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--- yiler-huang-case-study [2022/12/20 23:26] – created yiler.huang
+++ yiler-huang-case-study [2023/01/29 20:51] (current) – yiler.huang
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-===== Case Study of Two Service Industry Competitors =====
+====== Comparison between Starbucks and Louisa Coffee ======
-By [[yiler-huang| Yiler Huang]]
+By [[yiler-huang|Yiler Huang]]
-  * Core service
+=== Introduction ===
-    * Say hi to you
-    * get your money and make what you ordered
-    * Make the drink
-    * Give you the drink
-  * VAS
+In society nowadays, a good place to work in or hang out with friends is really important. Those places are usually restaurants, shopping malls, and most commonly, coffee shops. The total service package in a coffee shop could change a customer’s experience a lot if it is designed well. In other words, terrible service could also leave a customer a bad experience. Therefore, the author is comparing the service between Taiwan’s two biggest coffee shop competitors, Starbucks Coffee and Louisa Coffee.
-    * Membership
-    * Online ordering app
-    * provide a quiet place to work in
+=== Brief history of Starbucks ===
-    * Get you a image of you being rich
-    * Give you a place to go to toilet
+{{:yiler-starbucks-logo.png?200|}}
+In order to compare the two coffee shops, the author did some case studies about them. Firstly, Starbucks is a coffee shop that was founded by Jerry Baldwin, Gordon Bowker, and Zev Siegl in 1971. The name Starbucks came from a character who makes coffee in Herman Melville’s classic novel Moby Dick. The first Starbucks store opened in Washington Pike Market in Seattle Washington, they opened four more stores in 1980. In 1992, the company went public and business took up. They started opening stores outside of America in 1996. When they were entering the Taiwan market, they worked with the Uni President company to help them to open stores through out the island. The first Starbucks store in Taiwan was opened on March 28, 1998, and it is located in the Tianmu district. Then, Starbucks started spreading in Taiwan. In 2021, Starbucks already had 32,000 stores around the world. The main value and mission of Starbucks is to “Create a culture of warmth and belonging, where everyone is welcome.” The author thinks their value and mission are executed well because they have a big amount of customer base.
+=== Brief history of Louisa ===
+{{:yiler-louisa-logo.png?200|}}
+Taiwan's biggest competitor of Starbucks, Louisa Coffee, started in 2006, founded by Chris Huang in Taiwan. In 2007, they opened the first Louisa coffee in Mingshen District in Taipei. In 2012, they started their franchising operation and opened 20 stores across Taiwan. In May 2015, they had already opened 100 stores in total, and they opened their own coffee factory in August. In July 2018, they launched the first mobile cafe station(a coffee shop that has few seats or even none, usually for people who are in a rush a place to buy coffee), and they opened an overseas store in Thailand in March 2019. The total income of Starbucks in 2020 was about 11 billion NTD, and Louisa was about 1.97 billion.
+=== Method ===
+The main research question of this research is “What are the customer impressions about the brand image of Starbucks Coffee and Louisa Coffee, and what factors influence this image” In the research, the author is mostly focusing on the people factor and physical evidence factor as stated in the 8P analysis for service processes. The reason why the author chose to focus on these two factors are that these two factors are directly observable, also, these two factors are the ones which most directly influence the image of a brand. It is very easy to see a difference between the two coffee shops. The first step of this research is to get people's thoughts on Starbucks and Louisa, so the researcher directly interviewed two respondents. The author performed observations and data collection on September 27 5 p.m. to 6 p.m., 2022. The author is physically at Starbucks Xingnan shop and Louisa Jianguo flower market shop.
+=== Data ===
+The first kind of data the researcher got was thoughts on Starbucks and Louisa from four respondents. The first subject the author asked said Starbucks has good custom service, they have a good membership system, and the music is good. The subject also said Louisa looks cheap, the locations of the stores are weird, and the employees are not trained well. The second respondent the author asked said that Starbucks has overpriced coffee, it is a place where there are a lot of egos, but it has reasonably good service. The second respondent said the service in each Louisa has a huge difference, they don’t have a standard of their service, it is a place he doesn’t like to stay long because it feels like a fast food restaurant, and they don't have the consistent quality of service. The subject also said the culture is very welcome to many different kind of people such as transgender people. The third respondent said that Starbucks is a little expensive, it's a premium international brand, but he doesn't like the coffee bean used in Starbucks. For Louisa, they are easier to find, they are cheap, but the places are sometimes dirty. The fourth respondent thinks Starbucks is more international, the employees are well trained because the service provided are usually consistent, but it is overpriced. Louisa is more like a local brand, the service is inconsistent, but the price is relatively fair.
+The table of the informations is shown below
+{{:yiler-respondents-answers.png?800|}}
+With regards to the physical evidence factor, three kinds of informations were collected: in store furniture, interior design, and the cleanliness of the floor. The informations and data are shown in the table below.
+In the people factor, four kinds of informations were collected: number of staffs, number of customers, the behavior of customers, and the service given from the staffs.
+{{:yiler-service-observation-table.png?800|}}
+=== Discussion ===
+For Starbucks, the author thinks it gives people a more steady and relaxing feeling from the dark color and the layout of chairs and sofas. For Louisa, the author thinks the place was a little bit too loud, the bright color is giving him a feeling of cheap and not well designed. The author thinks Starbucks had slightly better service, because the employees were more patient, and they didn't talk to each other while ordering.
