Page 82 - The Starbucks Experience

Everything Matters

quickly because they can anticipate customer experiences and
learn from positive and negative scenarios. They experience
accelerated learning. More seasoned partners feel the sce-
narios acknowledge their efforts with customers. They appre-
ciate that the company as a whole is giving attention to what
they do by sharing their stories. When a positive story is pre-
sented, we list the store number at the bottom so everybody
knows who did something right. The stories then serve as a
form of recognition as well.”
Ultimately, any business leader can look for ways to use
customer or client feedback as a learning tool. Such training
not only shows employees how to excel at their jobs, but also
motivates them, keeps them engaged, and builds team spirit.
Starbucks managers have seen benefits from other train-
ing initiatives as well. In addition to providing straightfor-
ward customer feedback to partners, Starbucks leaders create 67
playful ways to emphasize problem solving consistent with
the Five Ways of Being. Specifically, they have developed a
training game called Starbucks Experience from the Inside
Out. The goal of the game is to secure a human connection
with the customer. To do this, the partner tries to understand
more than just the customer’s external presentation and
attempts to understand the customer’s internal experience.
The game uses dice, game cards, and a game tablet and
starts with a role-playing exercise between two partners, one
who plays the barista and another who plays the customer.
In the game, the designated customer reads context informa-
tion that is written on the outside of a game card. It may say
something like, “I’m shopping for whole bean coffee, and I
stop and smile at the barista.” Then the “customer” rolls the
dice to determine what’s happening in the store, how many
people are in line, the time of day, and other factors that