Starbucks Training Plan
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Uploaded by cindyvsagastume
Store #5716 Customer Connection Training Plan
Cindy Sagastume
6/23/2023
COM 453: Communication and Training
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Biography
Cindy Sagastume is currently a senior at Arizona State University. She will be graduating
next spring with a Bachelors of Science in Communication with a minor in Family and Human Development and a minor in Digital Audiences. She has been a partner at Starbucks for about five years. Her ability to take initiative and act as a role model to others is what landed her the role as a barista training, which then eventually led to her promotion to shift supervisor. As a barista trainer, she was required to deliver a number of hands-on training activities to newly hired baristas that worked on the development of the core functions and values that come with being a Starbucks barista. She is still currently a shift supervisor at her store and has been one for
about 2 years. She describes the only way to maintain a successful shift/store is the partners being willing to work together as a team and motivate each other along the way. One of the biggest things she felt she has learned in her career as a barista trainer/ shift supervisor is the importance of feedback. Through feedback, whether it be from a peer, a superior, or a customer, is what drives us to develop and focus on the quality of our beverages, as well as the quality of our service. In turn, we are able to take pride in our work and create an everlasting customer service connection.
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Table of Contents
Organization……………………………………………………………………………………… 4
Needs Assessment………………………………………………………………………………... 5
Skill Training Focus and Learner Group………………………………………………………… 6
Training Plan……………………………………………………………………………………... 7
Learning Environment………………………………………………………………………..… 12
Training Plan Timeline…………………………………………...…………………………… 13
Learning Outcomes…………………………………………………………………..…………. 14
References…………………………………………………………………………………….… 15
Appendix A: Contacts…………………………..………………………………………………. 16
Appendix B: Data Analysis…………………………………………………………………….. 17
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Organization
The official name of the organization I am delivering training to is called Starbucks Coffee Company. Their mission statement is as follows: “With every cup, with every conversation, with every community- we nurture the limitless possibilities of human connection”
(Our Mission, n.d.). Starbucks opened their very first store in Seattle’s local farmer’s market, Pike Place Market in 1971. Compared to its current worldwide array of products, this store was very minimalistic in the context of it only offered teas, spices, and fresh roasted whole coffee beans to their customers that traveled from across the globe. In 1982 is when everything changed
for Starbucks as a man named Howard Schultz came into the picture. He began his career at Starbucks as a director of operations and marketing. By 1987, backed by a group of investors, with Schultz’s guidance they decided to take this company to the next level by making the company public and expanding it across the globe with the efforts of establishing a “third place” coffeehouse that serves great quality coffee by the cup. In a matter of four decades, Starbucks has built about 30,000 coffee locations around the world. Each store strives to embody the company's strong goals and encourages their employees to achieve these goals on a day to day basis. Upon getting hired at Starbucks, their training commences with “the barista basics”, which goes into detail about what it means to be a Starbucks barista. They communicate their ethics and values by having their focus of the training
be humanity centered. The barista’s are taught to act with courage, connect with transparency, deliver their best, and always remain present to be able to provide a “culture of warmth and belonging where everyone is welcomed.”
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Needs Assessment
Because customers and culture are core values of the Starbucks company, we have to ensure that those values are being taken seriously across the board in every single store. The Starbucks in La Mirada is a perfect example of a store that is not meeting their full potential when it comes to filling the shoes Starbucks requires a store to fill when it comes to customer connection. When looking at the scores of all the stores in the district, store #5716 had the lowest
customer connection score rolling in at a 55. When looking at their score history, at one point they had a 35 (which happened to be during COVID), so they must have done something right to
bring it up twenty points once the regulations were lifted but when comparing it to the scores of the surrounding stores: 65, 67, 61, 70, one has to dive deeper to find the central route of the problem. To do this we will create a needs assessment to analyze the customer connection skills of the partners at store #5716. Through the needs assessment, the managers/ shift supervisors will be able to get a better understanding of where the problems lie and what the next step is to be able to execute the barista culture of making customer connections throughout every shift. We required the assessment be delivered to every single partner in the store, including the
store manager: a total of 35 partners. The tool used in the needs assessment was a short questionnaire that included 5 open ended questions and 5 Likert-type questions. The focus of the questions were centered on the understanding and significance of customer connection and why a barista may not make an effort in doing so. Using open ended questions was ideal for this assessment because we are conducting qualitative research to gain deeper insight on a respondents thoughts and feelings through their answers (Cleave, 2022). The use of Likert-type questions was ideal because they are easy to understand and they do not force the respondent to answer with an either- or opinion, as that is not always the case (SmartSurvey.com, n.d.).
