Starbucks lost to Au Bon pain (who is that?)

by Chee Leng
(Singapore)

Starbucks also lost to Dunkin Donuts, Tim Hortons and of course Au Bon Pain. Based in S.E Asia, I have not even heard of Au Bon Pain.

But with this new report by Zeta Interactive, I now know that they are more popular when it comes to online chatter.

In the report, Zeta Interactive measures the buzz that is generated on the coffee companies, and this report highlighted that Starbucks popularity is behind all the above brands.

(Source: Zeta Interactive)

In fact, it has less positive buzz when compared to Seattle's Best coffee, its smaller scale sister company.

What happened to the Starbucks experience? The experience that has consumers flocking to its outlets in the first place?

Many variables contributed to this latest saga. Online chatters has words like expensive, cost and wait being associate to this company.

Now, this might be a backfire of Starbucks plan to better its services.

Some of you might remember reading an article that I posted some time back on Starbucks asking its baristas to serve their coffee slower, believing that it would better the experience.

To read again, check out the article here:

Starbucks better their customer service

Imagine, if you waited for a coffee in starbucks then you go to Dunkin Donuts and the turn around is fast, which one would you associated with better service?

Probably the former right?

And with better services, comes all the positive association.

If you wait too long for a thing, you would not find it value for money, and that is expensive -thus, this might be the reason for the various words associated with Starbucks.

There are articles citing that the treatment of its employees, lesser perks than other market players could also be a reason for the less than desirable online buzz.

But, personally, I think it might be due to a simple thing such as waiting too long for a cup of coffee. I do not know anyone that like their coffee in 4 minutes, if they can have it in 2 minutes -do you?