My Starbucks Idea
Last week Starbucks announced the launch of My Starbucks Idea at its annual meeting. My Starbucks Idea is a social network where consumers can post ideas for how the company can improve its service and products. Starbucks bloggers can even comment and vote on each other’s ideas, resulting in each idea being assigned a point value. Consumers can also stay updated on what Starbucks is doing through an Ideas in Action section of the blog that highlights what Starbucks is doing with the new consumer suggestions.
This new program, as interactive and “fun” as it may seem, is already drawing criticism from observers of the company. Some observers, such as Jim Romenesko the creator of the Starbucks Gossip blog, believe that the new website is already becoming very repetitious. “How many times do you want to read about people suggesting free Wi-Fi” said Jim. This problem is already evident on the website as the same requests for free drinks and wi-fi is already occurring.
Some critics argue that this move could be very beneficial to Starbucks, as they have previously not taken consumer feedback and insight very seriously. Others, including New York magazine, view this new website as “a virtual suggestion box.” Still other critics site My Starbucks Idea as a corporate propaganda site which provides no real fun or excitement for the customers.
I believe that this website is a step in the right direction for Starbucks. It is helping customers to feel like the company cares about their opinions and truly values them as a customer. Currently the My Starbucks Idea site is a little boring, there is really no interactivity on the website, other than the suggestion blog. Helping customers to view the site as more than a computerized drop-box system for suggestions may help customers and observers of the company to take the website more seriously. Starbucks is definitely onto something important with this new website, they simply need to discover how to best utilize their new resource.
http://adage.com/article?article_id=125882
posted by Sarah Kate @ 2:58 PM
7 Comments
7 Comments:
If the suggestion site were a bit more engaging for visitors, then I would like Starbucks' newest idea. However, I agree that this whole virtual suggestion blog is nothing more than a virtual suggestion box. Furthermore, I think that My Starbucks Idea may negatively affect consumers because there is no way that the coffee version of the Megatron is going to act on every suggestion it receives --- if it acts on any suggestions. My Idea for Starbucks is to stop spending money on a glorified suggestion box and give me a large (venti?) hot chocolate for under $4 instead.
I am interested to see whether or not Starbucks will actually act upon the suggestions of their customers. If so, I would say that more companies should take a more customer involved approach to doing business. After all, the consumer must be kept satisfied to keep them coming back. The only problem I can think of is that the only people who would actually visit the site are those who are already frequent Starbucks users. So it isn't like this strategy will draw many new customers and therefore seems like a waste of time and money.
I think that the Starbucks suggestion blog isn't really doing much for the company. A lot of different company websites offer suggestion/comment areas, so the idea isn't exactly new or interesting. I mean there may be a few stand-out ideas but there would probably be a lot of repetition, as this post suggested. If they really wanted some clever ideas to boost their sales I think that they should have started a contest for the best idea, offering an incentive to participate.
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I feel like this whole idea is mundane, as you stated "a virtual suggestion box". It is just so typical, and if the site is as boring as you say then it’s back to playing catch for Starbucks. Starbucks did some good PR in getting this press release to the public, but how far can that take them. I guess Starbucks has decided to finally get their customers involved, but they need to come stronger than a measly suggestion box if they are going to be a formidable competitor to Dunkin Donuts. They should “86” this idea being any type of a phenomenon, and look at new strategies. Even the guy in charge of the site said it was worthless. This is a waste of money!
Suggestion boxes were a good idea until the first guy scrawled "free beer" and dropped it in. I think that Starbuck's intentions are good, but that the public isn't ready to make it a constructive and beneficial application. Its good, from the perspective of a consumer, to see a company take an obvious awareness stance on its consumer's wants and concerns. If nothing else, it will boost Starbuck's image as one that is consumer oriented and open to new ideas, but is it? There should be some type of promotion for the best idea posted on the site. I think if there was a real incentive for posting that better ideas would come out of the wood works and people may spend some time really assessing what the company can do to improve itself. Right now it has just opened itself up to repetitious comments and ridicule.
Genuine consumer insight and feedback aren't free. If they can come up with a contest the idea becomes 10X better.
I think the site is good idea, but I think that people are going to need incentive to post information that will be really useful to Starbacks. It's like when you conduct a focus group, those people are usually getting something for their time and insight.
Starbucks needs to do some type of promo on this site, a sort of reward for the best ideas. I also think that their should be something like idea of the month in Starbucks stores to help get customers aware of the site and logging on with their comments.
I think this site is a move in the right direction for Starbucks. As the article said, in the past, it hasn't been known for it's customer service (which I think is important to be strong on when you are charging $4 + for coffees).
I don't know how Starbucks ranks with competitors in regards to customer service, but (if used correctly and to it's FULL potential) this could help them earn the reputation as the "coffee company that cares".
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