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Through the needs assessment it was revealed that the baristas indeed understand the importance of the customer connection score, but will not make the effort to make the connection as they are
too task focused and too reserved. The skill(s) that needs to be most developed in the barista’s at store #5716 are their interpersonal communication skills. The development of interpersonal skills
are incredibly important as they are the foundation for maintaining a customer/barista relationship, as well as the relationships amongst the partners themselves to ensure the execution of the Starbucks company culture. Skill Training Focus and Learner Group
Through the assessment, it is quite clear that the baristas lack in their interpersonal communication skills. We have narrowed it down to a total of three interpersonal skills that we found were underdeveloped through our analysis: active listening skills, being comfortable exchanging messages, and maintaining open body language. The people that will be participating in this training will be the entirety of the store (34 partners), not including the store manager Tania Mendoza as she will be the one leading the training. We are requiring the whole store to take the training because the scores are calculated through the response from an email based on the interactions with multiple barista(s) through the
single question of “Did the barista’s get to know me?”. A direct quote from Howard Schultz in an interview with Forbes is what hammered us into centering the training around human connection, “
We’re not in the coffee business. It’s what we sell as a product but we’re in the people business…” (Gallo, 2011). It is abundantly clear that the interpersonal communication that baristas have with their customers and their community makes such a huge impact on the experience they aim to provide. The way the customers perceive these interactions and experiences with their baristas is what creates regulars
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and relationships. Training on these three specific skills of interpersonal communication, the baristas will be able to create that warm and welcoming environment that Starbucks aims to provide while also feeling connected and present not only with their customers, but with their workplace environment and fellow partners.
Training Plan
Learning Objectives
1.
By the end of this training session, my baristas will be able to list a minimum of three different ways they are able to connect with a customer.
2.
By the end of this training session, my baristas will be able to explain how the customer connection score reflects our store as a whole, along with the importance of maintaining a
good score.
3.
By the end of this training session, my baristas will feel comfortable in taking that extra step of asking a question that helps them get to know the customers.
4.
By the end of this training session, my baristas will be able to coach one another when they see their peers providing bad customer service.
Introduction
To commence the start of the training, the trainer will begin with an icebreaker. The purpose of this icebreaker will be to encourage interaction between the partners and demonstrate how little we all know about each other, as well as how little effort it takes to build relationships and get to know one another. There are a total of 34 partners and due to factors like availability or schedule preferences separating the partners into different day parts, many of these baristas do not work together often, or at all. The icebreaker technique that will be used is a speed “get to know your partner” game. The directions of the icebreaker are:
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1.
A handout will be given to each partner that will require them to list one secret talent, one
thing on their bucket list, and the Starbucks drink that describes them best and why. 2.
There will be three different rounds and in each round they will find another person to exchange their list with. 3.
