Starbucks to re-invent its user experience
Written by SimonC
Starbucks, champion of the experience economy (link), is having to rethink its user experience. This is interesting, because in the late 1990’s Starbucks was the iconic example of how you could extract value from staging experiences rather than selling commodities. Coffee beans could only command 1-2 cents a cup, while the Starbucks experience could command up to $5 a cup. 
It seems that the experience of coffee has been commodotised by Starbucks itself as it raced to become the McDonalds of coffee. The original manual coffee machines have been replaced by automatic machines. Many think that these don’t make coffee  that is as good, but the main effect has been to deskill the jobs of the baristas to such en extent that they prefer to work elsewhere. The interiors have become standardised, and have lost the intimacy they once had, and the food that was added, was not considered by very many to be a “good experience”Judged by todays search for authenticity, Starbucks loses out on all counts. I think Starbucks will have great problems rekindling the feel that they now have lost. The competitive lead they had has been lost. McDonalds is  biting at their heels on the one side, and exclusive coffee houses have sprung up on the other. This leaves Starbucks in the middle of the road, and as a politician once said “The only thing you get from being in the middle of the road is run over”. Â