Cindy’s sweet. At the end of our chat today, we started talking about ourselves. She’s a theatre major who once “wanted to change the world through art.” Now she’s older and money-wiser, and works within a different medium — Starbucks’ Corporate Social Responsibility department.

Of course, I know Cindy’s paid to sound green (though I did find her likable — I’m going for full disclosure here — no false pretenses at journalistic “neutrality”). I got a lot — A LOT — of “I agree”s and “I hear where you’re coming from”s. Flattering, but I have to say my convo with Ric of Groundwork — during which we disagreed quite frequently — was really more informative, engaging, and heartfelt.

That said, things are going to be different if you’re speaking to the enviro-conscious COO of a local coffee roaster, versus a cog in the great big international wheel that is Starbucks.

“I honestly think it’s cool,” Cindy said about the Starbucks Challenge. And she said that, once we finish tabulating the results and stuff, she’d love to follow up with us (I pointed her to the frequently updated del.icio.us link that does that for us. She was a self-described blog novice).

From our half-hour or so conversation, I personally am convinced that Cindy, as an individual, does support fair trade practices. Cindy sounded concerned that not all the Starbucks stores seemed to be aware of the fair-trade-on-demand policy. And she made a personal promise to follow up with all the district managers, store managers, etc. for the stores where customers couldn’t get fair trade coffee during the Starbucks Challenge, “to see where the message is getting lost.” Cindy readily admitted there may be flaws in the Starbucks communication system that’ll require fixing.

I’m not quite as sure about what changes Cindy can actually effect, however.

Cindy sounded somewhat removed from the actual practices (versus the written statements) that take place in Starbucks stores, despite the fact that she started out at Starbucks as a barista. She didn’t, for example, know whether or not Starbucks’ policies mandated that baristas resist customer requests for fair trade coffee by saying “We’re brewing (something else) today.”

From the reports we’ve gotten so far from challengers, it’s very, VERY clear that many baristas are trained not to make fair trade coffee until specifically asked for a French-pressed cup (read accounts here, here, here, and here — there are others). The question now is whether this practice is one mandated by the official training programs (manuals, etc.), or one that’s being more informally instituted by individual managers, etc. Certainly a contentious issue either way, but interesting to find out more about –

Cindy will check on that and get back to me, and she said she agrees that the tactic is uncool: “It puts the customer in a bad spot,” she said.

What I’m really happy about is that Cindy did clear up a lot of questions for me. For example, the Starbucks’ policy that mandated that stores brew fair trade coffee on the 20th of each month has been phased out, due to the new “Coffee of the Week” policy (I let her know that the phone reps are unaware of this change in policy). I also found out that Cafe Estima, the new fair trade blend, will be featured as the “Coffee of the Week” every two months (You can be sure City Hippy and I will be checking up on that). I also let Cindy know that Newnan, Georgia is completely unaware that Cafe Estima should be the Coffee of the Week this week — something else she said she’d look into.

My major personal internal conflicts regarding Starbucks: I wanna be sensitive to the fact that in a company with 7,302 stores in North America alone, communication isn’t gonna be perfect — It would, in my opinion, be a lil anal to demand error-free trickle-down of corporate policies, from CEO to barista.

That said, at what point can a blogger say, “Hey, you’re not doing what you said you would!”?

According to them, “Starbucks and the Fair Trade movement share common goals” (PDF here), but in actual practice — beyond press releases, PDFs made avaliable on Starbucks’ CSR website, and Cindy’s kind word of mouth — why is it that so few customers even know fair trade coffee is avaliable on request, and why is it that — even for the people who do — we still have to jump through hoops to get one lousy cup of socio-responsible coffee?

With Starbucks being as huge as it is, I feel that the CSR reps like Cindy are far, FAR removed from the reality of the situation in actual Starbucks stores. She can honestly be a fair trade advocate, with a greener heart than green LA girl. But will she, can she, make fair trade coffee more accessible for customers?

Well — We’re here to find out, on a more or less hourly basis, between City Hippy and me.

And as always, please let us know what you think, what you’re curious about in terms of this challenge (Transmogrified — I’m totally on top of your Qs — They’re getting their own post — This one’s already too long.) I vow — and I’m sure City Hippy would too — to respond to your concerns.

Stats update: Of my last 100 hits, 62 are from Starbucks (sbuxhost101.starbucks.com). Someone’s working late. Maybe I shouldn’t report these numbers, or readers will start using third-party ISPs — but I’ve developed an odd fascination with these stats –

**Update, 10/15/05: In its 2nd communication, Starbucks admits it has a “break down in customer service.”

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