In March of this year, Starbucks celebrated its 40th anniversary. On March 30, 1971, Starbucks opened its first store in Seattle, USA. Today, the coffee chain has opened 17,000 stores around the world. A few years ago, I interviewed Schultz several times. When I looked through the interview records, I noticed that Schultz said in the interview that the word “passion” was much more than the word “coffee.” Isn’t Starbucks a coffee company?
“I heard you talking about people, customer service and the experience at Starbucks, but I haven’t heard you talk about the word ‘coffee’. Are you not a coffee company?” I asked Schultz.
Schultz replied: “We are not doing coffee business. We just sell coffee as a product. We do business. We recruit hundreds of employees every week and provide 60 million customers every week. Service, this is all interpersonal.”
Starbucks does not sell coffee, but sells interpersonal communication. This concept of Starbucks is inseparable from Howard Schultz.
After Schultz traveled from Italy in the 1980s and returned to the United States, he was committed to reshaping the café culture and setting the tone for Starbucks. He did not say: “We want to set up a chain of coffee shops to provide customers with delicious coffee.” Remember, “coffee” is not a symbol of the Starbucks brand. Schultz said: “We want to create a third space for customers between the workplace and the family.” In Schultz’s view, this “third space” is an interesting and irresistible place to talk. .
What is Starbucks’ “third space” like?
On March 16, 2004, Starbucks launched an in-store music service where customers can drink coffee while wearing headphones and use HP’s tablet to choose their favorite music. There are now 250,000 songs to choose from.
“The tens of millions of customers who walk into Starbucks every week come here not only to drink something, but also to enjoy the lifestyle that surrounds coffee.” Olin, who served as CEO of Starbucks from 2000 to 2005 Smith said. He believes that music can make Starbucks look more like a home.
Business innovations like this have been more than once in Starbucks. At the end of August 2002, Starbucks cooperated with T-Mobile International and Hewlett-Packard Co., Ltd. to launch a wireless Internet service. Customers can send and receive mail, surf the Internet, watch videos, and download files in the coffee shop through laptops and handheld computers.
In addition, Starbucks is also working with supermarket chains to open coffee shops into supermarkets; in partnership with Ice Cream, selling ice cream…
Next time you have to set the tone for a company’s business philosophy, or when you want to make a slide report, don’t forget to ask yourself: “What industry are I doing?” Remember, the industry mentioned here. “The answer is not always obvious.”
