Starbucks, Starbucks everywhere but not a drop of coffee to buy

I think that we should congratulate Howard Schultz. He has just closed every one of the 7,100 Starbucks retail outlets in the USA. True the company is facing problems but they are not shuttering the stores permanently. This is just for a few hours. From 5.30pm to 8.30 pm and the rationale… to go back to basics and give the staff training. This will be from how to wash the glasses to creating the perfect shot and everything in-between.
Schultz has witnessed the decline in both sales and stock value over the past months. But perhaps more critical is the grumblings from consumers that the coffee and the experience is just not what it used to be. Poor quality, ambivalent service and resulting unacceptably high prices were common complaints in stores and across the internet. The so called ‘third place’ not work and not home was a place that more and more people were abandoning - preferring cheaper alternatives with more utilitarian environments and experiences like…Dunkin’ Donuts and McDonald’s.
Not one to stay on the sidelines in a company where he was the public face Schultz has re taken control of the day-to-day operations and launched several initiatives to move the business out of reverse gear. This one is the latest.
So why do I think he should be congratulated…
He has realised that there is a real problem with the product and the customer experience. Unlike the norm today of trying the recover lost sales and margins by cost cutting alone, he recognises that improving the product and service is the best long term solution.
He has sent the strongest signal to the entire staff that what happens in the stores and with the customers is the number one priority of the organisation bar none. And put his money where his mouth is. How many times has staff training budgets been the first casualty of corporate cutbacks?
It is a sensational PR opportunity. Positively Bransonesque in its PR audacity. I suspect there will not be a newspaper, TV station, radio network around the globe that will not report on this story. Communicating both the problem and the solution.
Sure in the short term competitors will have done rather nicely from the closure but when the days tills have stopped ringing the long term benefits will, I feel sure, fall to Starbucks if and this is where the gamble must pay off the training works and the standards are kept up.
How many stores would you like to close until they get their service right…
David