Lori Reed | A Passion for Learning

April 26, 2008 By Lori Reed 2 Comments

Learning from Corporate America: Starbucks Closes Nationwide for Training

On February 26, 2008 if you tried to get your usual Grande Carmel Machiato from Starbucks between 5:30 and 9pm you were out of luck. In a historic move Starbucks closed nearly 7,100 stores for 3 1/2 hours to conduct mandatory training for more than 135,000 employees.

From the Starbucks Web site, “That amounts to almost a half a million hours of training in one night.”

My first thought on hearing this announcement was publicity stunt. Why do you need to close for training? Why can’t you do it before or after closing or off site? I learned though that this was more than training in how to make a cup of coffee. According to the Starbucks Web site this was “a nationwide education event, designed to energize [employees] and transform the customer experience.”

It seems that most of the employees agreed. Some comments from employees on the Starbucks Gossip Blog:

I’ve just returned home from my stores espresso excellence training and I feel that as a whole we are re-energized and more passionate mostly about customer care. I really liked the team commitments at the end for us to hold one another accountable and this as much better then other store meetings because we got to move around the store as groups and we had fun! Posted by: Aaron | Feb 26, 2008 6:40:20 PM

Soo, I just got back from my meeting. It was amazing. I feel inspired in every way. I hope other baristas feel the same. Posted by: Neevan | Feb 26, 2008 6:54:53 PM

I just got home from the training session and I have to say it was great. It put us all on the same page and let all of us know that the standards have been raised and we WILL be held accountable for it. Not everyone remembers it. This meeting wasn’t to teach us how to make coffee and thats what a lot of people are missing. This was about making the BEST cup we can EVERYTIME, no exceptions. It was about how to give you customers what you pay for and more. Not to mention it laid down some new guidelines to make sure that if the customer does not get what THEY think is the perfect cup of coffee WE WILL MAKE IT UNTIL YOU ARE SATISFIED. We learned the vision of Howard and what he expects of us as a whole company so that not just some stores but ALL of them are doing the best everytime. I personally thought it was informative and helpful, especially to the new hires in our store who don’t know yet what they need to do and reminded all of us how to provide our customers with a place they want to be. To be perfectly honest with you I think that there are a lot of baristas out there (and if you have read some of their posts you know what I’m talking about) that we are not only in the coffee business but also the PEOPLE business. Posted by: | Feb 26, 2008 7:17:42 PM

Hi Everyone!!! Training tonight was great, what I felt would be just a refresher on the new flavor profile and proper steaming of milk, foam ratio, etc., ended up being more of a conversation on what we can do to accommodate and create a better experience for our customers. Posted by: buck star | Feb 26, 2008 9:36:18 PM

I freakin loved the meeting tonight. It’s like Starbucks Experience. it really re energized my passion for my job and my pride in my drinks, my service and the company as a while. I can’t wait to work on the floor again!! Posted by: Staxman | Feb 26, 2008 10:36:09 PM

I admire the courage of the company’s leadership to close every store, not just their doors, but their cash register as well, and then pay all their employees to attend a training session in order to improve the customer experience. Can you think of any other company that would spend that kind of money and time to improve their product? Can you imagine an airline stopping all flights for a day and requiring their employees to spend the time focusing on the passenger experience? Good for you Starbucks!! Posted by: | Feb 26, 2008 8:50:49 PM

So I have to ask, when was the last time you received comments like that on a training evaluation? What would it take for libraries to have all staff committed to the customer experience? What can we learn from Starbucks?

Filed under: Customer Service, Learning from Corporate America

January 24, 2008 By Lori Reed Leave a Comment

Remember this phone number!

1-866-WEB-4111

If you are away from your computer and need a question answered here’s a service that will do it for you. The company is Look Up Web for Me. It’s a toll free call and a free service. You name the question and they look up the answer.

I decided to test the service out. I called and was put on hold while a “Search Maestro” was located for me. By the way Search Maestros get paid $10-15 per hour and work from home! I was on hold for a few seconds then Jen answered my call. Pleasant and easy to understand Jen was willing to look up pretty much anything I asked. When I first read about the service through a question posed by founder Altaf Boghani on LinkedIn, I was a little suspicious. It sounds too good to be true. Right now the service is privately funded and I wonder how they will generate income in the future. Maybe it will be via phone ads as Google 411 plans to.

In all it’s a great idea. I can’t tell you how many times I have called home, a friend, or even the library to have someone do a quick Internet search for me, and that’s exactly where the idea for this business came from. According to a Jan. 11, 2008 press release, Boghani researched and found that people call family and friends to look up a wide range of information on the Web.

The most frequent categories were directions, store hours and locations, train times, traffic jams, weather, address confirmation, hotels, flight information, phone info from an organization’s web page, and doctor’s number from an HMO Web site.

Heck, my mom called me tonight to ask how many calories are in a potato!

I’m curious to see how librarians view this service? Do we have some competition? Or is this just another great resource? I’m also curious to know why people, my mom included, don’t call their libraries for information like this.

Filed under: Customer Service

January 2, 2008 By Lori Reed 2 Comments

More Learning from Corporate America: Outback

On New Year’s Eve my husband and I decided to have a nice dinner. Since babysitters charge a minimum of $10/hour (I don’t even want to know how much it would be on New Year’s Eve) we rarely use one. Instead we put the kids to bed and decided to order take-out from the Outback. From start to finish I was amazed by how customer focused they have become.

