Joined
·
7,702 Posts
I've been reading the book "Pour Your Heart Into It", by Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz. By an odd twist of fate, last night I came to the part of the book with his account of the skyrocketing coffee bean prices, and how they chose to handle it:
Lotus, we're not just buying a car. We're buying an experience! Keep that in mind, and it'll make your job of creating happy Elise owners much easier (such as in the Starbucks example above).
I'm not trying to suggest this strongly parallels the current Lotus increase. Rather, I'm passing this on to shed some light on why we may be reacting the way we are. Starbucks had built a fantastic relationship with their customers, and Schultz feels that helped them accept the increase in coffee prices. What Lotus has failed to do thus far is to do the same with their customers, and hence our reaction is what it is.What we tried to do with our customers was to honestly and directly explain that our costs had risen and we had no choice but to pass on a certain amonut to them in order to continue to do business. We were fortunate in that the relationship we had built with our customers and most importantly with our partners gave us license to do what we needed to do. For the most part, they responded by being willing to pay higher prices for coffee they knew was best of class. [p.237]
Lotus, we're not just buying a car. We're buying an experience! Keep that in mind, and it'll make your job of creating happy Elise owners much easier (such as in the Starbucks example above).