My immediate reaction was “Uh, WHHATT?” I couldn’t help but be a little sarcastic (to myself of course) about how bad of an idea it is to try to sell instant coffee to an existing good customer. (i) if he likes it and starts making it instead of his $4.50 drink, Starbucks loses. (ii) if he doesn’t like it, well then, he can probably end up with similar thoughts as Brad. So how does SB win? They don’t.

So I took my package when offered to me of my sample and brought it up to my office. I put it in the kitchen at around 11 AM, and by the next morning, it was still sitting there, next to the coffee maker / hot water dispenser. In an office full of coffee addicted workers, no one wanted to try the stuff… Interesting.

So I tried it. “Blech” is the only thing that comes to mind. I poured it out and made a cup of Green Mountain from our Keurig. So when I was back in the store later that afternoon, one of the Baristas cheerfully asked me if I liked Via. I told her “Sadly, I didn’t really like it much” and she frowned and said “oh. ok.” That was it, no follow up, not questions about ways to make it better, no further dialouge.

It’s almost as if the planning was “This is gonna be big – let’s get everyone hyped up and plan as if nothing will go wrong! Everyone will LOVE this!” And then they had nothing planned to deal with the situations where it didn’t go that way.

I really wonder how much thinking went into the idea of bringing Via into their system this way. It really seems like a lose lose proposition that they are investing in today. Seems it would have been better for a product to reach customers in places where they CAN’T get to a SB store. Not in the store where they lovingly brew your coffee for you…

Pretty sure even a First Mate should know better than that….