Three reasons why I believe Starbucks would dominate the hotel industry.

Starbucks has created a winning business formula, which I believe would allow them to be successful in any hospitality segment. They could easily be one of the top hotel brands in the world. The reason I make this assertion is that I believe Starbucks has developed that special blend of tangible and non-tangible business elements and approaches for achieving a very beloved brand by both the employees and customers as well as creating undeniable financial results.

One of the main ingredients in the Starbucks business formula.

Starbucks utilizes customer experience design strategies for developing their entire business, especially when it comes to their business model’s value proposition, which has evolved from a commodity offering of a coffee bean, or a cup of coffee, in the very early beginnings of their existence, to now the total customer experience of the business entity.

They have become a very mature company, when it comes to understanding people and what business they are really in. I see so many businesses continually doubling down on increasing their product and service offerings as a way to create customer loyalty or build brand relevance to gain competitive advantages over the competition. What a lot of these businesses are realizing is that this approach is very limited and does not create very good ROI results or build sustainable financial performance. The business either runs out of things to spend money on or they just plain run out of money.

Starbucks’ approach takes everything into account, so that they become a lifestyle brand to their customer segments. They balance the physical product and service offerings with the emotional connection of the brand values and promise. They realize that they are not in the coffee business; they are more fittingly in the business of creating positive and memorable experiences for their customers.

They are enrolling their customers in the total customer experience of their business. They have built a brand experience that is an extension of people’s personalities, as well as a support in their customers’ lives.

I think if this one business strategy was adopted by the hotel industry, it would have a transformative effect on the way the industry goes about doing business with its customers and employees as well as how it looked at each discipline within their business. However, it seems like the hotel industry is more interested in adopting the airline industry playbook and becoming more of a commodity driven business segment, rather than experience driven and people focused.

Starbucks is more interested in connecting with you on a personal level than just selling you a cup of coffee. They don’t want to make a sale; they want to make you happy. Commodity driven enterprises are only interested in selling you a cup of coffee or a hotel room. The commodity enterprises are hoping that the product offering is strong enough and good enough to seal the deal for building legitimate customer loyalty results. They have a make-and-sell type of mentality, rather than enrolling and connecting their customer to the non-tangible aspects of the business for enhancing the relevance of tangible aspects of the brand.

tratto da ehotelier.com