WMBA 6040 WK4Assgn

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Module 4 Assignment: An Analysis of the Customer Service Issues at Starbucks Report prepared by: Date: October 1, 2023 Walden University WMBA 6040: Improving Business Performance STARBUCKS CASE STUDY 1
Executive Summary In late 2002, Starbucks' senior vice president of administration in North America, Christine Day sat in her office viewing research of the company, concerned about the company not meeting the customers' expectations and the recent performance within the company. As Christine sat in her office, she waited for her colleagues to join her, while waiting she knew that a plan had to take place to figure out how to improve their customer satisfaction. Christine and her colleagues formatted a plan to invest an additional $40 million annually in the company's 4,500 stores worldwide to add the correspondence of 20 hours of labor to jobs a week. Howard Schultz joined the Starbucks marketing team, where he brought the idea to the company to set up an espresso bar in the Seattle Shop. The idea of adding an espresso bar was to later create a chain of coffeehouses that would become "America's third place". When coming up with the idea Howard had the vision that individuals needed a place where they could go to just relax, work on things, enjoy the company of others, or just simply have some time to themselves. Although, the company is doing great in other areas of the department, the cause of problems is that there is low customer satisfaction. High succeeding companies are known for striving in all areas of the department but lack customer service satisfaction. Sometimes the companies get so caught up in making sure that products are being distributed, inventory, equipment, etc. that they forget the main focus is to make sure your customers are satisfied. The customers are the main ingredients in a company, without the support of customers businesses tend to fail in sales and this is what's happening within this case study. The goal is to improve the customer experience in the stores and to improve the speed-of-service to give the customers the experience that they are looking for as well as satisfaction. 2
Part 1: Tools for Improvement: Causal Loop Analysis A causal loop diagram consists of four basic elements: the variables, the links between them, the signs on the links: which show how the variables are interconnected, and the sign of the loop: which shows what type of behavior the system will produce (Lannon, C. 2018). In systems thinking casual loop has two basic types which are reinforcing and balancing. Reinforcing loop is used for change that's happening in one direction in which is being increased by more change. Balancing loop is counter change interchanging in one direction with the change happening in the opposite direction. Step by Step Explanation The main root cause is low customer satisfaction that's causing revenue to decline. The company is more focused on the growth of the company than the actual service of the company which will always be the number cause of a company failing. The company decided to come up with a plan to add 20 hours of labor a week to the various of stores that they have around the world to approve their customer service satisfaction and the quality. Adding the 20 hours per week to labor wasn't easy for the employees, in fact it was hard on them which caused the employees to have a decline in quality of their customer service skills. The focus solely being on the growth of the company is another reason that has led to the decline in the quality customer experience. Starbucks is well known for their branding and advertising, something that they are trying to keep up with in the case study which is causing them to take focus off of their customers satisfaction and experience in their stores. Although, it was hard at first for the employees to get adjusted to the new change, they all learned how to work around it and improvise. Since changes has been made to the company they have 3
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