Starbucks has really become an icon in our culture. It is on every corner and a daily stop for most people. The baristas are like family members and the regulars are experts at starting conversations.
It is the place to stop before work to get the motivational jump on any day. It is the place to meet a friend to talk during the day. It is the place to retreat to in order to relieve stress during a long afternoon at work. It is the romantic stop after a date. For writers, it is a heaven of ideas as people from all walks of life stop by and have endless conversations.
It is such a daily part of my life that my preschooler no longer puts tea in my tea party cup, but will run track me down to give me my "tarbucs." What is worse is that the most valuable time this past super busy week came as the two of us played blocks in the local Starbucks while we killed time before a birthday party. Our local Starbucks has endless features for the preschool mind: awesome little milk boxes in vanilla and chocolate, dominos, crayons, etc. The coffee house is fostering conversations at a young age.
The high profile chain announced that it will continue to foster conversation between the customer and the corporation. In doing so, Starbucks launched a new site that allows customers to offer suggestions and/or ideas.
MyStarbucksidea.com was the site to be at after its launch. Before it went live, Chris Bruzzo, Starbucks' chief information officer told The Assocated Press, he was hoping that a few hundred ideas would trickle in the first few days. About 300 suggestions were posted in the first hour after the shareholders meeting, which drew a crowd of 6,000 and was closely watched by Wall Street analysts hungry for details on the company's turnaround plans. By the end of the week, more than 100,000 votes had been cast.
The site asks customers to pitch ideas to revive the struggling coffee house. Some of the most popular ideas thus far include: Create a punch-card system with a free drink after so many purchases. Give people a free cup of birthday joe or discounts for using their own mugs. Let customers forgo long lines by ordering their usual with the swipe of a card when they walk in the door.
The site offers three options for weighing in – sharing an idea, voting on it and discussing it – plus a tab with updates on which ideas the company is putting into action. An algorithm built into MyStarbucksIdea pushes the most popular ideas to the top by factoring in the number of votes, how recently votes are cast and the volume of comments an idea has generated.
Some other suggestions on the site include coffee classes, incentives for refilling your Starbucks gift cards, free wi-fi in all locations, lowered prices, remote gifts, etc. The suggestions are endless.
Anyone can go to the site and suggest an incentive, idea, etc. Or you can just go vote on ideas that are already submitted. Check out the site, http://mystarbucksidea.com. Be sure to check out the Ideas in Action tab and see the improvements Starbucks is already making based on the ideas submitted.
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