+{{:yiler-starbucks-floor.jpeg?400|}}
+//The floor in Starbucks. It is dark and gives people feelings of steadiness and luxury.//
+{{:louisa-ipad-person.jpeg?400|}}
+//The floor in Louisa is lighter, giving people the feelings of fast and young.//
+{{:yiler-louisa-table.jpeg?400|}}
+//The table of Louisa. The color is also bright.//
+{{:yiler-starbucks-high-chair.jpeg?400|}}
+//This is the high metal chair in Starbucks. It is dark and giving people a luxury feeling. The seat is high so you can see the view outside of the window.//
+{{:yiler-starbucks-wooden-chair.jpeg?400|}}
+//These are the wooden chairs in Starbucks. They are slightly darker than the wooden chairs in Louisa.//
+{{:yiler-starbucks-mini-sofa.jpeg?400|}}
+//This is the mini sofa in Starbucks. It also has a dark color, very comfortable to sit on. Makes people want to stay on it.//
+{{:yiler-starbucks-mac-person.jpeg?400|}}
+//A person using a MacBook in a Starbucks on the left of the picture.//
+Overall, the subjects’ thoughts about Starbucks are expensive, good atmosphere, and there are a lot of egoists. Louisa is relatively cheap, the environment has many different kinds of people, and people are more welcomed in Louisa. According to the author’s literature review and case observation, there are some differences between Starbucks Coffee and Louisa Coffee that caused people to think this way. The author thinks Starbucks is more like a place for people to relax and a place for people to calm down and focus, so when people are actually also paying for the environment when you ordered a cup of coffee. Starbucks is trying to make people feel like they are in their home. For Louisa, it is more like a place where you can chat or hangout with your classmates or friends. This is because the customers there were mostly young , and the place is also relatively loud. Comparing the employees in Starbucks and Louisa, the author thinks that Starbucks probably has better training for their employees. This is because when he ordered in Starbucks, the employees were nice and patient. For the physical evidence factor, Starbucks and Louisa have a huge difference between each other. Starbucks has more sofas, and the lighting and all the furniture were darker than Louisa. The author thinks the darker color in Starbucks gives people a luxury, relaxing and comfortable vibe. On the other hand, Louisa’s bright color makes people feel not so steady, and not as comfortable in Starbucks. After all, the author thinks Starbucks and Louisa both have their own style and vibe, Starbucks is trying to make the places give you the feeling of relaxed and comfortable. Louisa is more like a normal coffee shop where you can hangout with your friends.
+In the respondents' answers, the thoughts about Starbucks is generally luxury, expensive, and overpriced. For Louisa, the respondents said it is cheap, local, and has fair prices. In the discussion above, the researcher found out that Starbucks and Louisa are targeting different kind of patron. Starbucks is targeting people who likes the luxury feeling of the stores, so they might be keeping the image good very seriously. For Louisa, they are more likely to be targeting at people who don't really mind the atmosphere and in-store experience. Therefore, the services provided in different Louisa stores might not be consistent as the services provided in different Starbucks stores. Also, in the respondents' thoughts, we can also see that some of them think there are a lot of self important people in Starbucks. The author thinks this happens because they are one of the main target patron Starbucks want. The author thinks Starbucks is not just selling their coffee, they are also selling the feeling of being rich and using luxury things. When people buy drinks from Starbucks, they are also buying the luxury look of holding a Starbucks cup. Louisa is not connecting their drinks and foods to the idea of luxury. Their target is just to sell as much coffee as they could, and open more stores. It is the differences between the marketing strategy that creates the image of the two stores in people's mind.
+The author thinks if Louisa wants to improve their service by adjusting the people and physical evidence factor, they should clean their place more. Also, they should have less seats so the place doesn't get loud and crowded. For Starbucks, the author thinks they should have more employees, because there was about 20 people in the first floor of the place. This could be improved if they have more people working in the counter.
+=== Conclusion ===
+Overall, the researcher has a basic idea of why Starbucks and Louisa are giving people different kinds of feeling. In Starbucks, you are not only paying for the coffee itself, but also the environment and the luxury feeling in the store. Therefore, they uses a more steady and darker color in their store, and they have seats that are more comfortable. Louisa on the other hand, is like a fast food restaurant. They only provide foods and a basic place for you to sit in. Therefore, the color used in the store looked lighter and faster.  The research thinks the result is related to the strategy used in Starbucks and Louisa. The strategy of Starbucks is more like providing drinks and a good space for you to work or relax in in. The strategy of Louisa is more like only offering people drinks, and try to sell them as much as possible. Therefore, the seats were not designed to let the customers to stay for a long time. Finally the author thinks it is the marketing strategy and the difference in target client that affected the image of the two brands in people's mind. Starbucks is more focused on people who like the feeling of luxury and using things that are more expensive. Louisa is targeting at any people who want to buy some food or drinks. Therefore, people think Starbucks feels more overpriced and expensive, and Louisa is relatively welcoming and cheap.
+{{yiler-service-comparison-table.png?800|}}
+=== References ===
+https://www.starbucks.com/careers/working-at-starbucks/culture-and-values/
+https://www.britannica.com/topic/Starbucks
+https://prezi.com/zeh476olxyt0/blueprinting-having-a-cup-of-coffee-at-starbucks/
+https://english.cw.com.tw/article/article.action?id=1903
+https://en.louisacoffee.co/about
+https://udn.com/news/story/7252/6315531
+https://finance.ettoday.net/news/2080700
+https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%98%9F%E5%B7%B4%E5%85%8B
+https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fzh.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2F%25E8%25B7%25AF%25E6%2598%2593%25E8%258E%258E%25E5%2592%2596%25E5%2595%25A1&psig=AOvVaw0bl7qvAc_ZBZ8MuWGt_nTH&ust=1666332266384000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CA0QjRxqFwoTCPCM4MiR7voCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAE