For Starbucks Coffee or the Startbucks licensed stores, you would expect that the customer experience will be the same wherever in the world that store may be. This is what you call branding, and that is ideal.

In most cases, however, franchises and even those that are not, don’t really give the same quality product or service that you expect from the mother company. That’s just too bad.

Here in the Philippines, or at least in the Makati area, I have not heard of a flagrant disregard of customer or customer’s rights. If anyone has a story that says otherwise, please share it here.

My American friend who is staying in Chongqing, China for now has a different story to tell. I mentioned to him that I had joined a group of friends-bloggers who would be re-experiencing the Starbucks experience. This is how our chat conversation went:

My friend: oh, i’m in starbucks now…
Me: oh, and how is it sof far?
My friend: most of the customers are pretty happy … but! there’s actually a pretty serious problem ongoing right now …
Me: what?
My friend: the problem is that …. maybe there about 100 customers, all who are drinking liquids and sitting in the store here … and enjoying the free wireless internet connection
Me: so what’s the problem with that?
My friend: …well - there’s just a single bathroom for all the customers .. so it smells kind of bad … and there’s usually a line there too
Me: and a shared bathroom for men and women?
My friend: ya
Me: ooh… in the US there are more than one bathroom in each starbucks?
My friend: usually i think … or at least a male and a female one… so this might be mainly a problem with their international stores
Me: okay
My friend: right [grin]
Me: can i write about this? [grin] abt ur experience i mean … hehehe
My friend: sure - you can write about it … i’ll take some pictures next time i go into the rest room [grin]
… we’ll run an expose report on starbucks filthy bathrooms in china ^__^
Me: hahahaha and this is in Starbucks _, china?
My friend: chongqing … in the shapingba district of chongqing [grin]
Me: alright [wink] thanks
My friend: he he he

Lesson to be learned:

If you take care of your business—from the physicals to the people—it will send out the message that you also care for your customers. You only want what’s best for them. Starbucks Chongqing for one needs to show that. Who would want to have an unwelcome smell mixed with the aroma of your specialty coffee?

There’s a saying that goes, cleanliness is next to godliness.