Marketing 385-D01 Service Marketing
Related Chapters:
Chapter 13
• Service recovery pg. 344
• Instrumental complaints pg. 345
• Ostensive complaints pg. 345
• Voice pg. 351
• Exit pg. 351
• Mechanistic processes pg. 352
• Failures relating to unprompted/unsolicited employee actions pg. 355
For blog entry 1 I will be focusing my service experience on a positive experience I had at a coffee shop.
Encounter 4:
Name of service firm: Starbucks
Type of service: coffee shop
November 22, 2017 9:00am
Service encounter relates to: Chapter 13
One morning before work I went to Starbucks and ordered a grande iced coffee with coconut milk. I’ve been to Starbucks a number of times, and for the most part I always have amazing experiences so my expectations were very high. The woman who took my order was very pleasant, asked me how my day was and took my order. After waiting an appropriate amount of time I received my drink, took a sip and realized it tasted different. I noticed on the side that the woman making my drink wrote that I’d asked for soymilk, not coconut milk. I let one of the baristas know and they apologized and they made me a new drink. The new drink was made quickly and tasted great.
I would rate my level of satisfaction a 6 out of 7. I was very satisfied with every interaction I had at Starbucks and although they made me the wrong drink, they were quick to fix the mistake and were very apologetic about it.
I was very happy that the second drink I received tasted amazing and felt as though it was worth what I paid. Leaving Starbucks I was happy that the staff was so apologetic even though it was just a small human error and were so efficient to correct it.
My chances for going back to Starbucks are a 7 out of 7 – definitely yes – due to the great service I received from the moment I walked in the door. I don’t think there is anything the employer could have done to improve the experience at all. Every single person I spoke to at Starbucks was kind and helpful and very attentive. Even though an error was made I still left as a very happy customer due to the great customer service.
Textbook Concept Analysis:
Although my overall experience at Starbucks was very positive, there was still a mistake made and the staff needed to recover from it. Their service recovery, when they reacted to my complaint resulted greatly in my satisfaction (Hoffman & Bateson, 2016, pg 344) because of how apologetic they were for making the mistake and how quickly and efficiently they were able to fix the mistake. When a mistake is made, four basic steps can be made in the service recovery process, which are to apologize, review, fix and document. (Solomon, 2014) All for of those steps Starbucks performed very well. Before they fixed the mistake of making the wrong drink, I made a complaint about the wrong drink to another barista in the hopes that they would make me a new drink. I expressed an instrumental complaint, which I “expressed for the purpose of altering an undesirable state of affairs.” (Hoffman & Bateson, 2016, pg 345) “The instrumental complaint is all about solving problems” (Biswas-Diener, 2017) which is exactly what I was hoping for by making this kind of complaint. Since I couldn’t fix or alter the issue myself and needed the help of the barista to change my order, I expressed an ostensive complaint since I directed my complaint “at someone or something outside the realm of the complainer.” (Hoffman & Bateson, 2016, pg 345)
When I was making the complaint about my drink being made incorrectly, I was complaining because I wanted a certain outcome from the interaction. When I was making the complaint, I used a medium voice because I communicated the issue of the incorrect drink to the barista providing the service and making the drink. (Hoffman & Bateson, 2016, pg 351) Since they were so apologetic and efficient at correcting the issue and made me a new drink that tasted so great I know I will definitely be back. I performed a low exit, meaning “the consumer does not change her purchasing behavior and continues to purchase the firms services as usual.” (Hoffman & Bateson, 2016, pg 351)
Due to their efficiency and understanding at fixing the problem, I believe that Starbucks has mechanistic processes set in place for their baristas to fix any drinks if they were prepared incorrectly due the amount of drinks they prepare at such a fast pace. Starbucks most likely “formalized step-by-step processes that are developed to facilitate the firm’s failure analysis and service recovery efforts.” (Hoffman & Bateson, 2016, pg 352) Since the initial failure in the service experience was made by a barista who took my order and made a human error, it was a failure relating to unprompted/unsolicited employee actions due to the fact that the level of attention of the barista taking my order wasn’t as strong as it could have been and a human error was made. (Hoffman & Bateson, 2016, pg 355)
References
Biswas-Diener, R. (2017, June 13). The Three Types of Complaining. Retrieved from Psychology Today: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/significant-results/201706/the-three-types-complaining
Hoffman, D., & Bateson, J. (2016). Services Marketing . Boston: Cengate Learning.
Solomon, M. (2014, July 16). 4 Steps From Customer Anger To Customer Loyalty: The Expert Customer Service Recovery Method. Retrieved from Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/micahsolomon/2014/07/16/customer-service-recovery/#62aaf5ba45fc
Service Encounters blog 