By ROBERT L. JAMIESON Jr.SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER COLUMNIST
Posted on 09/25/2001 8:02:00 AM PDT by toupsie
Starbucks dropped the ball in New York
Tuesday, September 25, 2001
By ROBERT L. JAMIESON Jr.
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER COLUMNIST
For Starbucks coffee mogul Howard Schultz, the terrorist attacks in New York City hit home.
Schultz was born in Brooklyn. He lived in or near the Big Apple for more than two decades. He has opened more than 130 Starbucks stores in Manhattan and the surrounding boroughs, each one serving up java -- along with the company's hallmark customer service.
So how then to explain what happened to the Midwood Ambulance Service, a company based near Schultz's old Brooklyn stomping grounds?
On Sept. 11, after the horrific collapse of the World Trade Center, workers for the ambulance company rushed to get bottled water for patients.
They went to a Starbucks store near "Ground Zero" and got, well, let's allow the ambulance company to spill the beans:
"A great deal of people were in shock from the devastation," a representative of the family-owned ambulance company wrote in an e-mail to Starbucks. "Shock victims are supposed to drink a lot of water. When employees of Midwood Ambulance went to the Starbucks down the street to get bottles of water for the victims they were treating, can you believe Starbucks actually charged them for it!!!"
Wait, there's more...
"These men, heroes for what they were doing, paid the $130 for three cases of bottled water out of their own pockets. Now, I would think that in a crisis such as this, vendors in the area would be more than happy to lend a little help by donating water. Well, not Starbucks! As if this country hasn't given you people enough money already!"
The e-mail continued:
"I love Frappuccinos as much as anyone, but any company that would try to make a profit off of a crisis like this doesn't deserve the American public's hard-earned money."
Now, let's give Starbucks the benefit of the doubt.
Let's pretend for a moment that employees at the store in Battery Park were not motivated by callousness when they charged medical personnel for water in a time of need.
Still, the store's unwillingness to donate water -- when many other people in New York and elsewhere freely gave supplies and labor -- came at the very same time when its corporate parent was all too willing to do something else: pat itself publicly on the back.
In a press release, the Seattle-based coffee company publicized how it had temporarily closed its North American locations "so that our partners could return to be home with their families and friends."
Gee, what Starbucks did for its "partners" -- that's Starbucks-ese for employees -- was nice, but certainly not something worthy of tooting its own horn about.
Given the context of national suffering, such publicity came across as self-serving and something else: tasteless.
If the mistreatment of the ambulance company resulted from one ill-guided employee at one Starbucks store, then the coffee giant, which fancies itself a good business neighbor, failed to do the right thing when the issue first reached the corporate level.
Starbucks could have made nice when a representative from the ambulance company called up to complain about the H{-2}0 imbroglio. But that didn't happen.
The ambulance company employee told Starbucks, "When I called...to inquire about this at your 'contact us' phone number from your Web site, I was told in a rather rude way that this could not have happened and abruptly thanked for my call and dismissed."
Starbucks had the chance to turn this unfortunate incident into something positive and, it appears, shrugged it off.
So the ambulance company eventually went to a higher level, writing a Dear Orin letter -- as in Starbucks President and CEO Orin Smith. That correspondence, dated Sept. 17, began: "Dear Orin, I have been a good customer of Starbucks for a number of years..."
It went on to explain what had happened and expressed how the ambulance company felt: "I am completely and utterly disappointed in you and your company and would sooner have open heart surgery without anesthesia before I would give you another red cent of my hard-earned money."
Neither Schultz, who is Starbucks chairman and chief global strategist, nor Smith could be reached. Audrey Lincoff, a company spokeswoman, confirmed that Starbucks had talked to Midwood Ambulance Service and had received its correspondences.
Finally, last week, Smith spoke to the head of the ambulance company and expressed "his deep concern" over the incident, the coffee company said.
Starbucks is now looking into how the faux pas occurred.
But the coffee company has made amends, swallowing its pride and doing something to make up for the case of customer disservice: It reimbursed the ambulance company in Brooklyn.
P-I columnist Robert L. Jamieson Jr. can be reached at 206-448-8125 or robertjamieson@seattlepi.com
Had I been an employee (partner) I would have given the water and belled the cat with a visit to the media had I been terminated.
Greed will always come back to haunt, even though it may be disguised as hardship.
Here's how it works. The rest of the country is sending aid to New York, and New Yorkers are charging each other for their services. Don't tell me to be sensitive, I've donated money to the relief funds. Tell them to be sensitive!
It's obvious here that someone is trying to blow up the rudeness of a single Starbuck's clerk into an public relations fiasco against the company and its thousands of employees. This tells me that someone wants some money from Starbuck's, on the threat of further adverse publicity. So who's trying to profit off this tragedy?
'Building Community Our many community building programs help us to be a good neighbor and active contributor in the communities where our partners and customers live, work and play. We encourage and reward volunteerism and participation in neighborhood clean-ups, walk-a-thons, and leadership activities.'
Double Barf!
The Tarheel
The Starbuck's nearest to me has a large, old fashioned water crock with a spigot sitting on the counter with disposable cups so that customers or browsers can drink water at no charge, so I wasn't even aware that Starbuck's sold bottled water.
It doesn't make a lot of sense to jump Starbuck's about this simply because they didn't already have a company policy in place which would allow store employees to donate the merchandise of the store without explicit permission.
Take a closer look at this. It ain't as if Starbuck's corporate management or even the manager of that store quickly decided to profit from the attack.
I'd be willing to give the company the benefit of the doubt seeing as how they probably had a bunch of snot-noses running that place that have not a clue. But that benefit ran out with the way they handled the follow-up.
I order all my coffee from DunkinDonuts.com. It's great.
Interesting to note. But did they then distribute the bottled water afterwards?
$3.00 a pop for tylenol from our health care system sounds like greed to me too.
Shall we suspend property rights?
I agree it was callous and thoughtless what Starbucks did. But it wasn't a criminal act. They'll endure punishment enough once the word of this incident gets out. It might as well have been a criminal act.
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