This article is also available in: 日本語
Starbucks is the top-ranked company on my To-Visit List.
When I was working for a fashion retail company in Japan, I was in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) team which plans and implements projects by utilizing business resources to make a better society, and at the same time make the company stronger.
For example, my team implemented programs to reduce usage of plastic shopping bags, support cultivate organic cottons, and created a women’s committee to improve working environment and many other projects.
While I was in charge of CSR projects, I was interested in creating a new customer service training program focusing on customers with disabilities.
I had surveyed friends and colleagues with disabilities to understand what their best customer service experience is.
According to the survey result, highest customer service providers are Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySea.
This result is not very surprising. Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySea are often referred as the country of dreams in Japan.
Tokyo Disney Land and Tokyo DisneySea have a policy that they don’t offer discount tickets for people with disabilities (*1) because they keep improving the system and service so that everyone can have a great time equally.
I experience very high quality of their customer service every time when I visit there.
I got more interested in the top second company in the survey result.
It was Starbucks, which more people go to get a cup of coffee there as a part of their daily lives.
Starbucks has come to Japan in 1995 and now have more than 1,000 stores.
According to the survey result, many people with disabilities felt Starbucks has a really comfortable environment, because Starbucks partners, which is the term Starbucks uses to refer to their employees, deliver high quality of customer service.
The partners would care for customers with disabilities, but not so much that they feel uncomfortable.
Personally I often went to Starbucks during my lunch breaks when I was working in Tokyo.
The Starbucks partners always welcomed me with big smiles and remembered how I want them to support me.
For example, I want them to bring my coffee to my table, but I don’t want them to remove the chair, which I prefer to use rather than my wheelchair when I take a break.
I really feel relaxed to be there because I do not need to spend any effort explaining what I want every time I go there.
As a customer who likes Starbucks’ customer service, I was very curious how Starbucks maintains the high quality of customer service at the numerous number of stores.
I didn’t have a chance to visit Starbucks Japan, but in Seattle, I could visit Starbucks Headquarters twice!
I have lots of stories to share with you, so I will post 4 visit reports!
On the first visit, Ms. Cori Pudelko, the president of Access Alliance, one of Starbucks’s employee resource groups (*2) which promote inclusion and integrate accessibility at Starbucks.
She explained that Starbucks has partners with a variety of disabilities all over the world.
She also talked about Starbucks’s employment view; “The person first”.
A person may have disability, but what they are capable of, comes first.
Their skills and qualification are essential functions and are needed for their role.
Afterwards, she took me to a regular meeting of Access Alliance.
There were about 12 people in the meeting room.
What surprised me first was 2 deaf members and an ASL interpreter were there too.
I haven’t seen this kind of situation that deaf employees are included in a regular company meeting with an interpreter in Japan.
Not only being in the meeting, those 2 deaf members gave opinions which come from their experiences as a deaf persons.
For example, the members were discussing about the design of T-shirt which partners would wear at the shareholder’s meeting.
Some members gave an idea to put different designs on the front of T-shirt.
Then, the deaf member said,
“I would like to give a feedback.
When you get a lot of information in front of the shirt, it actually would make really difficult for deaf people to see other folks signing.
It is also hard for people hold vision to see contrast in color.
So, if you want to do a logo, you could place it in the top right corner or on the sleeve.”
“I love the sleeve idea!”
Cori replied as soon as the deaf member spoke up.
Others also appreciated his feedback which was something other members, including me, would have never thought about.
His brilliant idea came from his personal experience as a deaf person.
In US, individual opinions are considered more important, so everyone is encouraged to express their opinion.
But in Japanese culture, group’s integration is more important.
So more people would hide their opinions in mind if older employees or higher positioned employees give a different opinion.
The experience at Starbucks to see minority people, everyone, speak out their opinions in a meeting equally, was very rare.
I felt the real power of people from different background from this experience at Starbucks!
Different perspective leads others to new findings.
If everyone has same opinion or nobody can express their own opinions, it is really hard to create new ideas due to lack of new discoveries.
I believe diversity and inclusion really make a difference to corporate culture, commercial products and customer service.
And their impact would bring much more talented employees and royal customers.
*1 Please refer to this article.
Why Tokyo Disney Land Doesn’t Offer Discount for People with Disabilities
*2 Major American companies have employee resource groups. Those groups are run by employees on a volunteer work basis. Here is the interview report of Cisco about their employee resource group to raise awareness for people with disabilities.
“Volunteer Work” during Working Hour Makes A Company Much Stronger ~Cisco Part1~