Comments on: Starbucks listens - at last

By: links for 2008-06-27 « media mindshare: news media, technology & public relations

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 02:34:58 +0000

[...] Starbucks listens - at last > Jeff Jarvis A double skinny Salesforce Storm, with a swipeable super-sipper card and extra iPhone, please! [...]

By: links for 2008-06-26 « Brendan Cooper, your Friendly PR Social Media Planner

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 11:32:17 +0000

[...] BuzzMachine » Blog Archive » Starbucks listens - at last Hmmm, I had no idea these initiatives were based on salesforce.com. Makes sense - if a blog is essentially a CMS, then an online customer service initiative is essentially a CRM. (tags: customerservice blog branding business innovation web2.0 starbucks coffee salesforce salesforce.com) [...]

By: Starbucks and its idea pond : Tomas Kohl

Starbucks and its idea pond : Tomas Kohl — Sat, 10 May 2008 05:26:45 +0000

[...] via Adriana -Â Jeff Jarvis comments on some of the ideas in the pond and poses a provocative question: “Why does listening to [...]

By: Carl Lindow

Carl Lindow — Sun, 04 May 2008 03:14:38 +0000

The cup insulators should be square on both ends. They would then be useful on the smaller cups when they were turned upside down. The small cup does not seat solidly in the insulator when it is used normally. I almost spilled mine because of that.

carllindow@juno.com

By: Starbucks and Salesforce - Listening To Your Customers at nonprofitCRM.org

Starbucks and Salesforce - Listening To Your Customers at nonprofitCRM.org — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 18:21:38 +0000

[...] article is worth a read, even if you donâ€™t follow the rest of the [...]

By: J. Stewart

J. Stewart — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 22:16:08 +0000

Where have all the FRAPPUCCINO Bars gone???? Can’t find them in any grocery stores in Silver Spring, MD area. You got us hooked — now what??

By: Patrick Shaw’s Weblog / starbucks, salesforce and listening to your customers

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 21:24:10 +0000

[...] article is worth a read, even if you don’t follow the rest of the [...]

By: Connecting Bristol » Does the End of Civil Serf mean Civil silence?

Connecting Bristol » Does the End of Civil Serf mean Civil silence? — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 18:10:09 +0000

[...] where do we go from here? I would advise that as many big organisations such as Dell and Starbucks open up themselves to the blogosphere, the public sector should not shut up shop. If the public [...]

By: Connecting Bristol »

Connecting Bristol » — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 18:04:20 +0000

By: Links for March 18th through March 22nd | tim elliott's blog

Links for March 18th through March 22nd | tim elliott's blog — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 02:21:36 +0000

[...] Starbucks listens - at last [...]

By: Links for March 17th through March 20th | tim elliott's blog

Links for March 17th through March 20th | tim elliott's blog — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 00:19:20 +0000

[...] Starbucks listens - at last [...]

By: Make Them Accountable / Technology & Science

Make Them Accountable / Technology & Science — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 16:07:30 +0000

[...] Starbucks listens - at last (by Jeff Jarvis) Following Dellâ€™s Ideastorm, Starbucks has no opened a forum â€” also powered by Salesforce.com â€” where customers can make suggestions then discuss and vote on themâ€¦ Already, there are clear themes coming out in the Starbucks discussion. Many customers are suggesting â€” and many more are agreeing â€” that our frequent-sipper cards should have our regular orders embedded in them so we could swipe the card at the door, make the order, pay for it, and avoid that damned line (making that damned line shorter for everyone else). Others are also suggesting they want to do the same with their iPhones. This genius comes not from MBAs or executives but from customers. If youâ€™ll just listen. Sounds like a great idea.Â I wish Microsoft would listen to its customers. [...]

By: Nigel Eccles

Nigel Eccles — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 13:43:01 +0000

It is great that Starbucks are doing this however the real proof will come in whether they actually follow through. I think Starbucks is great but they aren’t exactly known for giving it to the customer their way. Typical experience in the UK:
Customer: Can I have coffee?
Starbucks waitress (sorry Barista): An Americano?
Customer: Er yeah whatever
Barista: Venti, Grande or Tall?
Customer: Er what? Oh give me the big one. Can I have some milk in it?
Barista: You need to add it yourself
Customer: Oh, OK do you have semi-skimmed? (which is pretty much the standard in the UK)
Barista: Er no, you can add half the full fat and half the skimmed stuff…

They have been in the UK for over 5 years and they still don’t have semi-skimmed. I’m not betting we are going to see it any time soon…

By: All you have to do is listen « Jason Kristufek’s We Media blog

All you have to do is listen « Jason Kristufek’s We Media blog — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 13:02:28 +0000

[...] Jeff Jarvis points out correctly that the auto industry, airlines and others should have done this five years ago. I’ll add another industry that should have: the media. [...]

