Starbucks: Why complexity is not a virtue
By Marty Carroll
Starbucks has long been held up as a paragon of customer experience. Their success has largely been attributed to their legendary attention in crafting a differentiated customer experience. However, Starbucks has lost a lot of its lustre and its share price is in freefall – now trading at $12.28 from a high of $37.76 a few years ago.
Recently in the UK Starbucks have been advertising that they offer 87,000 possible drink combinations. Presumably the point of this is to communicate how sophisticated the coffee making process is at Starbucks in order to justify premium prices for what is essentially a commodity. The Starbucks website itself boasts of the 87,000 permutations!
Complexity is spreading like a contagion often brought about by brands who are acting in what they believe are the best interests of consumers. This has led, however, to the consumer backlash that we are now witnessing. We all bemoan the days when technology just seemed to be so much easier to use. Philips brand promise of Sense and Simplicity was born out of their belief (grounded in research) that technology had become too complex, products and solutions should make sense and consumers should feel comfortable using them, no matter how advanced they are. Jon Maeda’s book ‘Simplicity’ is a best seller and there’s even a ‘voluntary simplicity’ movement!
So back to Starbucks….
Why are Starbucks making something inherently simple so complex? Barry Schwartz argued quite persuasively (even conclusively) in ‘The Paradox Of Choice’ that too many choices are detrimental both to the consumer and to the vendor. It begs the question as to whether Starbucks would win more customers if they didn’t make choosing and buying a coffee so complicated or intimidating.
It seems that a Wall Street Journal journalist attempted to have Starbucks substantiate the 87,000 claim but to no avail. His quest ended with a Starbucks spokesperson saying that a statistician came up with the number based on their menu board and, while a spreadsheet with the calculations did exist, it was not to be circulated!
Now here’s a paradox. If you go to the product page for the aforementioned book ‘The Paradox of Choice’ you get the following. Brilliant!
