Page 56 - The Starbucks Experience

Make It Your Own

the extra step of creating a culture in which partners expect
to be heard when they offer ideas.
Most business advances simply come from a persistent
focus on ways to make the customer’s life easier. Dina Cam-
pion, a Los Angeles district manager (who is credited in part
with the creation of Starbucks Frappuccino blended bever-
®
age), highlights drive-throughs in the category of customer
convenience: “At Starbucks, these came about absolutely
from our people listening to the desire of customers. People,
particularly women, kept telling our baristas that it would be
nice if they could drive through and get their coffee. In my
area we have a higher percentage of women in our customer
base; many of the people we serve are between their mid-
twenties and their late thirties. A lot of those women have
children. Getting out of your car with two kids in a car seat
to run in and get a cup of coffee can become a chore. Ulti- 41
mately, by listening to our customers, we recognized the con-
venience of drive-throughs, and in turn that listening has had
a huge impact on the business.”

Be Involved in the Community
Community involvement can take many forms, from creat-
ing a community meeting place, to supporting community
events, to staff volunteering in community-related activities.
Starbucks leadership encourages and supports engagement in
all of these areas. Starbucks store manager Nerieda Hernan-
dez shares a simple way in which Starbucks partners offered
their talents and their business’s space to the community.
“We had an open-mike night,” explains Nerieda. “Some
of our partners performed, and community members per-
formed. It started out small as we posted a bulletin board