Starbucks has launched a social customer feedback site that asks you vote on and submit your own suggestions to improve Starbucks. The most popular suggestion right now is (unsuprisingly) “give loyal customers the occasional free drink.” After that, free WiFi is suggested:
Starbucks needs to make ALL stores have free Wi-Fi. In Seattle I go to Tully’s, because of the free Wi-Fi, not superior service.
There are some seating requests:
More of the comfortable-type chairs (cushion) – fewer tables and hard chairs. Offer the bar-type seating in more stores.
And a suggestion for people with ordering anxiety (I love this one. I order “large coffee” and the people at Starbucks always say “What? Large coffee? What?” It’s like I’m ordering a Taco Salad.):
Starbucks should enable customers to encode their usual customized drink orders on their Starbucks cards and have a scanner available in the front of the store so customers can walk in the store, scan their cards and automatically have the orders 1) paid for off of the card, and 2) sent directly to the barista so the customers can bypass the traditional order line and are ensured that their orders are received correctly.
The best part of this website is the message from CEO Howard Schultz:
So, pull up a comfortable chair and participate in My Starbucks Idea. We’re here, we’re engaged, and we’re taking it seriously.
Oh Howard, of course you are!
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Please clarify how Starbucks provides “Free” Wi-Fi.
@REPTILE-DYSFUNCTION: Wasn’t there something in the papers a couple weeks ago that Starbucks dumped TMobile and is going with AT&T? And if you have their card in your wallet, you get 2 hrs free WiFis a day? And if you don’t, it’s like $2 or $3?
Hmmm, the story is a little vague, but here you go: [computerworld.com]
@rjhiggins: I wish my coffee shop smelled like Axe body spray… I hate natural odors. Or maybe bacon–yes–bacon. That would be so great to walk out of a place smelling like bacon. What’s the matter with the smell of coffee?
They need to get rid of the “vente” naming convention. It sounds stupid. Vente means “twenty” in italian. How stupid do you sound ordering a “twenty coffee”.
I just don’t get why people care so much about what Starbucks calls their drink sizes. I can accept that it’s annoying but why allow so much of your brainspace to care about it and let it get your blood boiling to the point where you make an effort to say “large” and walk out all in a huff when the barista confirms your order with the other word? Can someone deconstruct for me why it matters so much?
@riverstyxxx: Um I’ve never noticed someone’s use of a credit or debit card holding up a line. I think it would be ridiculous for a business to not accept plastic at this point.
@riverstyxxx: Um, no. I’m not going to carry cash so that someone can rip me off, and thank you for making baseless and insulting assumptions. I swipe my card and I’m done and gone, and I pay 0% interest because that bill gets paid in full as soon as it gets to me.
Again, the answer is NO, mmmkay?
@tvaughn05: … and nowhere near as much liability protection under law, and if someone gets hold of the number you’re out the money til the bank gets around to refunding you. I don’t even have a debit card, just an ATM card.
@Papa Midnight: They don’t; that’s what all the complaints are about considering most of their competition is doing it. They are already losing business because they refuse to fix this problem. They claim they will in the future, but they’re losing business RIGHT NOW, so they need to work faster.
A black cup of coffee that actually tastes good with free refills…maybe some cream and sugar but thats it. I can find better things to do with my money than to get a overpriced Starbucks “coffee” that has a buttload of crap thrown in it and tastes like it was brewed in the previous owners colon, with a side a side of lemon for that familiar nasty bitter taste. Where I used to work there we had Starbucks brought in for free occationally and I had a few to start but coffee is NOT supposed to upset ones stomach like that.
I now proudly pay my $1 dollar for good tasting coffee in McDonalds every morning before work sit down and enjoy the newpaper that someone has always left there and get 2-3 refills.
Starbucks IS going to offer semi-free wifi. When ATT takes over in a few months, all you need to do is have a balance on one of their gift cards and you’ll get 2 free hours.
In addition, if you’re paying for higher speed rates on ATT DSL, you’ll get it for free. It’s already free at Borders, Coffee Bean, etc.
Better coffee. Better coffee. Better coffee. Roast it so it doesn’t taste burnt.
FREE WIFI.
(Borders Books: you too)
.max
Starbucks rules, its getting free/dirt cheap wifi via an AT&T deal made recently
there’s one everywhere in nyc, its chillin, the coffee is good and i drink it black. if yo u complain, then you’re a snob.
plus there are always tons of hot bitches in there. i could go on and on about how they donate money to charities and give part-time workers health insurance but that would destroy the little indie cred i have left.
DAMN.
OK. I and my wife must spend the better part of our only son’s inheritance on coffee at Starbucks. If my son knew of this, I would not be writing this post since all of my money would already have been paid to a lawyer to defend his claim to our life’s work.
The last thing I want to do is settle down anywhere in Starbucks to savor my drink. No, the last thing on my mind is sitting in a bevy of 30-40 something women looking for conversation or a “relationship” or anywhere in the neighborhood of the 40-60 year old male child molesters looking for you-know-what whilst they drink their quad grande mocha-chockas.
My favorite Starbucks are the drive-throughs where I only have to listen to the entire life histories of the staff on the remote speaker in order to spend another $2.17 on a vente coffee.
I don’t want wifi, a plug for my notebook (there are no “laptops” manufactured in the last 15 years, thank you very much). I do want better coffee, not the downgraded, stale beans that Starbucks has been using since they were scammed in the Kona bean fiasco of ten years ago. BTW, if anyone at Starbucks is listening and might think they will be employed several hours after reading my post, why can’t I get a single, solitary, egg-salad sandwitch after say 8:30 am?
Q
@B: They are saying “dieci” in the Dunkin Donuts commercial… Dieci is Italian for 10, half of Venti (20).
And I know that perche parlo l’italiano, not because I give a damn about Starbucks.
I’d go to Starbucks if I couldn’t get a cup of hot chocolate that’s just as good from a convenience store for about 1/10th of the price.
I understand if you are not a frequent Starbucks customer and you walk in and order a large coffee they should just give you what they know you mean and not act like the word large aren’t in their vocabulary. However, as someone who frequents starbucks I don’t see how it’s such a burden for you to say the real drink names when you do actually know them. And to go in with the intention of walking out if they don’t accept your term is kind of ridiculous and I wonder if you have anything going on in your life. That’s like to people who visit restaurant looking for bad service.
I totally agree with the free wi-fi thing. They advertise that they have it, but the first time I cracked open my laptop I realized I needed some T-mobile subscription. What a letdown that was.
@Nenne: I don’t like it because it’s pretentious. Call it whatever you want, but don’t rub the pretentiousness in my face. There’s still a small, a medium, and a large. That is apparently too difficult to comprehend for some of the people who work there, or they buy too much into the corporate culture.
Fortunately, I’ve never run into that. But then I’m not a super-frequent customer and just go from time to time for a frappucino.
@psyop63b: Yeah, it’s the kind of thing you would’ve thought Starbucks would’ve been offering already. Ah well, someone’s got to beat them somewhere.
How about not charging $4 for a cup of coffee?
People – I think the idea is that you go to [mystarbucksidea.force.com] to post your thoughts, not here.
I’ve never had any issues with my Starbucks not knowing what small, medium, and large sizes were. I order it in english sizes… they give it to me no problem, even if they repear it back to me in their short-bus way.
That said, when I go to OTHER Starbucks, I have the issue with them not knowing what it means. So I just go ahead and order it the way they call the sizes and go on about my business.