Starbucks Lost Its Soul to Efficiency and Plans to Get It Back with Empathy

Starbucks was my first brand love. It’s where I earned my marketing chops and learned that passion with purpose can fuel business success. Today, the Starbucks brand is going through a mid-life crisis. Sales are sluggish. Corporate layoffs are happening. Mobile ordering has upended everything. And, the Starbucks experience has lost its personal touch.

Brian Niccol, new Starbucks ceo, has pinned part of the blame on the drive for hyper-efficiency by saying, “We spent a lot of time trying to cost-save our way to a very efficient drink and not enough time on what is the experience that Starbucks provides.”

The Starbucks experience was once beautifully inefficient but many of the “cost-save” approaches have come at a huge cost — the cheapening and commoditization of the Starbucks brand.

72% of Starbucks store sales today come from its mobile order and pay app, delivery apps, and drive-thru purchases (source). Stores have removed seating and tables to encourage a grab-n-go mindset. This watering down of the Starbucks experience has turned the customer experience into a systematic and soulless mess.

Efficiency is absolutely a business necessity. However, empathy is also a business necessity. The tension between efficiency and empathy is real. AI and mobile apps are enabling any business of any size to become hyper efficient. However, there is a dark side to the upside of hyper efficiency — a massive lack of empathy.

Businesses that lose their empathy lose their ability to understand, acknowledge, and address the emotions, perspectives, and needs of customers (and employees). Businesses that find the balance between efficiency and empathy become “beautifully inefficient.”

Becoming beautifully inefficient is a core component to Niccol’s “Back to Starbucks” plan to turnaround the brand by emphasizing handcrafted beverages, menu simplicity, and personal touches to improve the customer experience.

Customers can once again personalize their drinks with just the right amount of cream and sugar at the condiment bar. Baristas back to are writing names on cups again to add a personal touch. Baristas are encouraging customers to get their drinks in a porcelain mug and linger longer to bring back the community coffeehouse feel. Starbucks is choosing to add the inefficiency of empathy to foster better connections with customers.

All companies have a choice between hyper-efficiency and purposeful empathy. It’s a balancing act to manage when/where to be efficient and when/where to be empathetic. Starbucks is in the process of rediscovering when/where to be beautifully inefficient to bring the soul back to the brand.