American Company And The First Coffeehouse

Discuss About The American Company And The First Coffeehouse?

Starbucks is an American coffee company and the first coffeehouse was developed in Washington in 1971. After that, it has approximately 24,000 coffee shops and coffeehouses across the globe. In Australia only, it has around 27 stores including in Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane. Starbucks serves numerous types of coffee and along with the coffee, beverages and other food items are also serves in Starbucks. This place is being visited by all age group’s people. Starbucks is famous for quality of coffee which they provide to its customers (Schultz, 2012)

Flow chart example of Starbucks

Front End

In the front end stage of Starbucks, customers are given priority as they are the main component of Starbucks' business. The café is operating its activities and functionalities on the basis of self service. After entering the café, the infrastructure of the café is well defined; due to which it becomes easier for the customer to opt for their menu as it is displayed above the order counter. The café is found overcrowded and in some scenarios, long queues are also observed around the café (Wilson, et. al., 2012). For placing the orders, the customers are supposed to head towards the order counter where the digitalised menu is presented. After making the order, customer is required to make the payment. Various payment methods have been provided at the counter, after doing so, the customers can enjoy their meals in the sitting area.

As presented in the right corner of the flow chart, the white block is indicating the speciality of the café i.e. coffee. Apart from coffee, they also serve snacks and main course dishes too. Consumers can also place the order for deserts as Starbucks is known for serving best quality ice creams and deserts. At exit points, consumers are also asked to give reviews in relevance with their services offered. After having coffee and other meals, guests may leave the table or they could also spend some time in the café only (Huotari & Hamari, 2012)

Back End

Following is the back end flowchart of Starbucks’ activities:

                                                                        Source: By Author

Back end process includes all those activities which are performed in the back stage i.e. activities performed on the back side of the operation area. Back end staff plays an empirical role in offering high quality services to the customers. Lot of people and their hard work is get involved in this process. Back end process of Starbucks includes housekeeping under which premises of the café is kept neat and clean. All the activities in relation with the staff are performed under human resource management, their salary; bonus, etc. are included under this department. Apart from these operations, the crucial element of the organization is maintaining quality of the products and services, as Starbucks is known for its coffee's quality and taste across the globe, hence; organization needs to maintain that taste to satisfy the consumer's requirements. Along with these activities, staff documentation and post operation activities such as cleanliness and administrative activities are performed (Krishnamurthy, SivaKumar & Sellamuthu, 2010).

Significance of Service Encounter

The main concern of the service industry is to evaluate the methods to make the customers' experience better. As customers is the reason for the success of the organization. And in the scenario of Starbucks, customers are kept on the priority so that organization could achieve adequate success and growth. The effectiveness of the service offered by Starbucks could be evaluated on various service encounters’ basis. Customers’ experience should be converted into an unforgettable experience to prove the organizational service’s impact on the customers (Udo, Bagchi & Kirs, 2010). All those areas which are crucial in terms of improving the customers’ experience should be adopted. Best and effective way for implementing this strategy is to evaluate the review given by customers. For proving the impact of service encounter in real life situation, Starbucks has made the strategy of making customers feel luxurious and important through delivering high quality goods and services. Service encounters help the business organization to perform their activities in an adequate and effective manner to enhance the service quality. These encounters do affect the activities of business as well as they also determine the negative aspects of the business (Chang, Chen & Lan, 2013).

Managerial Implication

Organization i.e. Starbucks needs to evaluate the best possible way to attain adequate success and growth. This also helps the organization to perform in the competitive business environment. Across the world there are a lot of international as well as local coffee shops and cafes are available, still, Starbucks has established its strong position in the global market (Ugbomhe & Dirisu, 2011). This is due to the adaptation of effective and appropriate strategy in relevance with the organizational structure. Service industry’s biggest achievement is their customer’ satisfaction and this could be provided through practicing adequate and effective strategies within the workplace.  Service industry's services are compared with the economic values. Most of the customers compare the price of the service with the feeling generated from the availing of the particular service. Hence, an organization needs to perform in such a manner where they could enhance the consumers' satisfaction at its best. Customers should not be given any chance for complaining in relevance with the services offered by the organization. In the scenario of Starbucks, coffee which is the best product provided by this café and along with the coffee, lot of services are provided to customers, such as treatment of customer while entering the premises of café, providing hygienic sitting arrangements, etc.  All these actions form the success path for the organization as well as it also motivates the organization to enhance its service qualities as well as other relevant factors to provide better services to its customers (Cannoy & Cannoy, 2010).

For providing appropriate services, an organization needs to adopt the certain set of strategies to which it can enhance its working procedures and could build an effective image in the global market. The implication of these strategies also forms the source of Return on Investment (ROI). All the decision should be taken in relevance with the customers' perception to follow the adequate path otherwise results could be generated in the negative manner (Hajli, 2014).

In relevance to the service industry, evaluation of Starbucks’ strategies defines that they work as per the requirements of their customers. The services offered by Starbucks as a brand and services provided by other restaurants and cafes show the difference. This shows the effectiveness of advanced and unique strategies adopted by the organization. To achieve more growth and expansion in rest countries of the world, Starbucks needs to maintain its products’ as well as its services’ quality.

References

Cannoy, S.D. & Salam, A.F., 2010, “A framework for health care information assurance policy and compliance", Communications of the ACM, 53(3), pp.126-131.

Chang, C.S., Chen, S.Y. & Lan, Y.T., 2013, “Service quality, trust, and patient satisfaction in interpersonal-based medical service encounters”, BMC health services research, 13(1), p.22.

Hajli, M.N., 2014, “A study of the impact of social media on consumers”, International Journal of Market Research, 56(3), pp.387-404.

Huotari, K. & Hamari, J., 2012, “Defining gamification: a service marketing perspective”, In Proceeding of the 16th International Academic MindTrek Conference (pp. 17-22). ACM.

Krishnamurthy, R., SivaKumar, M.A.K. & Sellamuthu, P., 2010, “Influence of service quality on customer satisfaction: Application of SERVQUAL model”, International Journal of Business and Management, 5(4), p.117.

McKenzie-Mohr, D., 2011, “New society publishers”, Fostering sustainable behavior: An introduction to community-based social marketing.

Schultz, H., 2012. Pour your heart into it: How Starbucks built a company one cup at a time. Hachette UK.

Udo, G.J., Bagchi, K.K. & Kirs, P.J., 2010, “An assessment of customers’e-service quality perception, satisfaction and intention”, International Journal of Information Management, 30(6), pp.481-492.

Ugbomhe, O.U. & Dirisu, A.B., 2011, “Organizational structure: Dimensions, determinants and managerial implication”, Internafional Journal of Economic Development Research and Investment, 2(2), pp.10-18.

Wilson, A., Zeithaml, V.A., Bitner, M.J. & Gremler, D.D., 2012, “McGraw Hill”, Services marketing: Integrating customer focus across the firm.