After emailing Anna and Roger to “Seriously though, be there ON TIME and ready to go,” I ended up sweating and panting into the Starbucks meeting at Robertson & Pico a minute or 2 late. Yes, everyone else was already there. I really shoulda taken it easier on the champers last night –
Luckily, Cafe Estima was being French pressed. And we got lil samples of biscotti. And eggnog latte. And peppermint latte.
And, most importantly, we got a few concrete answers about fixing this “break down in customer service” — at least for the Starbucks in the LA area.
The skinny: Within 3 months, all LA-area stores should, at the very least, have French presses and serve fair trade coffee to those who ask firmly.
It may still not be EASY to get a cup at this point — Customers may have to ask specifically for Cafe Estima, and specifically for a French press. They may have to haggle with the baristas about the price.
But everyone who’s persistent should be able to walk out with a cup of fair trade certified coffee. No one should be told, “We don’t do French presses at this store.” No one should get a simple “Nope,” as some challengers have.
And in 9 months, stores should be able to follow the French-press-on-demand policy by the book, immediately following a customer’s request for fair trade coffee with an offer of a Cafe Estima by French press.
I should hope so, cuz that’ll be 3-4 months after the new training video comes out informing baristas about this very policy. And I’d thought THAT was a really far off thing –
Ok — I know some of you will think I should’ve pushed harder. But dude, it was like pulling teeth trying to get anything firm out at all. I’d ask for specifics, then get a lot of details about why it’s hard to make it happen but how Starbucks understands our frustrations. I’d ask again, and get more words about how activists are great and Starbucks is working on the issue.
Finally, I asked for just ANY kind of timeline they felt would be realistic, “even if it’s like a year.” That’s when I got the 9 months thing from Brenda, a district manager. Marisol, a regional director, upped the ante with the 3 months thing.
And to be fair, it does seem like the probs with this fair trade on demand thing is due to much larger training, communication, and customer service problems within Starbucks that are not fair trade specific. They don’t speak all that well for Starbucks, but at least it’s not some nefarious evil anti-fair trade plan.
In fact, Pat, the district manager who pulled the meeting together, said that a memo was sent out telling LA-area stores to brew Cafe Estima as backup once they run out of their holiday blend. Everyone was very sweet and generous with coffee. And, in the end, we did get some concrete answers.
Then on my way out, I took this picture (right) that promotes Starbucks’ 10 cents off for bringing your own mug policy — which promptly got me into trouble. Marisol said it was “ok” cuz it’s “for a good cause,” but basically told me to quit that. It appears the Starbucks picture ban still stands (see 3rd-to-last Q on the FAQ).
Your thoughts? About the fair trade developments, I mean. Not the pic ban, which I can work around easily enough…
Hey Siel —
Glad you made it to your meeting! It was very interesting to meet you, and see you all sweaty and panting — guess it must have been the prospect of all those free samples. (GD&R!)
Seriously, I was far more pleased with the outcome, I guess, than you were; as a former lawyer and amateur politico, I can say that sbx has responded with extreme speed for an international corporation.
Also, getting a commitment to a metric — 90% offer of French pressed at the right price without any effort to delay or redirect, served within five or six minutes — is extraordinary. You will be able to measure this specifically, and could even go back and reanalyse your own data with this in mind. In each month, what percentage of challenges met this criteria? Month by month? Maybe a special category for challenges that met the standard when prompted.
Given, also, what I discovered about sbx training and what we confirmed, this is pretty reasonable. That is, the apparently uniform “stall” or “redirect” we have experience was often an artifact of their customer service training to suggest something that might meet your needs when they thought they couldn’t meet your needs. This artifact could account for half my failures alone.
In addition, the fact that sbx previously differentiated on price as to the METHOD of making the coffee — offering any coffee at a premium if you wanted it pressed over standard brewing, accounts for a few more. At least some of the Baristas think you and I want the coffee cooking method and should ask for it specifally — they truly don’t understand that what you want is the coffee type, whatever it takes to make it.
The rest of my failures can be chalked up to not understanding what Fair Trade is, thinking its a Starbucks blend or Starbucks invented term of art, like their “CAFE” practices, etc. This is clearly a training problem on their part.
So, all in all, I am far less pessimistic over the results you have achieved; not only have you gotten major movement, and clear concessions, you have a commitment to an unambiguous metric. They will either pass or fail, and the blogosphere will be abuzz (not to mention a few print outlets) if sbx fails the terms of its own challenge.
Even better, there will not be any big surprises nine months hence: you can track the metric month by month, and show if challenges are meeting the standard with increasing frequency or not.
As noted, all in all a superb job of moving a major company in the right direction; congratulations!
Comment by Roger, Gone Green — December 16, 2005 @ 6:43 pm
Hmm… Maybe you’re right. I just re-read my comment about the Child Welfare League of America on my post yesterday too, and am beginning to think I’ve become a bit too cynical and suspicious…
Will mull it over drinks tonight in Silverlake, and post tomorrow :) Thanks for being there! Dude, you were so funny suddenly throwing in the whole local paper thing — after cautioning Anna and I about keeping the message simple! WTF? ;) Nothing against it — Just thought it was hilar –
Comment by Siel — December 16, 2005 @ 7:27 pm
I like to read! :~
Comment by Roger, Gone Green — December 17, 2005 @ 6:54 am
Bravo Siel. I agree with Roger. I think you’ve done great to move a huge company like Sbx to respond to your challenge. Baby steps work wonders too..as long as steps are consistent toward what they’re promise. You’re a star in this field, Siel ;-) I know there are more works to do…there will always works to do ’til the end of our time. Once again, Big Congrats to you and all your supporters.
Comment by Maya — December 19, 2005 @ 11:49 pm