I don’t like coffee. I don’t think I ever will. But I do love Starbucks. If you haven’t read “The Starbucks Experience”, don’t understand how a great experience can mean a whole lot or just don’t like Starbucks, then you won’t understand what I’m about to write. Stop reading. Go somewhere else.

Today is the 26th of December, the day after Christmas (this is important). I’m scheduled to work and couldn’t get in the building. My card didn’t work and there wasn’t a security guard at the desk to let me in. So I headed over to Starbucks in Larimer Square in downtown Denver to get something to drink and eat for a few minutes, then my plan was to head back over to my building to see if the security guard was there. I walked into Starbucks, one other customer and two baristas greeted me. Not feeling like my usual hot chocolate I decided to get an iced tea lemonade. Since this Starbucks was closed on the 25th, they didn’t have anything made from the night before. That is to say they didn’t have anything that was perishable. This included the iced tea component of my drink. This resulted in having to wait a few minutes and since I couldn’t get into my building I didn’t see this as an issue (not that having to wait for a drink to be made would ever be an issue). The barista apologized no less than four times for not having my drink made as quickly as she wanted it to be made.

After a few minutes my drink came out accompanied with another apology and a card for a free beverage:

This inside said: “We apologize if your Starbucks experience was anything but wonderful. We want to know how we can make things better and always invite you to share your thoughts with us.”

Gee, Starbucks. I don’t know what to say…

Thanks!

At work yesterday I gave a presentation about giving websites personality and making them personal. I covered things about communication, the user experience, the users and about the words or copy that can help achieve that goal.

The slides can be found on slide share.