First posted on Commercial Law International onFeb 26, 2009.

On May 19, 2008 a British Colombian woman had a near fatal allergic reaction after she ate a Starbucks Peach Parfait.

Knowing of her nut allergy she carefully read the listed ingredients checking for nuts – no nuts were listed. Not satisfied with that she then asked a Starbucks employee and was reassured that the item was nut free. It clearly was not.

The lady, a Ms. Kristin Gradiner, is now seeking to be compensated for her lost earnings for the two months she had to take off to recovery and for the cost of special glasses she is now forced to wear as a result of eye damage suffered because of the incident. This is all the compensation she is seeking for now, according to the CBC – she might just be entitled to claim much more. It is currently unclear whether Ms. Gardine has retained legal counsel.

The compensation that she is actually seeking is much better than what was offered by Starbucks – a coffee card. Yes, a coffee card.

A Starbucks coffee card and oh yeah a ‘sorry for the inconvenience’ was what Ms. Gardiner was offered when she called the Seattle headquarters of the coffee chain.

As our tag line reads, Commercial Awareness Is Global, this situation is a classic case of lack of awareness, to say nothing of sympathy or empathy, at a critical juncture of a major company’s stricture. – Customer Service.

Customer service, from the baristas that serve the coffee to the help/ complaints telephone lines, is the major point of contact which the majority of customers will encounter. When it fails the company fails.

Such failure should not be tolerated by any company, especially Starbucks. Its industry and business model is so customer satisfaction driven; its reputation as a warm and friendly place to come and enjoy a cup of coffee has been called into question; and given the tough economic time we are currently in, it can little afford to damage its reputation through poor customer relations.