Page 64 - The Starbucks Experience

Everything Matters

execution requires diligent attention to everything that goes
into the customer’s visit. Much of that focus can be found in
the physical environment that sets the stage for the Starbucks
Experience. For this reason, every aspect of the business that
touches the coffee—creating a third place, ensuring the high-
est level of product quality, excelling at customer service, and
building a rewarding culture—must reflect the highest stan-
dards possible.

Everything Matters: Creating an Environment
for the Starbucks Experience
Starbucks management understands that a competitive
advantage occurs when everyone in a company appreciates
that nothing is trivial and that customers notice everything.
As a result, Starbucks leaders have taken great pains to 49
execute their strategy precisely—right down to the last
coffee bean. Perhaps as important, leadership has worked
tirelessly to perfect every aspect of the store design, mak-
ing sure to balance functionality with a warm and friendly
ambience.
As an article by the Corporate Design Foundation, a non-
profit education and research organization dedicated to
improving the effectiveness of businesses, states,

The Starbucks sensation is driven not just by the qual-
ity of its products but by the entire atmosphere sur-
rounding the purchase of coffee: the openness of its
store space, . . . interesting menu boards, the shape of
its counter,... the cleanliness of the floorboards. . . .
What Starbucks recognized long before its imitators was
that the art of retailing coffee went way beyond prod-