Starbucks likes to do things a little differently…

Like offering to send its employees to college – for free.

All of Starbucks’s 135,000 employees (who work at least 20 hours a week) can now apply to have their entire college tuition paid.

The program is called the Starbucks College Achievement Plan, and partners the coffee company with Arizona State University.

It’s a move that is likely to prove popular with the company’s employees. According to Starbucks, 70% of its workers are either students or would like to study.

The payoff for Starbucks is a more skillful, more loyal, and more motivated workforce. It should also help reduce the amount of employee turnover – a serious cost and management headache for most businesses in the food service industry…

For most companies, offering free college tuition would be revolutionary…

At Starbucks, it is more like business as usual. Here are some other ways the company has thrived by pursuing its own unique path:

Treat Employees Like Partners

Fred Allen once noted that when you, “treat employees like the partners, they act like partners.”

It’s advice that Starbucks has taken to heart. Free college education isn’t the first time the company has provided a perk that’s unheard of in the food service industry.

Any employee that works more than 20 hours week is also eligible for health insurance. In 2009, this cost the company as estimated $250 million, but CEO Howard Schultz believed it was a price worth paying for a happier and healthier workforce.

Growing Through Word Of Mouth

Starbucks has proven to be exceptional at growing their business without spending a lot on traditional advertising. Instead, it has relied on word of mouth marketing and developing its brand…

This strategy worked well in the past, but it has worked even better in the social media savvy world we live in today.

Starbucks has its own highly active Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter social presence. They also maintain a blog to keep customers up to date with developments at the company.

On Starbucks Ideas, customers can share their own ideas for the company, and other customers can then choose to vote these ideas up or down…

Ideas range from the number of loyalty stars that should be earned per beverage, to requesting unsweetened almond milk… It’s not only a fantastic way for Starbucks to engage its customer base, but also an excellent source of free market research.

Make Necessary Changes – Even If They Are Uncomfortable

In 2007, Starbucks was faced with a crisis. Fierce competition from the likes McDonalds and Dunkin’ Donuts (and a tanking economy) meant that the company was in trouble…

Additionally, the company’s reputation as the premium choice for coffee drinking had been damaged. For a company that was charging above average prices, this was a serious problem…

To reinvigorate the brand, Schultz took bold action… He closed every single Starbucks cafe for three hours – worldwide – while all of the baristas were simultaneously retrained.

This was unprecedented for an operation the size of Starbucks, but Schultz believed it was necessary if Starbucks was to ensure consistency and restore its reputation.

In a presentation put on for the London Business Forum (shown below), he discusses the importance of a company “recapturing their entrepreneurial DNA.”

Putting The Customer First

The urban sociologist Ray Oldenberg defined the term “the third place” as somewhere that is not home, but is not work either…

It’s a place where community and public life is fostered, and Starbucks has worked hard to make sure that their cafes have become one of these third places.

From comfortable seating, to cool music, to free wifi – everything about Starbucks is designed to make sure that customers enjoy their time at the cafe.

Customers’ unique preferences are also taken very seriously… They can choose from 87,000 different drink combinations, and the well-trained baristas at Starbucks are able to make any one of them.

These innovative strategies have taken Starbucks from a single store to some 20,891 locations in 64 countries…

Along the way, they have created a blueprint for how a company can achieve exceptional growth… while sticking to their guns and doing things their own way.

What are you doing make your company stand out?

In your corner,

Charlie