Insightful Business Lessons from Starbucks and full Case Study

You might be knowing that coffee is highly consumed by many people around the globe. According to many surveys, people found coffee as a more effective and recharging beverage to have. But while drinking a cup of coffee have you ever wondered that this coffee has also worth to million dollars from a business point of view. The biggest coffee serving chain in the world is the best example of business and marketing to the other existing coffee chains of the world. We all have heard about costly coffees served at startups, and seen on the social media platforms that people love to post pictures with a cup of Starbucks coffee. And if you have visited any Starbucks outlet, your tongue might be addicted to the taste served there. But have you ever wondered, What makes Starbucks so special? Why people go mad over Starbucks? Read the full blog to learn the top marketing strategies followed by Starbucks and to implement them in businesses also.

History of Starbucks

The starting journey of the company was not like a coffee serving company. But their mainstream was to sell coffee beans. The idea of selling roasted coffee beans was started by an English teacher Jerry Baldwin, history teacher Zev Siegl, and writer Gordon Bowker were inspired to sell high-quality coffee beans and equipment by coffee roasting entrepreneur Alfred Peet after he taught them his style of roasting beans. The name of Alfred Peet and Howard Schultz is very important and is known all over the world for their hard work to make Starbucks successful today.

One day Howard Schultz was on a tour of Italy and was walking through a coffee shop. Seeing around him, Howard Schultz noted that coffee shops in Italy were not only a coffee shop but also a place of social gathering, meetings, dating, and a place of sharing emotions and making memorable memories. This incident gave Howard Schultz an Idea to make the same kind of coffee shop in Seattle USA. When Howard returned back to Seattle, he proposed the same plan to serve fresh coffee with the selling of roasted coffee beans. But the idea of selling coffee was not liked by the original founders of Starbucks.

Howard Schultz was very upset by the declination of his idea, So he started his own coffee shop which became very popular and a successful cafe. And on the historic day of August 1987, the whole Starbucks offered his company to be purchased by Howard Schultz for 3.8 million dollars. From here the beginning of the world's largest coffee supplying chain is started and the rest we all know today.

1. Sensory Marketing

The word 'sensory marketing' means which attracts sense organs. For example, as soon as we enter any Starbucks outlet we get the pleasant fragrance of freshly crushed coffee beans. To produce this fresh fragrance of coffee beans, they crush freshly roasted beans in front of customers. This fragrance of beans makes customers make more orders and slow down in the cafe.

Earlier in Starbucks, they used to serve egg dishes too, but when the smell of eggs collides with the fragrance of coffee, this creates a false smelly atmosphere. Hence they stopped selling egg-made dishes. Now here is the lesson from Starbucks that only for customer satisfaction they stopped selling their food items.

The taste of coffee served in Starbucks is such that it same as all the outlets all over the world. This attracts foreign customers and travelers because they get the same hygiene, sanitation, quality, taste, and best service everywhere. This plan of a company has made a trust among the consumers that best coffee means Starbucks.

Sensory marketing also includes ears, and eyes comfort. That means when you enter Starbucks you get better treatment from the staff. The height of the counter table in all the cafes is such that you can rest your arm on the table and can see the whole coffee-making process with your eyes. Their unique coffee-making habits allow the customer to sit more and order more coffees.

2. Mistake Marketing

This is the funniest and attractive way to magnetize customers. When you place an order in Starbucks the coffee cup you get is signature with your name on it but the funny part is that the name is misspelled or written in a very funny way. I'm reminding my experience that my name 'Vikas' was misspelled as 'Bakwaas' which means useless. But rather than getting angry about this, I was laughing very much. And it was not only me they do this marketing tactic with every customer. Because people don't consider this mistake as wrong tactics for big brands, rather than arguing they enjoy their name and post the images of their name with Starbucks on social media platforms. There are already millions of post with thousands of tags on social media like #starbucksnamefail #starbucksmistakes #starbucksmisspellings

3. Status Symbol

If somebody is saying that Starbucks sells costly coffee or prices high for their coffee, then it's not wrong. Actually, the money we pay in Starbucks is not only for their profit. We pay them for their service and customer satisfaction. We pay money for the ambiance we get, the quality of coffee which is served to us, the taste with is unique and tongue catchy, and the premium service. It should be noted that in India you can get coffee ₹10 to ₹50, But Starbucks sells it for more than ₹100 and even more than that. But still, people love to visit Starbucks this shows their trust for the brand and this makes Starbucks a premium coffee brand. We should not forget that customer satisfaction makes a brand stronger and the company is successful to do so.

4. High Technology

What does it takes to prepare coffee? You may say, A burner, some utensils, and few coffee mugs. Also, you can use a coffee machine. But on the other hand, Starbucks uses many high technologies to prepare coffee which makes their coffee more differentiated. From grinding of roasted beans to fillings of coffee everything uses some different machines. The use of technology makes every work systematic, Hygenic and the same taste every time, i.e. it reduces human errors like the improper measure of coffee, chocolate, sugar, etc. You may wonder that what's new in using machines? It's common to use. But using machinery and technology to automate business at a huge level is a big task, The company keeps your record wisely and gives coupons and offers like a birthday card for free coffee and other compensations in there all the outlets.

5. Extreme Personalization

The idea of personalized coffee has been proved as the most advantageous step to Starbucks. You can have a coffee of your choice, your content measurement, and a choice of flavors and taste. The output of this strategy is that that when two friends enter together in Starbucks, instead of sharing they prefer their own taste. And also this idea is profitable for Starbucks to sell more and more coffees for every different taste.

6. Values for Society

The company is not just related to selling and profit-making, being different from other popular food chains, Starbucks likes to hire Army veterans and Widows of martyred soldiers in the respective countries. This makes the people respect the company and creates a unique brand value. People show respect to the staff and conversate very friendly and in a very respective manner. Starbucks is not just a brand it's a value to millions. The value which we pay and receive as loyalty, trust, and better service every time. And these all are the small things which we may not notice but wanted all time when we visit any cafe or restaurant.

Lessons from the Case Study

• Do something in the business which can be like sensory marketing and attracts the customer every next time.

• Use your mistakes to develop a trust link between you and the consumer, not a cliff.

• Serve your customers royally, so that your business can earn more value because those who earn values earn money.

• Do you have chances to automate your business? If you are not Techno-savvy you are degrading your business.

• Try to make a personalization of products and services for your customers. Because every customer is different and needs something different.

• and, Try to provide values for your business. Only profit generation can run your business well but if you want to scale up. Then you should add values and ethics in your idea and way of business.

The blog is written with full of its research. And none part of this blog has written to harm the emotions of the company and people. If there is so please show your views in the comment section and if you liked the Full case study and marketing strategies. please hit the like button and for more blogs to you directly by an E-mail subscribe it.