Dear passionate Starbucks Customers:
WOW.
We knew that a lot of our customers had ideas for us. And OK, so we thought that, just maybe, an online community would be a valuable way to get some good ideas, participate in a little bit of conversation with our most passionate customers, and see what the total customer community thought was most important for Starbucks to pursue.
We did not expect this.
What you've done is awesome.
We are completely thrilled at the number of ideas (thousands!). We are stunned by the level of conversation (half of the top 20 ideas have 50 or more comments each -- 50!). We are stoked by the amount of participation (tens of thousands of votes).
When I first announced MyStarbucksIdea on stage at the annual meeting on Wednesday (two days ago), we instantly starting seeing traffic jump in leaps and bounds on the site. At a little after noon, just for curiosity's sake, I counted 10 ideas that were time-stamped in a 2-minute timeframe. We kept refreshing for the next hour and it never dropped off.
So, we want to say this to you: thank you.
Oh, and this: we hear you.
And, finally: we're serious about this community, and we're ready to engage.
By now, if you've gotten into any of the ideas on this site, you've probably seen some comments from our Starbucks Idea Partners (our moderators who are actually experts in their assigned fields -- these people are the real deal -- they are the ones who, on their teams, set the products and experiences in motion in our stores). They all have “sbux_” as the start of their screen name.
They're in here, jumping into conversations with you. And they've already started bringing your ideas -- the ones with the most energy in the community -- to the Starbucks leadership.
Please keep chugging: add more ideas (use search to see if your idea is already out there), vote up the best ideas, and get into the comment stream under ideas you care about.
That's where *we're* living these days -- in the comment stream -- asking questions, replying with information, trying to get underneath what's really important on these ideas. So the best thing you can do is to stay involved.
Wow!
~ Chris