Arabica) from the places producing tasty coffee beans all over the world. However, the largest difference between Starbucks and other coffee related companies is this company does not purchase raw materials from those producers who can make use of economies of scale to reduce their costs. The key point for Starbucks staffs to pay attention to is the quality of the raw material. The purchasing strategy is that they often purchase coffee beans from local farmers producing outstanding coffee beans but in a small amount (Starbucks tries to build a long-term co-operation with those partners and offers them some premiums when doing acquisitions) (Schultz 1999) .Apart from the quality of the raw material, how to conserve them is another important point. Generally speaking, the duration for maintaining the coffee beans best tastes is three days after it has been collected. Thus, without any other advanced techniques, sales people must sell their coffee in three days after purchasing raw materials to ensure the quality of coffee sold. However, there are over 16,000 stores all over the world and it is not realistic for Starbucks to sell their coffee beans in 3 days after the procurements. To solve this problem, Starbucks spent plenty of their funds to develop a package for fresh coffee beans which can prolong the saving time from 3 days to 30 days with exceptional quality. (Michelli 2007) It is clear that the quality of Starbucks coffee is guaranteed by both its high qualitative standards of raw materials and its techniques to save raw materials for a long period.CSR influences productsAs a new business era comes, some factors other than products or services, for example, the impact of environment and corporate contribution to the society, are paid more attention to. Therefore, here comes a new content-CSR. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is the expectation in society that companies are accountable for the social and ethical effects of their behavior (BPP learning media 2013). Since 1990s, CSR was emphasized by the former American president Bill Clinton and more and more companies pay much attention to CSR. From then on, Starbucks has paid more attention to the CSR of this company and they tries to contribute to the society.The CSR of Starbucks focuses on the environment protection, donations and ethical procurement.Environment protection Coffee shops, undoubtedly, lead to many pollutions because they use the paper-made cup as containers for customers to drink at stores or taking out. This actually makes the planet became much dirty and lead to the wastage of wooden resources as well. So Starbucks tries to do something to deal with this problem.In addition to sell coffee, some sophisticated cups are also sold in Starbucks coffee shop. Starbucks company promises that a cup of coffee for free will be provided after buying a durable cup from Starbucks as well as using the cup as a container for the coffee without pay(this is suitable in America and may not be available in China). The aim of this policy is to encourage their customers to reduce the chance of using containers made by paper (Schultz 1999). By doing this, Starbucks succeeds to decrease the usage of their disposable cups and this policy is also used by other coffee retailers.At the same time, solutions of recycling disposable cups and food packages are explored by Starbucks. To reduce the pollutions, 10% post-consumer recycled paper fiber is used in each disposable cup (Starbucks 2012). This helps Starbucks not only contribute to environment protection, but also reduce the costs of raw material of the paper-made cup. Moreover, a new hot-cup sleeve (EarthSleeve) was introduced into Starbucks in America and Canada in 2012 and about 100,000 trees can be saved a year (Starbucks 2012). These two policies reduce the usage of paper and the reduction in cutting trees contributes to solve the greenhouse effect. More importantly, this policy attracts those people who care about the environment protection to become regular customers of Starbucks, because they believe that drinking Starbucks coffee instead of enjoying coffee from other manufacturers enables them reduce the adverse impact on environment, especially the impact on emissions of carbon dioxide.Donations Donations, generally speaking, seem have little relations with products. However, Starbucks made a new business model that establishes an access to contact donations with products and attract those people who are keen in charities to purchase its products. In many countries, for example, America and Canada, a kind of mineral water (Ethos) form Starbucks self-owned brand is sold in its coffee bars. 5 cents will be donated to help those children in poverty as each bottle of water sold (Terefenko 2007). According to the data from Starbucks, more than $7.38 million has been endowed. This action makes the public think that Starbucks is a corporation which aims to fulfill its social responsibilities to help those children needing to be helped. Moreover, this charitable action appeals more customers to buy Ethos water even with higher price because they believe that the added part of the price