Howard Schultz: uncertainty

Transcript context

…Yeah, this is. My one more question on this. Writing the customer’s name on the cup. That didn’t come from me. As the stores got busier and busier, the baristas were having a hard time with whose cup is it? What are we going to do? Someone at Starbucks, I don’t know who it was, started writing names on the cup, and it just became standard. So much of Starbucks’ success came from customers asking for things we weren’t doing, and Starbucks employees who became partners in 1991, understanding the business better than me. This is all to my mind, just starting to create this incredible flywheel of you’ve got this 80% gross margin business, where the key lever is repeat loyal customer visits. You’ve got customization that is making customers more loyal, and increasing your margin at the same time because you can charge more for it. You’ve got the interpersonal relationship with the baristas, sure, but also the name on the cup, that’s something that scales even as thousands and thousands of people come into the store.…

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