You and your laptop are welcome at Starbucks
By Michael W. Jones
Some New York City coffee shops may have had it up to here with people that buy one cup, then hog their tables for hours with their laptops, but Starbucks sees nothing wrong with that trend.
Last week, the latte news was all about the coffee shops in the Big Apple and elsewhere that were done with customers that stayed for hours and hours over an empty latte, communing with their laptops and burning store electricity. Some owners were putting up signs that users had to move on after their drink was gone, or purchase another. Some were going so far as to tape up electrical outlets so that the coffee pikers could not run up their electricity bills. Others were turning off the WiFi.
It seems, though, that those were the independents. The big chains, and especially Starbucks, feel much differently about the situation, according to a CNET article. At Starbucks, that is all part of the corporate mission, as a matter of fact. Founder Howard Shultz wants to build a comfortable third place for people to have a coffee, maybe a snack, get some work done, and perhaps socialize a little. He places Starbucks as third in a triumvirate of those sorts of places, the first two being home and work.
When asked about the story involving independents and their feeling about laptops and long stays, the official Starbucks response was, “We strive to create a welcoming environment for all of our customers. We do not have any time limits for being in our stores, and continue to focus on making the Third Place experience for every Starbucks customer.”
Even if you are not a big fan of Starbucks (maybe way too corporate) or their coffee (maybe way too mediocre) you have to give them points for catering to the needs of their customers. If nothing else, some of these long-hours Starbucks denizens don’t have an office to go to any more, and home gets tiresome after a while. There are a lot of new consultants that used to be on somebody’s payroll and really need someplace to go to get out of the house for a while. For all of us, Starbucks just moved up a notch on the caffeine chain.
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November 9th, 2009
Well, the welcome is somewhat limited for long-hours Starbucks denizens: customers with registered Starbucks cards can get free WiFi for 2 hours, those without a card pay $3.99 for a 2-hour access period.