Anti-Experience

At the World Creative Forum, a number of speakers referred to how Starbucks is described in the book The Experience Economy. They each repeated the view that people were paying a premium in Starbucks for the great experience that they have there.

I'm normally a great proponent of the idea that a brand, when sincerely and distinctively deployed, can deliver a positive consumer experience that goes beyond the mere matter-of-factness of the transaction and that people are willing to pay a premium for this.

So does Starbucks deliver a great experience? Is the service fantastic? Is the coffee marvellous? Is the environment really all that comfortable and stylish? Compared to the many proliferating alternative places that serve coffee, does it suit different moods of encounter such as a quick cup of coffee between meetings or a leisurely chat with a few friends (or should that be F-R-I-E-N-D-S?)

Let's first talk about service. Jackie Mason has made jokes about this, but one of the most remarkable things about service in Starbucks is that you are required to finish making your own coffee. Although it feels at first as if you are simply queuing, to enter Starbucks is to join a production line. You pay a premium price and not only is the drink not brought to your table, but the people who work there cannot even be expected to prepare your whole drink. Most definitions of an experience brand would point to aspects of service that go above and beyond the basic product. The classic example is the trend that moves from providing cake ingredients, then cakes, then whole birthday parties. In Starbucks, by contrast, the staff do not finish making the basic commodity.

This brings me to an important aspect of the environment and the Starbucks experience. That strange MDF and bin-bag travesty of a Changing Rooms-style table thing where they keep the sugar, napkins and chocolate powder. Besides its poor function and intrinsic lack of visual appeal, my observation is that whenever I have been in Starbucks the thing is dirty and untidy. It appears that the staff do not have time between half-making drinks for customers to clean it.

You might think that it is axiomatic that an experience brand is customer-centric. Starbucks is not customer-centric. It is bean-centric. The no-smoking signs prove this point once and for all. People are asked not to smoke not because it makes them and clothes and hair of those around them smell disgusting, or because it will damage their health and the health of others, but because it will adversely affect the quality of the coffee. This bean-centricity explains what happens at the counter, employees and customers alike are put into the service of the bean – each playing a role in helping it to realise its potential by creating the perfect customised cup of coffee. Being subordinated to a cup of coffee is not a positive customer experience.

Is the product any good? I actually believe what they have to say about their commitment to quality and their determination to use good ingredients. But to be honest I suspect that the end result might be indifferent. The Starbucks moment is an instense combination of you the drinker, the actual product, the brand and the environment. It's impossible to tell where one ends and the other begins. The same is true of Coca-Cola. Everyone drinks it and no-one can tell you what it tastes like. Emotions get confused with physical effects. Afterwards, it is you and not the coffee that feels flat; you and not the coffee that feels burned; you and not the coffee that feels bitter.

So where does the value come from? How does Starbucks achieve its margin? People are not easily duped into believing that they are having a good experience when really they are not (except in the case of night clubs, West-End theatre and the so-called 'Living TV'). There must be some other reason that Starbucks is able to charge so much for its coffee.

Starbucks is not everywhere because it is successful. It is successful because it is everywhere. People are not paying a premium because the service, product, or environment are exemplary, but instead because these things are safely predictable and the stores are ubiquitous. The value of the brand is derived from being for people who would rather not try somewhere that they don't already know. It is not an experience brand except in the sense of delivering the reassurance of consistency. The choices and variations that it offers, combined with making people finish making their own drink, are there to further reassure customers by giving them a sense of even greater control. Experience should entail adventure, excitement, fun and expansiveness. Sameness, reassurance, and control and are not features of 'experience'. Starbucks is in fact for people who are anti-experience.