Here’s an interesting customer experience lesson (I collect customer experience lessons, either really good or really poor. If you have one to share, add a comment to this post).

Not too long ago I was at the place where I buy my morning coffee most often. I won’t say the name of the place…ok, it was Starbucks. I like Starbucks. Always have. I respect the “buy local” efforts and do, in fact, buy coffee from some of the independents near where I work in downtown Portland. All are very unique and have distinct personalities and products. I also respect the Starbucks story. It too was once a small, local coffee house. Wouldn’t we all like to do what Starbucks was able to do?

About a year ago Starbucks opened a new store in my town directly on my route to work. It came along with a drive-through! “What’s better than a neighborhood Starbucks with a drive through?” was my first thought, followed quickly by, “how in the world is that going to work?” I envisioned long wait times in my car while everyone’s multi-syllable drink was being carefully brewed, steamed, spooned and doctored (my drink is a black coffee, making long wait lines at the Barista counter kind of annoying). But with the exception of the first few buggy weeks following the opening, they’ve pulled it off. Impressive. The wait time is the same as it is at Dunkin’ Donuts and the drive-through folks at Starbucks are very bubbly and friendly (which can be a double-edged sword at 7:15 in the morning…but that’s my problem, not theirs).

One day after receiving my coffee at the window and driving on down the road toward work, I realized that I had not been given my change. The price of my drink at Starbucks is $1.98 and more often than not I pay with two, one-dollar bills (or the equivalent thereof in quarters and dimes that I scramble to fish out from the overflowing change well in my dashboard after realizing I don’t have any bills in my wallet). Either way, the change is 2 cents. I hadn’t been paying attention during the “transaction” because it’s 2 cents — pennies that end up in the aforementioned dashboard well. No big deal I thought, and let it go.

The next day, after being handed my coffee it happened again. This time I realized it moments after pulling away from the window. It wasn’t worth going back for 2 cents, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that, although 2 pennies are relatively worthless today, I, the customer, hadn’t been given the choice of taking my pennies or letting Starbucks keep them…or for that matter dropping them into the tip jar, or putting them in the “need one take one” ashtray, or throwing them out the window at 40 miles per hour, or whatever I wanted to do with MY pennies!!

The very next day, now very conscious of my 2 cents, again I wasn’t offered them. I waited but I got the sense I was expected to drive on. I asked for my change. This was followed by a short, awkward, somewhat incredulous pause until the bubbly friendliness returned and I was graciously handed my coins. But the behavior didn’t change over the next week and I realized it was actually institutional because a number of different Starbucks associates were all doing the same thing. Were they keeping the pennies for themselves? Was it too much trouble to make the change? Did Starbucks need my 2 cents? (umm…no). It really didn’t matter.

So finally, after I got to work one morning (with coffee in hand), I called the Starbucks store in my town and talked to the manager on duty. I didn’t mention names or give any clue as to who I was dealing with at the window but in a very matter-of-fact way let her know what was happening. Her response to my story was to be appropriately appalled that her employees, her store, her brand was doing this. I told her it wasn’t about the 2 cents. We fully agreed that it’s often the small, unpleasant things that can undo the many bigger, better things when it comes to customer experience. She vowed to correct what was happening as soon as possible, including calling an all-shift meeting, posting some reminder signs in the break area, and sending a message to “regional” to share the issue with other stores.

Starbucks has all the reason in the world to ignore me and my 2 cents. But they know that I, and others who are probably (yet perhaps obliviously) experiencing the same thing can easily get our coffee anywhere within Portland’s can’t-swing-a-dead-cat-without-hitting-a-coffee house culture. More important, it was simply wrong. They listened, were genuinely appreciative I called, and took immediate action to shore up a hole in the Starbucks experience. Starbucks is a great company. Not perfect, but great nonetheless.

To this day I am offered my pennies. Sometimes I tell them to keep the change.

-Dave Goldberg

Every company has conflict. Gotta deal with it head on is what we say (don’t let it fester).

Unless you were just rescued from a year on a desert island you’re painfully aware of the financial crisis that’s boiling over as I write this posting. Pages 1, 2, 3,….,10 of any newspaper or TV news show covers the massive failures of big financial institutions, the roller coaster ride in the markets, the effects (as the candidates like to say) not just on Wall Street but on Main Street and, unless you were really out to lunch last week, the ka-jillion dollar “bailout” of the whole mess. Seriously, if someone suggested to me in January that Bear Stearns, Lehman Bros and ING would all be gone by September I’d wonder what they’d been smoking. No doubt these are crazy and scary times, however, I read a short blog posting the other day that had the affect of slapping me out of my media-induced malaise.

I’m neither an economist nor an expert on fiscal policy, but as a marketing professional I’ve been through this a few times before in my 25 year career. I spent sixteen of those years as a marketer at various financial institutions, thirteen at either big, global banks or investment banks. I’ve marketed everything from swaps to savings accounts, asset-based loans to asset-backed securities, private placements to private banking.

I bear first-hand witness to the behavior of big banks during crises. I joined Bank of Boston the same week the Fed took its credit keys away (read: no new loans until you can show us you can drive safely) in the wake of the commercial real estate disaster of the early ’90s. I lived through the global liquidity crisis in the mid-’90s following domino-like currency devaluations around the world. My favorite was the mass write-down of Russian debt in the late ’90s that evaporated the earnings of many major banks overnight (including the one I was working for). And, of course, let’s not forget the loud “pop” that ended the dot-com era, as well as the existence of many financial institutions. All of these crises created widespread panic and a tightening of credit, the life blood of economic growth.

Today’s crisis is, of course, different and unprecedented, both in cause and effect. But just when you thought the entire banking system, and life as we know it, are crashing through the guardrail and heading down the cliff, read what I read by former Commerce Bank CEO Vernon Hill: http://bankstocks.com/ArticleViewer.aspx?ArticleID=5390&ArticleTypeID=2.

It provides evidence that even if the clouds haven’t parted yet the sun is still up there PEOPLE! In short, while the large banks are reeling, and the mostly unregulated (surviving) investment banks are gasping for breath, there are thousands of smaller, community banks out there that have been largely untouched by the crisis and, for the most part, are proceeding with business as usual. Good news if you’re running a business or a household. As a matter of fact, on the very day two weeks ago when the stock market was tanking in reaction to the Lehman implosion, our banker (note: works for a small bank) was at our office with new loan documentation that extended our line of credit for another year. New credit…hmmmm…go figure. Did I mention she was AT OUR OFFICE??

Is this just an example of me seeing the glass as half-full? Yes and why shouldn’t I? Optimism works. It keeps us getting up in the morning even if we went to bed listening to doom and gloom on the eleven o’clock news. So take a breadth, gather yourselves, and stay focused on your business and personal objectives. Should we proceed cautiously? Yes. Should we panic? Absolutely not.

-Dave Goldberg