They will have 4 minutes during each round and will be encouraged to find a partner they
do not know very well or work with too often. At the end the trainer will pick a handful of people to share one interesting fact about one person out of the three rounds that they knew the least. (Partners will be provided with a pen and paper and will be required to take notes throughout the entirety of the training)
Module 1: Establishing the Starbucks Culture
The trainer will kick off the next step by very briefly going over the Starbucks mission statement which will be presented on a slide on the projector screen. She will then transition to the next slide to reiterate the three different promises (our partner promise, customer promise, and community promise) that we made when we signed on to be Starbucks baristas. By briefly speaking about the topic prior to presenting it on the screen, she is helping the partners successfully link the ideas between the concepts. She will then effectively use verbal immediacy to help connect with the trainees through language by describing what it means to her to be a part
of this company and what she hopes it means for us (Wrench et al., 2015). Lastly, she will bring up the slide that shows the most recent 5 week customer service scores for our store and explain that she doesn’t believe that those numbers are a true representation of who we are as a store and that we have to prove to ourselves that we are better than those scores. Module 2: Presentation
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There will be a short video provided by Starbucks called “The Third Place” where Howard Schultz, the former CEO of Starbucks, describes who we are as a company and who we aspire to be. He explains how a third place is not a physical environment but an emotion, an aspiration, a feeling that customers have when they walk through our doors. We felt that the use of a video presentation aids was the best technique for this training because we needed the trainees to obtain very specific information on customer connection. Module 3: Active Listening
The next slide will focus on the first interpersonal skill- active listening. Active listening is one of the skills we narrowed down to as it is crucial for the type of work done by Starbucks baristas: taking orders, de-escalating situations, making connections. To actively listen means to acquire information and listening to understand situations and people before responding to them.There will be a few slides on what active listening means, how to do it, and why it’s important. They will then be split up into 6 groups of 6, with one supervisor in each leading the group, where they will go through a number of scenario cards that feature customer/barista complaints. The supervisor will read through the card once and the rest of the group will repeat back a gist of the card and how active listening may help in that specific situation. The supervisor will then move on to the next card.
After this module, the partners will return to their seats.
Module 4: Small Talk
The next couple slides will focus on small talk. Slides will include “What is small talk?”, “What are useful phrases and questions?”, “What are the best/worst things to talk about?”, and lastly “Why is small talk important?”. While some people think small talk is unimportant, having
a quick connection with someone can open the door to more meaningful conversation, a topic for
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their next visit, and just plain getting to know someone. This brings us back to the quote from Howard Schultz, “
We’re not in the coffee business. It’s what we sell as a product but we’re in the people business…”. Small talk is probably one of the most important interpersonal skills out of the three we have narrowed down to. There are some customers that don’t return for the coffee, but return for the connection that we provide to them as their baristas. After the slides they will be broken into two groups of 15 where they will role play in the bar role and front POS role. It does not matter whether a partner is placed in the bar role or the POS roles as they both have the same objective. In one group, a partner will sequence three drinks and be required to make small talk with a “customer” at the hand off. In the other group, a partner who is taking a “customer's” order will go through the order routine: greeting, name, order, and payment. Somewhere within that routine, the barista will be required to make some form of connection through small talk. With a group this big, role playing is useful because of the time we have available for the training while the partners are able to interchange through the roles while receiving the proper feedback from their peers who are observing (Wrench et al., 2015).
After this module, the partners will return to their seats.
Module 5: Body Language
The next slides will focus on body language. The slides will explain how body orientation is something that unconsciously takes form. The objective of this module is to get the
partners to understand that different demeanors and facial expressions can make someone either very approachable or very unapproachable, as well as communicate/miscommunicate the messages that we are expressing through words (Wrench et al., 2015) . Eye contact is another form of body language that immediately establishes a connection with someone. As a barista, maintaining eye contact and giving your customer your full attention are nonverbal ways that
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show you are engaged and paying attention to them. Imagine you are a customer at Starbucks and have a very modified drink that you want to order and your barista is multitasking/ not giving you full attention. Would you trust that they got your order right? Would you feel at ease with that interaction? Would you return to this store? These are all possible outcomes from a barista providing a customer poor body language. This is why it’s incredibly important that we remind our partners of what it means to be customer focused instead of task focused. At the end of the slides, images and animations will be presented on the projector screen of people with different types of body language and the trainer will ask the entire group to answer whether they are approachable or unapproachable. Conclusion
The trainer will end the training by asking a variety of partners questions of what it is they learned from each module. She will also integrate some questions and results from the assessment. For example, she will use the question, "I do not make the effort in connecting with our customers because I do not have time, as there are more pressing things I need to focus on to help keep the store running." and ask why we think we have reverted to being task focused instead of customer focused. She will also encourage the baristas to ask any questions they have or express any concerns about the training. This will give the trainer a chance to end the training session by addressing any doubtful opinions over the training by providing strong evidence as to why the content provided is useful and will help them in achieving their goals. After questions, she will remind the baristas of the current customer connection score and present them with the goals of bringing up their score ten points within the next three weeks. On average, the score fluctuates either down or up by 3-4 points. With them currently being at a 55, giving them a timeline of three weeks to get up to a 65 seems realistic and attainable as long as every single
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partner is creating a connection by simply exchanging messages, practicing actively listening, and open body language.
