$14 Experiment in Customer Service

Billy Chasen took a free drink coupon and turned it into a quest to find the most expensive drink a person could order at Starbucks. You can read the full scoop here, but in the end his creative caffeinated concoction rang the register to a tune of $13.76. This very expensive Venti was mainly accomplished by adding 13 shots of espresso, and one commenter to the blog post rightly points out that you wouldn't say the most expensive pizza was attained by simply adding toppings -- but this discussion travels down a different path than my own.

I simply think it's impressive that the employee honored the coupon.

Most coupons state they must be presented prior to ordering (Chasen used the coupon after the drink was prepared) and a Starbucks employee states there is a $5 limit to one of these coupons.

According to Chasen report, the employee didn't whine or cry or seek out a manager. "She laughed and comped the entire drink."

When you consider that the drink coupon was originally given to Chasen to make up for a less than desirable service experience to begin with -- this attempt to create the most expensive Starbucks drink could have had the exact opposite effect. Resulting in another bad experience with the company (even though Chasen was kind of asking for it.)

In my opinion, the Barista is to be congratulated for not making a mountain out of a molehill. For is she had raised an issue and caused a commotion over the situation, it would have come across as another bad experience for the customer -- and while the employee would have been "right" the result would have been upsetting a customer who already had one bad experience, and may have chosen not to return. If you prove yourself "right" but lose a customer in the process, being right doesn't amount to a hill of (coffee) beans.