will be donated to the children in poor areas. In fact, this action helps not only the children obtain supporting funds but also enhance the profitability of the product (mineral water in Starbucks is sold $0.2 higher than similar products. Aside from the $0.05 donated, $0.15 will become the additional part of Starbucks selling profit after selling each bottle of water The difference between the prices of mineral water came from my experience in August 2013 at Berkeley California.). For Starbucks, donation-related products let the public know more about the corporate culture for the society and it does help the company improve the reputation as well as attract tons of regular customers.Ethical procurementEthical problems, currently, has been paid more attention by international organizations as well as the public. For a retailing company, the largest part of ethical problem is that whether the source is ethical or not. To meet the new requirements of ethics, in 1998, Starbucks came up with a new concept - ethical purchasing.In Starbucks, officers in purchasing department finish acquisitions of raw material with their farming partners who are capable of meeting the ethical standards of Starbucks only. These standards are called C.A.F.E. Practices C.A.F.E. Practices is a procedure that ensures that Starbucks is sourcing sustainably grown and processed coffee by evaluating the economic, social and environmental aspects of coffee production. (/starbucks-cafe-practices) (This will be talked about later). By following the practices, the sustainability of procuring raw material is guaranteed.As a company which aims to contribute to the planet when retailing, C.A.F.E Practice is operated as a regulation within Starbucks. In this document, many factors are required. To name a few, as a farming partner of the king of coffee, At least 50% of productive area with slopes of less than 20% is covered by shade trees and/or cover crops/vegetation and the farmer must promise that pesticides will not be used to grow their coffee beans or cocoas (Company 2013). Starbuckss concentration on environment protection does a favor in attracting those people who pursue environment-friendly products. More importantly, their regulations about decreasing impacts on environment are very effective and some suspense from opponents is contradicted by what Starbuckss members actually do. Starbuckss serviceAside from its products, service, to great extent, is another factor that affects the result whether the customer satisfaction is high or not. Therefore, another factor that makes Starbucks coffee bars attractive is the thoughtful service they provided. In the next part, the attraction of service in Starbucks will be analyzed.The source of brilliant service - core corporate cultureSince now, many people have done tons of researches about why Starbucks can provide so successful and unforgettable services for their customers. The answer was given in 2011 by Howard Schultz, the Chief Executive Officer of Starbucks. He said, each partner In Starbucks, employees are called partners instead because Howard Schultz wants everyone in Starbucks can have a feeling of working in a big family (Schultz, Onward 2011). was guided by the core corporate culture - humanism. Howard emphasizes that the key point for Starbucks is that each partner should consider the feeling of customers, colleagues, and even competitors, so that they can provide services that are comfortable to others. To achieve humanism, a five B rules is developed. The five Bs are be welcoming, be genuine, be considerable, be lerowledgeable The word lerowledgeable means knowledgeable., and be involved (Michelli 2007) and the effects of the five Bs are shown in the daily service.Be welcoming (passions in providing thoughtful service)Being welcoming is an important factor that will influence the customer satisfaction. It is hard to imagine that customers are treated indifferently after entering a bar or a restaurant. If they are treated without any passion, the retailer will lose their consumers. Therefore, in order to be welcoming, Starbuckss partners actually do a lot.From many customers point of view, whether the waiter in a bar or caf is passionate or not relates to whether they understand their customers. In Starbucks, what makes me feel incredible is that the beverage which consumers are going to order, in many cases, is being made before customers decisions are told to servers. For example, I usually go to a Starbucks bar at China International Exhibition Center. I would like to order a venti vanilla latte each time and after several weeks what I would like to order will be made before it is ordered. This behavior makes customers feel very warm because they are fully understood. Honestly, this is not difficult to be realized. However, remembering regular customers demands can only be done by those people who are keen in providing thoughtful service. Moreover, aside from employees own attitude towards service, Starbucks encouragement to let customers develop personality in services also plays a crucial role to make being welcoming come true. Employees in Starbucks are encouraged to