I went online to look at the menu, then found that you can now place your order online. No looking up the phone number. No waiting for someone to answer. No trying to get the bartender to hear you over the noise. No mistakes on the order (hopefully). I submitted my order, gave a description of my car, and that was it.

10 minutes later I pulled up to a curbside take-away parking spot and someone brought me my order. I didn’t even have to get out of the car and brave the frigid 40 degree weather (see what you’re missing Helene). On the drive home I kept thinking about the library. If we really want to focus on what the customer wants then why don’t we offer a drive up service?

I can’t tell you how many times I pass by the library while I’ve got my kids in the car and wish that I could call them up and ask someone to bring my holds out to the car. I could be in and out in no time. Instead I have to hope I have the stroller. Heave the 40 lb contraption out of the back of my car. Get the baby out of her car seat while the preschooler is screaming, “Nooo ME first!” Then grab the preschooler, diaper bag, purse, library card, and don’t forget the keys. I end up hauling in about 100lbs of kids and stuff just to get a few books. While this keeps my chiropractor in business it doesn’t make me love going to the library (speaking as a customer not an employee).

I know other libraries out there have drive-thru service and others like Topeka & Shawnee County offer holds by mail but these services need to become the norm rather than the exception at libraries. If I need to go to a pharmacy you can bet it will be one that has a drive-thru. On New Year’s Eve we had over a dozen restaurants nearby that we could have gotten take-out from. The Outback was the furthest away, but it was the one we chose because of its conveinence.

Filed under: Customer Service, Learning from Corporate America

December 20, 2007 By Lori Reed Leave a Comment

Forget the mall!

Wow this week has been crazybusy! I had planned to take my kids to the mall this weekend to see Santa. It’s my little one’s first Christmas and my older one’s first Christmas that he will remember.

We’ve done the Santa thing every year so far. My first year as a parent I had no idea how long the lines would be. I almost gave up. But then while we were shopping in PetSmart, I saw Santa–more importantly Santa with no line–so I did what any intelligent woman would do. I sat my baby on his lap and said, “Here you go!”

It wasn’t until I saw people lining up behind me with their schnauzers and dalmatians and cats and rabbits that I realized that Santa was here to see ~~babies~~ pets! Oops! He was a good sport and said as long as I paid my $7.95 he didn’t care what I put in his lap.

The next two years we did the mall thing which involved waiting in long lines only to have my son cry at the sight of a huge dude dressed in red with enough hair to make a small rug.

This year I discovered that you can’t just wait in line to see Santa. No. You have to have an appointment! Hey anything to avoid standing in line! However, all the appointments are taken from now until Christmas but you can be placed on a call list in case there is an opening. Wow, it’s easier to get a doctor appointment during flu season than to see Santa.

I was really disappointed and wondered how I would explain this to my three-year-old when someone at the library asked me if we were coming to the Christmas Cabaret.

“The what?”

“The Christmas Cabaret. We’re doing a play, and singing, and Santa will be there.”

“Santa? SANTA!” (imagine me as Will

Ferrell in the movie Elf)

So forget the mall! We are going to the library!

My kids had a great time. As did all the kids. I was so impressed by the program that the staff at University City Regional Library put together. I miss working there! And Santa was wonderful! He knew my kids names–he is Santa after all. He even had a talk with my son about helping me get out of the house on time in the morning. You rock Santa!

Filed under: Customer Service

November 29, 2007 By Lori Reed Leave a Comment

More Learning from Corporate America

I am constantly impressed by the level of customer service that our library staff provide to the public. We have a recognition for staff called a GEM for Going the Extra Mile, but quite frankly going the extra mile is the standard rather than the exception.

When I began working at the library I had never worked anywhere that provided such a high level of service excellence. I soon found that I expected this same level of service everywhere. It’s tough to find.

Tonight a friend and I took our kids out for dinner. Our goal, to go somewhere fairly cheap where the kids can play and get tired. With two moms and four kids between the ages of 0 and 3 it’s tough to go anywhere, let alone go somewhere and actually be able to eat!

Ask any mom what her favorite fast food place is and you are sure to get one answer…Chick-fil-a. There’s a reason for this. Someone at Chick-fil-a has gone to the trouble to find out what moms want and need. If you haven’t been recently they just came out with these great placemats for kids. They’re disposable plastic with an adhesive strip so the kids can’t fling their food across the restaurant (they can still throw their food but just not all at once).

It seems like every time I go to Chick-fil-a I am amazed as the consistent level of outstanding customer service that they provide. Tonight the manager not only carried our food to the table, he also brought us straws, ketchup, and lots and lots of napkins. Ironically I had just spent the day at one of our branches training staff and customers on using our new self check out system. Even more ironic is the fact that the mom who I was having dinner with was just telling me the other day how great it is that our library has self-check out but she really wishes we had self check-in as well.

So as we are moving towards borrower self-sufficiency fast food restaurants are moving towards full-service. It makes you wonder, who’s right?

The customer!

It’s all about the customer. It’s about thinking on your feet, reading the customer, and making your best guess as to what he or she wants or needs.

Not everyone needs help getting a tray of food to a table, but for those who do that small gesture is going to make a huge impact. It took maybe 30 seconds of time and did not cost any extra money. That’s a huge return on investment!

Filed under: Customer Service, Learning from Corporate America