On Feb. 26, 2008, all Starbucks coffee shops across the United States shut their doors at 5:30 p.m., for a special training session on techniques and standards. "It's really about ensuring that the customer experience that we provide is the best that it can be," a Starbucks spokesperson said at the time. The program was conducted in an effort to reconnect Starbucks associates with the reasons patrons first visited the company's stores – and were now going elsewhere.