Learning Environment
The training will take place at the store location itself. It is a fact that training that takes place in a familiar environment will make the employees comfortable enough to be able to engage with the content that is being presented. Tania, the store manager will be in charge of taking all the necessary actions to ensure that there will be no disruptions during the training like turning off mobile orders, posting on the store’s instagram to notify customers that we are closed, and posting signs on the doors and drive thru window. They will be free of loud noises as
the music will be turned off, be required to turn in their phones for the duration of the training, and have access to the stores POS system which will help in simulating an effective role play for module 4.
The seating arrangement of the partners will be in a “classroom” style arrangement due to
the large number of people that will be participating in the training. This will be most effective during the phases of training that will require being seated in front of a projector screen that will include presentations that will deliver very specific information on customer connection, the Starbucks Coffee Company mission statement, etc. The store will be kept at the standard temperature of 68 degrees to ensure the partners feel cool and comfortable and to avoid any distractions due to physical discomfort. The lighting of the store will also be adjusted during different phases of the training. When the projector screen is being actively used there will only be a couple of light beams on so that it is not too bright to help partners focus on the presentation, while still providing them with enough light to
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be able to take notes without difficulty. When the partners are broken up into groups for module 3 and 4, the light setting will be set back to the store's standard of all beams being on.
Training Plan Timeline
The training will occur over a period of four hours. To avoid losing a whole day's worth of sales, the store will be open from 6:30am-3pm. The two different day parts for this specific day that are scheduled are a morning crew and a mid crew. The morning crew will be scheduled a total of 4 hours, 6am-10:30am, and be required to come back at 3:30pm for the training, while the mid crew will be scheduled a total of 8 hours, their first four hours working from 10:30am-3, taking their lunch at 3pm, only to return at 3:30pm for their training. The training will take place from 3:30-7:30pm. Time
Module
Method
3:30pm-4pm
Introduction: “Get to know your partner” Icebreaker
Pairs and group discussion
4pm-4:15pm
Module 1: Establishing the Starbucks Culture
Lecture
4:15pm-4:30pm
Module 2: Presentation
“Third Place” video
4:30pm-5pm
Module 3: Active Listening
Lecture and group activity
5pm-5:30pm
Break (food and drinks provided)
5:30pm-6pm
Module 4: Small talk
Lecture and group activity
6pm-6:30pm
Module 5: Body language
Lecture and group discussion
6:30-7pm
Conclusion
Lecture with Q&A
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Learning Outcomes
The ways in which we will analyze whether the training objectives were accomplished are going to be through Don Kirkpatrick’s “four levels”. Once the training content has settled into their minds, on the barista’s next shift they will receive a “smile sheet”. A smile sheet is Kirkpatrick’s first level: reaction, and it measures how the trainees felt about the program. This smile sheet will consist of 5 questions: 3 questions will measure their satisfaction with the facilitator of the training, the relevance of the material, and how likely they are to implement the material on their shifts and will require a rating of 1 to 5. Kirkpatrick’s level 2: learning, will be implemented in the other two questions requiring a written answer to test the barista’s comprehension of the material from memory (Wrench et al., 2015). Throughout the next three weeks, the shift supervisors will be given the responsibility to measure the behaviors of the baristas on their shifts to see if they successfully transferred their knowledge, skills, and abilities from the training into the workplace, a technique described by Kirkpatrick's level 3: behavior. Barista’s who are failing to transfer the KSA’s will get a warning/reminder from the supervisor to apply themselves and if their behavior continues, the store manager will follow up with a corrective action. Kirkpatrick’s level 4: results, won’t be seen until three weeks from the training
session, as we will be able to analyze whether or not the learning program produced changes in their organizational outcomes as they were required to raise their customer connection score by 10 points. If they are not successful, the return on investment (ROI) will be used to analyze where the program can be improved or whether it needs to be completely redesigned with a new training focus. If changes to the training program are required we will begin by asking the partners what kind of learners they are: visual, audio, or kinesthetic, to develop the appropriate training plan (e.g. more activities instead of lectures).