By: Linda Ziskind

Linda Ziskind — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 05:12:56 +0000

Thanks for the great rant. It’s typical of corporate mind-entrenchment. They expect us to be the docile sheep that reshape our needs and expectations to fit their products and services when, duh, shouldn’t it be the other way around? Well, these days the sheep are online and bleeting loudly. ‘Bout time.

By: Brit

Brit — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 01:05:25 +0000

Re: Roscoe’s comment:

The Henry Ford quotation is apt. It’s the flip side of giving customers a voice, and brings up a crucial point: while customers may have valuable insights, they will also be full of stuff and nonsense a good deal of the time. The key is having the wisdom to discern the difference, and the genius to act accordingly.

By: Roscoe

Roscoe — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 22:04:59 +0000

“If I gave people what they wanted, I would’ve invented a faster horse.”

– Henry Ford

Customers should be able to communicate with their vendors across many different channels. But this one has some potential issues with follow through and customer satisfaction.

If two people offer contrasting public opinions on your new ideas forum, and you implement one, have you lost the other customer? Maybe you’d have lost them both had you done nothing.

But I could see this creating a false expectation with customers. It’s one thing to roll out a new means for customers to voice their opinions (which this does). It’s another for a F500 company to rapidly implement those suggestions. Yet another whether they were the *right* decisions.

I don’t know if Salesforce.com wants to point to DELL and SBUX as exemplars of customer responsiveness after implementing their ideas gadget.

By: SalesforceWatch.com

SalesforceWatch.com — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 21:58:11 +0000

Starbucks Using the Force…

Salesforce has another Fortune 500 company using the Ideas application to power their customer suggestion portal. Starbucks has started promoting the my Starbucks Idea site on their homepage - the site is running at force.com with a custom url (mystarb…

By: Brit

Brit — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 21:33:06 +0000

O, hindsight! Could such a customer forum have helped The Borders Group steer itself away from the turbulent financial straits it finds itself in? I wonder… My career in bookselling has spanned so many trends and changes. Have the customers had way more to tell us than we ever suspected? No doubt. How bitterly ironic for a company that claims it wants to be America’s preferred choice for information and entertainment.

By: Ethan

Ethan — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 21:26:04 +0000

I’m in agreement that this type of tool should be commonplace in all consumer focused businesses. However a company has to be careful not to overweigh their consumer consensus. As it’s been proved time and time again, sometime we (consumers) just don’t really know what we want. And a company that weighs this too heavily could really wind up way off track. Not sure how obvious this is to everyone; just thought I’d throw it out there.

By: Old Grouch

Old Grouch — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 21:19:44 +0000

For me the links alternate between a blank page titled “Portal Header” and another blank page with one of those hexidecimal URLs so long that they run well off the title bar. Probably broken javascript.

By: links for 2008-03-20 | Jonathan Coffman - Convergence Journalism Specialist and New-Media Evangelist

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 20:25:33 +0000

[...] BuzzMachine Â» Blog Archive Â» Starbucks listens - at last addthis_url = ‘http%3A%2F%2Fwww.jonathancoffman.com%2Fblog%2Fdel.icio.us-saved-links%2Flinks-for-2008-03-20.php’; addthis_title = ‘links+for+2008-03-20′; addthis_pub = ‘jdcoffman’; [...]

By: Kawika Holbrook

Kawika Holbrook — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 18:48:27 +0000

“The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to maintenance downtime or capacity problems. Please try again later.” You’d think Salesforce.com would be able to scale a Venti forum such as this.

By: chico haas

chico haas — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 16:11:52 +0000

Desperate times call for desperate measures = suggestion box, er, social networking. Fine, maybe some good thoughts will be generated. Certainly it makes customers feel engaged with the brand. No doubt Starbucks should’ve opened itself up earlier. But, ultimately, as with all companies in a slump, the only entity Starbucks wants to please is Wall Street. Analysts’ suggestions will go to the head of the line. EVEN SO, the print ad will read: “We listened to our customers and our customers said blah blah blah.” What they’re doing is marketing not mind-melding. imo.

By: Starbucks Opens Up the Conversation | Social Media World

Starbucks Opens Up the Conversation | Social Media World — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 16:08:22 +0000

[...] Starbucks, one of my favorite places in the retail world, recently opened up a Salesforce brainstorm forum to get ideas for their customers (thanks to Jeff Jarvis over at BuzzMachine for the tip). [...]