Don't be like Starbucks and lose sight of customers' brand ideals

Is there anyone who hasn't heard of Starbucks? Even if you – like more and more customers each day – buy your daily dose of caffeine from some other coffee purveyor, you've heard of the brand.

Unfortunately for Starbucks, these days most of its awareness is based on ill-considered breakfast sandwiches, store closings, declining stock prices, and its attempts to boost sagging profits and bring back defecting and disloyal customers. With thousands of stores in 44 countries, Starbucks has by no means disappeared but it is a brand in danger of obsolescence.

So what happened to a brand that at one point was opening a store somewhere every day of the week? Is it simply a slowing economy that has caused the planned closure of 600 US Starbucks stores this year? No, the real reason is that it ignored all the things that made customers loyal to the brand.

Success was a double-edged sword. Starbucks was popular, and crowded, so it got rid of the comfy chairs to make room for the lines of customers.

Its process needed to work more quickly, so it didn't grind the beans any more. And without the grinding of the beans, the stores didn't smell or sound like real coffee shops. And without hand-pulled shots, the theatre was gone.

Howard Schultz, Starbucks' founder, said it best: 'We traded away our brand for vacuum packed beans.'

And, as loyalty is a leading indicator of consumer behaviour and, ultimately, profitability, eight months later Starbucks' share price had fallen by 43%.

LOYAL CUSTOMERS ARE SIX TIMES MORE LIKELY TO ...

• buy your products (seven out of every 10 MP3 players sold are Apple)

• buy more of your products more often (92% of Apple iPhone users also own iPods)

• recommend your products to friends and family (Apple's 'willingness to recommend' has increased by 20% over the past 18 months)

• invest in publicly traded companies (Apple has had a 52-week high of $202.96 a share)

• rebuff competitive offers, especially price-based offers (see previous four points)

• give your company or brand the benefit of the doubt in tough circumstances

Read more: World Advertising Research Center