While working at Starbucks, I’ve supported many projects in the IT world. Automated ordering has gained quite a lot of momentum on the MyStarbucksIdea.com site.
We are always working to find innovative ways to better serve our customers. Through automated ordering we may be able to increase our speed of service and produce a more consistently accurate beverage for our customers.
We have an entire project team dedicated to initiatives like this one. We call the project group “Global Store of the Future” and it’s where ideas like automated ordering are researched by our IT Strategy team. As you can probably guess, these ideas require quite extensive technological infrastructure and to upgrade more than 15,000 stores would be both costly and time-consuming. The question is… Is it worth it?
We once tested a variation of this idea by offering customers the ability to call in their order and the order would be sent to a desired store. The store would receive the drink order at the register. In theory the customer’s drink would then be ready when the customer arrived.
The project was short-lived, because there were issues with timing and accuracy. This process had too many steps.
We’re currently looking at an exciting new option. I can’t reveal exactly where we are with this right now, but you may see it tested in a store near you one day and I’ll keep you updated on progress whenever I can.
The Starbucks Card team is also researching ways to offer loyalty rewards. Again, this idea is on our radar and is currently being researched.
As a company, we want to be innovative and use technology to meet the needs of our customers. Ironically, when tested, technology often does not prove to be faster or more efficient than our current deployment and customer service model.
Most importantly, we love the personal interactions we now have with our customers. Many of the comments on MyStarbucksIdea express regret that personal contact would be taken away if we replaced the barista who takes your order with an automated system. Our culture truly embraces the human connection. This is the premise we built our business upon and intend to keep.
Ultimately, we’ll continue to strive for the right balance between technological advancement and human interaction and are dedicated to making all of our valued customers feel welcome and well served.