Tag Archives: Coffee

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Why California students prefer Dutch Bros over Starbuck

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Dutch Bros Coffee is growing faster than Starbucks and becoming one of the most successful coffee chains in the U.S. It is now the fourth-largest coffee brand and continues to open new locations.

One reason for this success is its business model. While Starbucks spends heavily on store remodeling, Dutch Bros focuses on small drive-thru locations. This strategy allows them to expand quickly at lower cost.

However, fast service alone is not enough. Dutch Bros succeeds because of its superior customer experience. Unlike Starbucks, which can feel transactional, Dutch Bros creates a warm and personal experience. Their “broistas” (baristas) often remember customers’ names and favorite drinks, making visit feel like a conversation rather than a purchase. The company’s motto, “We may sell coffee, but we’re in the relationship business,” reflects its focus on customer connections.

Many students also enjoy the secret menu and customizeable drinks, such as Golden Eagle and Rebel Energy.

Dutch Bros understands what Gen Z wants, that is, a fast and friendly experience. Rather than focusing solely on coffee taste, it focuses on the experience of coffee buyers. Customer experience matters.

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Reference

Lemon, K. N., & Verhoef, P. C. (2016). Understanding customer experience throughout the customer journey. Journal of marketing, 80(6), 69-96.

Understanding customer experience and the customer journey over time is critical for firms. Customers now interact with firms through myriad touch points in multiple channels and media, and customer experiences are more social in nature. These changes require firms to integrate multiple business functions, and even external partners, in creating and delivering positive customer experiences. In this article, the authors aim to develop a stronger understanding of customer experience and the customer journey in this era of increasingly complex customer behavior. To achieve this goal, they examine existing definitions and conceptualizations of customer experience as a construct and provide a historical perspective of the roots of customer experience within marketing. Next, they attempt to bring together what is currently known about customer experience, customer journeys, and customer experience management. Finally, they identify critical areas for future research on this important topic.

Cases

How can we improve our postures while drinking coffee?

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In Hanoi, Vietnam, there is Cafe Giang, a famous local cafe known for its egg coffee. Last year, this place was introduced by CNN travel with the title of the egg coffee in Hanoi: where to get your caffeine fix.

(CNN) — Everyone at Hanoi’s humble Cafe Giang however, is after something more than just a caffeine fix. They’ve come for “cà phê trúng,” or egg coffee, a Hanoi specialty in which a creamy soft, meringue-like egg white foam is perched on dense Vietnamese coffee. While destinations across the city now serve it, this cafe claims to have invented it.
There are hot and cold versions. The former is served as a a yellow concoction in a small glass. It’s consumed with a spoon and tastes almost like a coffee flavored ice cream — more like a dessert than coffee. The hot version comes resting in a small dish of hot water to maintain its temperature. The strong coffee taste at the bottom of the cup seeps through the egg — the yellow layer on top — and is quite thick and sweet, though not sickly.

A tasty coffee with creamy foam impressed me. However, I was more impressed by the low stools. In this cafe, people bent their knees and pressed their hips back on the stools, much like doing a squat exercise.

Squats are a mainstay in about every program for trainers. The strength, power, flexibility and balance that can be gained from squats make this exercise a staple in any routine. Some people claim that we should do squat exercise everyday. Others argue that the forgotten art of squatting is a revelation for bodies ruined by sitting.

I believe, we are not only what we eat but also “how we move.” I learned this only after having gone through painful days to form a new habit such as moving computer mouse using left hand or doing computer tasks at standing desk. I suspect Vietnamese people, at least, look healthy because they develop a healthy posture habit. I may need to import their low stools to improve my bad posture habit.

Cases

How to enjoy coffee more and consume plastics less?

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Taipei is hot in summer. After sweating an hour, I ordered an iced coffee at 羊毛與花 Youmoutoohana Coffee. To my surprise, it served me a glass of coffee with a metal straw. After sipping coffee through it, I became a huge fan of metal straw. This summer, I will buy and bring a few metal straws to office with me to enjoy coffee more and consume plastics less.

 

 

Someone in US also found metal straw stylish and eco-friendly. Bethany Blakeman wrote in her blog,

 

I keep these in my tote bag (if you are worried about them getting dirty, I suggest a pencil pouch), and whip them up out whenever I’m at a coffee shop. Once at Starbucks, a talkative barista commented on my straw. “Hey, I’m with you,” he told me. “You’d hate to work here. You see how wasteful people are from behind this counter.” I’ll be gifting them to all of my friends for World Oceans Day on June 8.