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References
Cleave, P. (2022, November 25). How to analyse open ended questions
. SmartSurvey. https://www.smartsurvey.co.uk/blog/how-to-analyse-open-ended-questions#:~:text=Open
%20ended%20questions%20are%20ideal,might%20not%20otherwise%20pick%20up.
Gallo, C. (2011, April 15). Starbucks CEO: Lesson in Communication Skills
. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/carminegallo/2011/03/25/starbucks-ceo-lesson-in-
communication-skills/?sh=3418a9ae72b8
Likert scale questions
. SmartSurvey. (n.d.). https://www.smartsurvey.co.uk/survey-
questions/likert-scale#:~:text=Pros,is%20easy%20to%20understand%20them
.
Our mission
. Starbucks Stories. (2023, April 24). https://stories.starbucks.com/mission/ Wrench, J. S., Johnson, D. I., & Citera, M. (2015). Training and development: The intersection of Communication & Talent Development in the modern workplace
. Kendall Hunt Publishing Company. Appendix A: Contacts
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1.
Tania Mendoza, Store Manager (primary contact)- 562 754 3589 tania91390@gmail.com
2.
Sarah Chavez, Assistant Store Manager- 714 381 8773
schavez5716@gmail.com
Appendix B: Analysis
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After thorough analysis of the needs assessment, it was determined that the partners do indeed understand the importance of connecting with customers and know how to but the main reason partners aren’t connecting at the window is because they are too task focused and have fallen guilty to not feeling like they need to connect anymore due to the results of the pandemic creating a more reserved way of living. Questions 1, 3, 7, 8, and 10 were all questions that were used to measure the partners prior knowledge of the barista basics/ barista culture and eliminate any confusion or bias that may be present when answering the other “like” questions. Questions #2 and #6 were asked to determine whether the work environment was at all a factor in the partners failing to connect with their customers. Question #9 was asked to determine if there are any outside factors other than the work environment that may be keeping the partners from connecting. Lastly, questions #4 and #5 are used to measure the current effort the partners are actually making to connect. Questions
1. “How would you describe the culture Starbucks aims to have in their stores?”
An inclusive and welcoming environment.
2. “Do you feel valued and supported by your manager/shift supervisors to be able to provide the
Starbucks experience to our customers?” Neutral 3. “What does connecting with a customer look like to you?” Giving and getting a name, complimenting them on something, or remembering their order.
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4. "I ask every customer for their name." Strongly Agree
5. "I immerse myself in conversations with customers by asking about their day." Neutral
6. "I do not make the effort in connecting with our customers because I do not have time, as there
are more pressing things I need to focus on to help keep the store running." Agree
7. "I understand why our customer connection score is important and how it reflects our store as a whole." Agree
8. “What are some things that we do as barista's that will encourage a customer to return to our store?” Remembering their name, their drink, or something from a past conversation.
9. What are some things that keep you from connecting with your customer?
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Since the pandemic people have been more reserved. Some people roll their windows up after payment, so I have gotten used to closing the window when gathering the order instead of attempting to connect.
10. “Tell me about a time where you experienced great customer service.” At Chilis, the second I walked through the door, the host acknowledged me and seated me and my girlfriend right away. The waitress went on to take our order very quickly and was very attentive. She was there whenever I needed something as she kept checking in on us every 15 minutes. I felt like I was heard and seen as a person and not just a customer.