It is difficult to be a Starbucks in today’s digital world. Starbucks has a solid brand image and a solid corporate identity that allows it to adapt to digital transformation.
Starbucks would like to establish digital relationships with 60M of its 75M monthly Starbucks customers. This is because almost all of the company’s comp growth stems from digital relationships with Starbucks Rewards members. Starbucks Rewards is responsible for more than a third of all Starbucks sales. It has a low-to-moderate single-digit growth quarter-over-quarter.
* Create animated series for powerful storytelling
John Frink and Joel H. Cohen, frequent LA-Starbucks customers, have teamed up to create ” Main“, a series of animated shorts that highlights warm and familiar moments that occur in Starbucks stores across America. The seven-part series, which spans seven episodes, is set at Starbucks and features animated animal characters. Starbucks’ first animated series was inspired by the LA store, its customers, and baristas.
LaZebnik explains the creative process.
We are better at procrastinating than we are at working. You can see the vibe all around you – the employees, regular customers, and the morning traffic. We thought that we could bring it to life in a fun way.
Cohen also commented.
Starbucks speaks about the “third place” between home and work. This is the ultimate theme of the series: everyone at every table has their own story. We are the three strange guys at our table watching the other tables.
Those who have spent time at Starbucks will be familiar with the cast of characters. Julie, the “1st & Main” store manager and matriarch, is a bear, fittingly. Chet, a beagle who is a contractor, seems to know everyone in his community and has kind words for everyone. Diego, a barista cat sporting a man-bun takes pride in making the perfect beverage for all his customers.
* Subscription to Provide Headspace for Partners
There are many mental health issues. In fact, 1 in 5 Americans suffer from some type of mental illness every year. Customers and partners experience it every day in their lives, their stores, and the communities that Starbucks serves.
Starbucks announced their commitment to its partners at an event they held in 2019 for field managers and store managers from Canada and the US. The company stated that mental Health Matters and that partners can subscribe to the app Heap to support daily mindfulness and meditation.
Lucy Helm, the Chief Partner Officer of the company, commented on this:
We are on a mission together to stand up, break the stigma and give support to more partners and families.
• Launch Voice Ordering and Delivery with a Tech-lead Company
Starbucks has launched voice ordering and delivery capabilities in Alibaba’s smart speaker. This is another step towards improving the digital experience for Chinese customers.
Customers can place orders for beverages and food by simply speaking their order. Delivery takes less than 30 minutes. The voice ordering capabilities of Starbucks, which leverage Alibaba’s Eleme on-demand food delivery platform for food delivery, further enhance the customer experience in the digital ecosystem.
Miffy Chen, General Manager at Alibaba commented,
We are delighted to offer our cutting-edge Artificial Intelligence technology via Tmall Genie in order to serve Starbucks’ digitally-savvy customers. In response to users’ requests for local services, Ele.me launched a food ordering and delivery service. We are excited to offer a more varied and enriching experience through Starbucks voice ordering, and to provide a direct benefit for Chinese consumers in their everyday lives.
• Use Big Data, Analytics And AI To Boost Performance
with 90,000,000 transactions per week in 25,000 coffee shops worldwide, the coffee giant is at the forefront of big data and artificial Intelligence to aid direct marketing, sales, and business decisions.
They increased their data collection and used it to extract information about customers’ purchasing habits and to better understand them. Starbucks app users collect a lot of data about product consumption habits. This data can be layered on to other data such as weather and holidays, and even special promotions.
Starbucks’ data can be used in a number of ways, including the Flywheel Program or Virtual Barista. This allows them to practice targeted and personalized marketing.
