[mnicole]

When I first moved to Portland, I lived on the same block as a wonderful little local coffee shop that served Stumptown. Man I love Stumptown. I would go there all the time, sometimes twice a day. The coffee and the food were great, but only right before I moved did they employ someone with a personality that would remember the only order I would ever get there.

When I started going to the Starbucks near my old office instead, within a week they knew my name, they know my [custom] drink, they know what I do and what my plans are for the weekend without sounding fake or pretentious and despite being one of the busier locations in the city. For me, it's customer experience, and Starbucks really emphasizes that in their training process. My taste buds preferred the local shop, but my money went to the company where the employees actually looked up at me and smiled and engaged me.

I also know they have really great benefits for their employees and with sites like mystarbucksidea.com, they at least pretend to give credence to the ideas of their customers (although they've implemented quite a few of them, they've been incredibly stingy about buying hemp milk).