Starbucks to practice the brotherly love that it didn’t practice in the City of Brotherly Love Philadelphia

Starbucks will treat anyone who walks into one of its cafes as a customer, whether or not they buy anything, the company said in late May 2018. The announcement is the latest step the coffee company is taking as part of its ongoing response to the public outcry over the arrest of two black men at a Starbucks in Philadelphia. The advice sounds like that “customer service” training that Reverend A.R. Bernard’s Christian Cultural Center gives to each of its employees. Everyone that enters the church should be treated as a favored “customer.” Bernard described the difference in good and bad customer service to a Nyack College audience, “Compliance and commitment are two different things. People can comply just to be a part of the staff, just to be in the community. They’re not necessarily committed to the vision.”

In a letter to employees first reported by the Wall Street Journal on Saturday, the company said “any person who enters our spaces, including patios, cafes, and restrooms, regardless of whether they make a purchase, is considered a customer.”

One of the foundation principles of democratic equality came out the Western Christian tradition that one should treat each man or woman as a potential brother or sister in Christ. Of course, this means that Starbucks should treat visitors as family, even better than as potential customers. But that is a start.

Starbucks’ employees are expected to follow the company’s procedures to respond to customers who are “behaving in a disruptive manner,” including calling 911 if the person is an immediate danger, but sitting without ordering anything or asking to use the bathroom without making a purchase is now okay.

Although Starbucks’ head office has changed its policy on non-payers, it has yet to publicly to call its higher management to account for its original sin of bad customer practices or to apologize to its shift manager who caused the incident by following the company’s explicit policy that he or she must call the police if a non-payer won’t leave the restaurant. Critics say the policy changeover without apology looks a little bit like scapegoating the low level manager for higher level mistakes.