I don’t really know why I write about Starbucks as often as I do – I don’t even really like coffee all that much (though I do like iced coffee). But here I am again today writing about Starbucks.

Earlier today I was in one and the barista made me take one of their prominently displayed MyStarbucksIdea feedback cards to give them an idea of what they can do better – she actually wanted me to complain about something. I remembered reading about this initiative and how despite seemingly being just another hollow appeasement strategy at a corporate meeting – its actually working.

Get this: Starbucks is listening to what its customers want and trying to fulfill those requests. Seems obvious enough, but so many companies would never do any such thing.

I started bitching about Starbucks in January, wondering if it wasn’t time for them to cut the price of their coffee and make some serious changes amid plummeting stock prices. Well, the stock has yet to turn around, but the company seems to be.

A few days after I wrote that article, Starbucks fired their CEO and brought back original founder Howard Schultz to run things. A few weeks after that, Starbucks started promoting a new $1 cup of coffee.

Then they announced something near and dear to my heart: the freeing of the Internet. I live about 500 feet from a Starbucks – the only thing that would stop me from being in there regularly was that they had that ridiculously expensive T-Mobile Internet. You’re already paying $4 for a cup of coffee, why on Earth would you pay $10 to use the Internet for an hour? Starbucks seems to have realized that as well. Very shortly, the Internet will be free for paying customers in their stores.

Next Starbucks made a “perfect coffee” pledge – stating that customers’ drinks should be perfect every time and promising to put more care into the making of said drinks. They even shut down all of their stores nationwide for a few hours one day to retrain employees in the art of coffee making. I tested their pledge out. Tasted pretty good to me.

Now, with the company asking for even more feedback from its customers and launching a new “best-of” blend dubbed Pike Place Roast, I’m officially impressed.

I’m not sure how all of this is helping the company’s bottom line, or if the stock will stop falling. But it seems to me these are some of the exact moves a company should take when trying to turn things around. Lets remember where Apple was when it too brought back its founder to run things again. Lets look at where they are now.