Page 232 - DMGT510_SERVICES_MARKETING

Unit 12: Distribution of Services

3. Employee Training: Learning to be a Barista: Those employees that prepare the Notes
coffee are called Baristas (Italian for those who prepare and serve coffee) and all are
called partners. Every month over 400 people are trained to call, make drinks, clean
espresso machines, and deliver quality customer service and are given an exhaustive
education on ‘coffee knowledge’. ICH too makes its rookie waiters go through a
grinding trainee period, making them learn the art and science of taking orders,
maintaining good humour, and giving quick service.
4. Ensuring product quality: Starbucks makes its employees go through ‘retail skills’,
a technical training on how to clean the oil from the coffee bin, open giant bags of
coffee beans, clean the milk wand on the espresso machines etc. Since Starbucks also
sells espresso machines, they are taught how to ‘brew the perfect cup at home’ so
that they in turn can teach customers how to replicate perfect coffee at home.

5. Service Standards: No pot of coffee sits on a burner for more than 20 minutes.
Unused coffee in espresso machines is purged regularly. No employee goes home
in the night without completing cleaning, and polishing everything according to
the service manuals. McDonald’s ensures that none of its cooked buns sits for more
than ten minutes; if there are no orders, and then it is incinerated. All employees are
expected to take turns in cleaning the floors and tables, clearing the bins and also the
toilets.
6. Star Skills: Starbucks’ barista turnover is 60 per cent when compared to the 140 per
cent average for the fast food industry. To get the best of employees, keep them
motivated and improve interpersonal relationships amongst them, Starbucks has
three guidelines:

(a) maintain and enhance self-esteem
(b) listen and acknowledge
(c) ask for help
Starbucks has other motivators like higher-than-average pay, health insurance,
Employees Stock Option Plans (ESOP) etc.
7. Joe, a Magazine: Starbucks has tied up with Time Inc., part of the giant media group
AOL Time Warner, to publish Joe, a cultural review, which is sold in North American
outlets. It is subtitled ‘Life is Interesting: Discuss’, and seeks to replicate the free flow
of ideas in a coffeehouse.
Questions
1. Indian Coffee House chose to extend its product brand to a service brand through
company-owned outlets. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of expanding
through licenses and franchisees and compare them with company-owned outlets.
2. Can a conclusion be drawn that only a certain type of food retailing can be distributed
only through franchisees? Explain your answer.
3. What service marketing strategies should a service chain adopt to garner the
following benefits: control, consistency and maintenance of image?

4. Make a comparison of Indian Coffee House with Kamat, Woodlands, Nirula’s and
McDonald’s in their channel distribution methods.

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