satisfy with variety of customers needs with their personalized service (Michelli 2007) and this makes customers rarely hear denied answers even strange requirements are came up with.Thus, that is to say that being welcoming is the common outlook of both Starbucks Corporation and this help Starbucks realize what is impossible to be done in other food-related enterprises.Be genuineThe quality of service is determined by to what extent service providers are willing to offer the service that makes clients satisfy with. Therefore, apart from be welcoming, a willingness to provide appropriate services from waiters heart also plays an extremely role.To be genuine, it is neither a difficult way nor an easy way. What needed to be done is to communicate with customers, get their feelings and give them feedbacks. So, in Starbucks, it is normal to see the coffee-makers are chatting with their customers. During the chatting, the maker of coffee can get some useful information. For example, some emotional information more than whether customers are happy or not, for example, what kind of atmosphere customers are likely to stay at. These chats not only help Starbucks staffs know what they should do to make the bar better, but also make customers feel warm. Then, if possible, some feedbacks would be given to the customers who provide the ideas. These behaviors let customers feel the willingness of Starbucks partners to provide services that make them satisfy.Be considerableBe considerable means others feelings are also needed to be thought of. This actually has been pointed out. Be considerable, to some extent, relates to the CSR of the charitable part. To care about others difficulties and help those people to work them out. Starbuckss Etho Water has been figured out in previous part and this is a typical example that Starbucks is company that focus on being considerable.Be lerowledgeableBeing lerowlegeable, generally speaking, means that waiters should have expertise to provide satisfactory services.Education before working is implemented by many retailing corporations to ensure that new-hired employees are capable to provide good-quality services. So does Starbucks. However, what makes this company to be different from other food retailing companies like McDonald is that some more professional training will be provided during the career and the spare time of employees will not be made use of, which may makes the company sacrifices some profits. The most typical example happened in 2008. At that time, over 7,100 Starbucks bars in North America area stopped running for an afternoon to provide some trainings for baristas to help them enhance their skills of steaming milk (Mui 2008). Though these training activities may lead to some loss on Starbuckss profit, it enhances the expertise and level of knowledge as well as the quality of its service.Be involvedBeing involved means taking part in the daily activities and this makes employees feel that they are members of the company and what they do will have a crucial influence in corporation.Employees are encouraged to make suggestions for the management and each email of advice will receive the reply (Schultz, Onward 2011). This motivates employees to communicate with the top management level and enhance the belongings. Everyone in Starbucks considers themselves as a crucial part of the enterprise and their hardworking contributes a lot to the development of Starbucks.Practices in service - concentrating on detailsIt is true that Starbucks establishment has changed Americans view about coffee from a kind of drink for preventing people from falling asleep to a beverage for enjoying their life. However, with the development of this industry, many competitive enterprises have entered this attractive market. Even some companies, for instance, McDonald, have developed some products which are similar to Starbuckss products and have claimed that they will dominate the market which used to be dominated by Starbucks. In order to remain the competitive advantages in coffee industry, more attention of Starbucks is paid to the details and these details do help the company defend its territory. When going to McDonald ordering for a cup of coffee, the coffee which is liquid would be fallen into a cup which is made of paper. This process seems to be acceptable. However, with careful thought, some questions may be generated in peoples mind: Does the coffee bought is fresh or not and is that possible that the coffee has been finished for a long time? These questions would not be worried about in Starbucks because Starbuckss procedures require every partner in Starbucks to make coffee after it is ordered. In Starbuck, customers always see coffee beans lying in the coffee machine and some of them would be polished into coffee bean powers and then transferring into a cup of delicious coffee after it is ordered. At the same time, some tasty smells of coffee would be sent and that makes clients feel comfortable. Plus, this making process may let customers think that staffs in Starbucks is more expertise and the coffee there should be more excellent. Not only does the detail offset customers worry a