By I read an article about Starbucks in Sunday’s paper. Starbucks has been struggling lately. Last week they showed a 7% drop in global same-store sales referencing “a pronounced traffic decline”. The evolution or more aptly de-evolution of the Starbucks experience has coffee customers looking elsewhere to feed their caffeine addiction. A new CEO, Brian Niccol, was brought in to shake things up. The full letter to the company is posted on Starbucks website here. You can read it at your leisure. I have extracted the kernel of truth that is applicable to any company that has client facing staff = service is a key part of the success of your business. The moment a company starts to devalue the service provided by its team, customers feel it.
Here’s how Mr. Niccol described the service experienced by many customers today, “It can feel transactional, menus can feel overwhelming, product is inconsistent, the wait too long or the handoff too hectic.” All of those negative experiences turns people off especially when they consider the premium cost around a cup of coffee. As he noted “there’s a shared sense that we have drifted from our core.”
I almost fell out of my chair this morning when I read that…because I’m hearing similar expressions of concern as I talk to my clients about their current RMIS provider’s service experience. Response time is slow; communication is lacking; the client knows more about the account (and software) than the team supporting them. [All of this is great for me, btw]
No seriously. The reality is most folks are willing to accept a pretty low level of service, so when you reach a point where customers are bolting, it’s almost too late.
Mr. Niccol has given himself 100 days to turn his ship around. I wish him the best. I hope that he is successful. I also hope that other companies that have drifted from their core and perhaps are not providing the service clients expect (and deserve) will see this as a wake up call.
A company president once told me that employees were the greatest expense AND greatest asset a company has. They are the differentiator. But the shift to viewing your employees, particularly your service team, more as an expense than an asset will cause those employees to depart…as well as clients. You can see it on yelp reviews or glass door reviews. Most of the time the product becomes a commodity. Clients/Customers remember and make decisions on the level of support they receive.
In my particular industry it boils down to this: Are clients getting their questions answered in a timely manner? Is their support team adding value or detracting?
The answer to these questions determine if a customer feels valued AND feels that they are getting what they paid for.