Starbucks Gets The Ideas

Associated Press:

Hundreds of coffee-obsessed consumers chimed in moments after Starbucks Corp. launched a Web site asking customers to pitch changes the company should make to revive its struggling U.S. business.

And they’ve kept those thoughts coming, by the thousands: Create a punch-card system with a free drink after so many purchases. Give people a free cup of birthday joe or discounts for using their own mugs. Let customers forgo long lines by ordering their usual with the swipe of a card when they walk in the door.

Skeptics have panned MyStarbucksIdea.com, unveiled at the company’s heavily attended annual meeting in mid-March, as an online suggestion box that’s already grown stale. But the heavy traffic it’s drawn and the message Starbucks is sending — that it’s listening, and listening carefully — have impressed corporate marketing experts.

“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.”

Before it went live, Chris Bruzzo, Starbucks’ chief information officer, said he was hoping a few hundred ideas would trickle in the first few days.

About 300 suggestions were posted in the first hour after the shareholders meeting, which drew a crowd of 6,000 and was closely watched by Wall Street analysts hungry for details on the company’s turnaround plans.

Photo by Starbucks Corp..

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