Has Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks, ever read Catch-22? Seems likely…what seems less than likely is that he has ever tried the sign-up process for his own new Internet service. Read on…
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This afternoon I had some work to do and I figured it was time to head to Starbucks and try the new, free AT&T-powered Internet that CEO Howard Schultz seems so proud of.
I knew I’d need a Starbucks card in order to sign up (stretching the definition of “free,” but that didn’t bug me). What I didn’t expect was what happened next: nothing. Once I bought the card and signed up with my powerbook, I couldn’t do anything. Instead, Starbucks/ATT gave me a message to the following effect (this is a close paraphrase): “now that you’ve signed up, please check your email account for your access verification code, so that you can complete the log-in process and start using your new Starbucks Internet account.”
But remember, Starbucks: at this point your customer (me) doesn’t have email access. This is why I’ve bought your now-accursed card and gone through the signup process in the first place. So now you are asking me to drive home and check my email on my existing account, and click on a link get an access code before I can log in!
I’m something of a fan of Howard Schultz. He seems like a good guy: he made it his personal mission, for example (and it’s quite an extraordinary example!) to provide health-care benefits even to part-time workers. His autobiography, Pour Your Heart Into It, wasn’t bad at all. So it’s in a let’s-get-back-on-track spirit that I offer this simple tip, a one all us proprietors should take to heart: before you spend your time on minutiae like changing the color of your Starbucks cups again, refocus on the actual feeling of being a customer in your own stores. And what it takes to keep a customer in the store.
Because by the time I got home and checked my email for the access code, I remembered I do have Internet access at home. (It is 2008.) And once I was home, I started to feel my longstanding venti chai habit might be breakable after all.
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I work at Starbucks. I know fully well the problem in which you speak of. Catch-22 definitely explains it!
Thanks, Valerie! Can you ponder for our readers (if you feel comfortable doing so) how this could come about — are Starbucks’ feedback mechanisms failing currently? In a smaller company, certainly management would quickly hear/witness customer frustration if they accidentally designed such a clunky system in the first place…
I do not speak on behalf of Starbucks(let’s get that out of the way first), but I can see where the disconnect happens. The issue is not simply a Starbucks issue. Remember who is offering the wireless: AT &T. And on the site, there is a number to call to fix the problem. This brings in a new problem: AT&T’s customer service, and how they handle the issue. Starbucks as a whole is now taken out of the equation. Yes, in a smaller, more seamlessly run company customer response would dictate a change more quickly. But, this is a problem involving more than just one company, and so communication must go through more channels. All that to say, I don’t think that Starbucks feedback mechanisms are failing, I feel that it can be cloudy when one does not know who to “respond” to. If I were a customer, and my latte tasted different than what I think it should taste like, it is a simple fix for the barista to re-make my drink and correct the mistake. The channel of communication is clear. So, those are just a few of my thoughts, and again, not necessarily the thoughts and opinions of the Starbucks Corporation.