Starbucks Seeks Customer Feedback Online
Posted on: Wednesday, 9 April 2008, 10:35 CDT
It’s been almost one month since Starbucks Corp launched their Web site aimed at getting customer feedback, insight and ideas, and still the messaged continue to flow.The Web site, MyStarbucksIdea.com allows customers to share their ideas, while voting on the feedback of others.
“We engage in millions of conversations with our customers everyday, and those conversations and ideas have helped shape the company we are today,” said Howard Schultz, chairman, president and CEO of Starbucks. “With the launch of MyStarbucksIdea, we are extending the Starbucks community online and creating a dynamic forum that enables us to capture and act upon our customers’ best ideas.”
Faced with a recent economic slump, Starbucks petitioned Salesforce.com, a San Francisco-based customer relations management firm that helped Dell Inc. earn rapport with its customers, to create a modern online suggestion box.
Chris Bruzzo, Starbucks’ chief information officer, said he had hoped for a few hundred posts within the first few days.
Following a shareholders meeting last month, the Web site saw 300 posts within an hour. More than 100,000 votes had been cast by the end of the first week.
"Most brands do not put out a welcome mat for feedback," said Pete Blackshaw, executive vice president of strategic services for the market research firm Nielsen Online . "Generally feedback is viewed as a cost of doing business rather than an opportunity. Starbucks is saying this is an opportunity."
The Web site uses an algorithm that tallies the number of positive votes and pushes those suggestions to the top of the list.
In order to reduce the posting of similar suggestions, MyStarbucksIdea prompts users to search whether an idea has already been suggested before posting their own.
So far, Starbucks has already promised to offer free wireless Internet access in stores and rewards through its loyalty card.
Other noteworthy ideas include offering coffee classes, giving drip coffee drinkers a quicker way to buy their fix, automating orders of customized drinks to speed up service and making seating more comfortable.
Skeptics say that the online suggestion box will be short-lived due to excessive superfluous comments.
"I think that's going to be one of their problems ... and something my readers have noticed: It's become redundant after three weeks. There are only so many good ideas," said Jim Romanesko, a media critic who runs a widely read Starbucks gossip blog on the side.
Romanesko added that he hasn’t seen many original ideas on the Web site.
MyStarbucksIdea is monitored by about 50 Starbucks employees who are specialists in segments of the business such as coffee and espresso drinks, food, ordering, payment and pickup.
Experts said that Dell’s decision to use IdeaStorm proved to be beneficial for the firm who that faced negative feedback about their customer-service methods.
"They really are actually responsive on the blog," said Debbie Weil, a corporate blogging consultant and author of "The Corporate Blogging Book."
"More significantly," Weil said of Dell, "they've trained a whole department of customer service reps to be constantly trolling blogs and jumping on and saying, 'I hear you're having trouble with your machine. Here's what to do.'"
Blackshaw said that companies could learn a valuable lesson from the initiatives taken by Starbucks and Dell.
"The ultimate form of dignity to the consumer is to ask for their opinion," Blackshaw said.
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On the Net:
My Starbucks Idea
SalesForce.com
Dell Ideastorm
Source: redOrbit Staff and Wire Reports
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Posted by Meghan Allen on 04/10/2008, 12:44 Pike's Place Coffee - Exactly who is the audience that you are going after? An audience with a less than sofisticated palate? This coffee is not full bodied or rich. It is "flat". Who cares if you have lowered your prices. This is no Verona. It is obvious that you are going after the Dunkin Donuts audience. I hate Dunkin Donuts coffee. That is why I go to Starbucks. So, you have lost market share do to a slower economy. I would like to think that the late drinkers aren't buying as many lates not your average joe drinkers. You are alienating a good chunk of your audience by introducing this new coffee and from what I understand you aren't going to rotate the coffees like you have in the past. This is a very, very bad idea. I guess I will have to brew my Starbucks at home and bring it with me in my travel mug. |
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