A Customer's Bizarre Tale of Two Starbucks

Maintaining consistency in operational success is difficult even in the most simple of operations. Starbucks is one company that excels in providing amazing service across all of their stores nationwide. However, this story proves that no matter how well you attempt to organize your processes, the underlying culture and reasoning behind your processes must be just as clear.

This story concerns two Starbucks, under two miles apart. I live exactly 1 mile from each of them, and I love my Three Shot Americano. Initially, I chose which Starbucks based only on which direction on the street my car was parked. However, an odd battle, over something very minor, began at one of the branches that changed that for good.

I typically order a "Triple Tall Americano", utilizing the smaller cup to concentrate the three shots of espresso. The problem is, a standard Tall Americano has two shots and costs about $1.95. An additional shot would cost another .55 cents. Now a Grande Americano has three shots and usually costs $2.25. The quick math says if I order the Grande, I save a quarter. I typically don't care too much about the difference since I always give the clerk the change from cash. However, knowing it helps them, I usually order a Grande in a Tall cup to get charged correctly. All over the country, I've never had an issue getting charged the lesser amount.

Until I visited one Starbucks in particular that decided to make this an issue. I ordered my typical drink, and when I was overcharged, I briefly and politely explained the issue. I was amazed when I was told, "my manager doesn't allow that." I shrugged, and decided next time to be sneaky and order the "Grande Americano in a small cup" to avoid confusion. That worked for a few visits. Then one day, the clerk just translated my order into the more expensive version. When I asked, I was told that it was the manager's policy to charge correctly on every order.

Wow. I was actually being charged MORE for a SMALLER cup. Determined, I decided to push this issue just to see how far they were willing to go. I ordered Grande Americanos with half water. Finally, I wasn't charged for getting less.... so far. But in the end, my experience was so poor, I decided to patron the other Starbucks  close by. Their manager was in shock by my little story

What's the business perspective to learn from here?

The spirit of the policy in decidedly more important to communicate to organization than the rules themselves.  While this might be a mildly humorous example of policy gone wild, some organizations don't have another branch to get a second opportunity with a customer.

Communicate your policies to the people that implement them, and make sure the goal is about satisfying the customer, not your own needs. This will ensure the actions of your team members will reflect that goal.