If you’ve ever visited Starbucks, you may enjoy the overpriced coffees or bewildering assortment of half-sweet, half-savoury drinks – espresso frappuccino, anyone? But you may also agree with a mystery shopper who said: ‘It can feel transactional, menus can feel overwhelming, product is inconsistent, the wait too long or the handoff too hectic.’
Anyone with even the most slightly unorthodox name can testify to the last: it has become a running joke on social media to see randomly scrawled words on the coffee cups that may, or may not, bear some relation to the person who has ordered it. But before Starbucks defenders start to attest to the group’s brilliance, the identity of the mystery shopper is none other than the company’s new chief executive Brian Niccol, and he has promised to, in his words, look into ‘elevating the in-store experience, ensuring our spaces reflect the sights, smells and sounds that define Starbucks’.
There is nothing cool or alternative about Starbucks any more
When the coffee chain first arrived in the UK in 1998, nearly thirty years after the first branch opened in Seattle in 1971, it was a revelation.
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