Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz posted a lengthy essay on LinkedIn urging the coffee chain to rethink its U.S. operations after the company reported disappointing quarterly results.
Mr. Schultz, who resigned from the board last fall after becoming the public face of the company’s pushback against employee unionization efforts, said that Starbucks was “enthusiastically focused on the customer experience through the eyes of a retailer.” I wrote on Sunday that we need to get back to the same attitude. ”
“The answer lies not in the data, but in the store.”
Schulz said sales in the United States have lagged. Starbucks stock fell 16% in one trading session Last week – these were the “main reasons why the company fell.”
In a post on LinkedIn, Schultz encouraged Starbucks executives and board members to “spend more time with the people who wear the green apron.”
“One of their first acts will be to reinvent the mobile ordering and payment platform that Starbucks pioneered and bring it back to the original uplifting experience,” Schultz wrote. .
The 70-year-old former boss, who is one of the company’s largest shareholders, resigned from the company’s board last September — six months after handing over the reins to CEO Laxman Narasimhan. It was later.
The Brooklyn native is the man who bought Starbucks when it was just a coffee shop in his hometown of Seattle and turned it into a chain of European-style coffee houses. He urged them to reconsider their development strategy. – Advanced innovations that inspire our partners. ”
“In everything, focus on being experiential rather than transactional,” Schultz writes.
Narasimhan was grilled by CNBC analyst Jim Cramer last week during a tense interview in which he was asked to explain Starbucks’ lackluster quarterly results.
“Is it possible that your coffee is too expensive?” Kramer asked the Starbucks boss during an interview, the video of which went viral on social media.
Mr. Narasimhan responded that “sometimes U.S. customers” are “obviously reducing their visits to us” because of sky-high inflation.
“We haven’t been able to communicate to them the value that we provide,” the CEO said.
Mr. Narasimhan promised to formulate an “action plan” to achieve the goal. [customers] We tell them the value we provide. ”
After the interview, Kramer told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” he was “stunned.”
“We are saddened by this situation even though we know that Mr. Narasimhan has a plan of action.” Kramer said on CNBC.
Starbucks stock fell to a two-year low on Wednesday after the company cut its full-year outlook, citing weak demand in the inflation-hit United States and a slower-than-expected recovery in China.
“We had a tough quarter. We need to do better and we will. Looking ahead, we are confident we have the right strategy,” Narasimhan said last week. told investors at the company’s financial results conference.
Starbucks has revised down its sales forecast for the second time this year. The company announced last week that its net income for the quarter was down 15% compared to the same period last year.
The company also announced a 2% decline in sales.
The Post has reached out to Starbucks for comment.
