Lots of people have talked about the “test Frappuccinos” in Dallas, Texas.  It’s been a long test of the new and customizable Frappuccino, offering Starbucks customers the chance to try a soy Frappuccino, whole milk, or any other milk option, with much greater power in the hands of the customer to modify the drink as desired.  The test in Dallas, Texas has been ongoing long enough that there have been occasional threads on mystarbucksidea.com about it.

Of course, it makes good sense that this is a long test.  If Starbucks is really going to overhaul a beverage as iconic as the Frappuccino, they have to make sure they know what they’re doing.  Starbucks boasts 40 million customers a week pass through their doors. For many people – for MILLIONS of customers – when a person says the word “Starbucks” a mental image of a domed-lid plastic cup, whip cream, and a Frappuccino comes to mind, not a cup of Verona.  This is the reality.  It is what it is. Starbucks and Frappuccino are so deeply associated with each other, like McDonalds and Big Mac, or Sunkist and oranges, or Quaker and oatmeal.

Recently, StarbucksMelody heard very loose gossip that the test of customizable Frappuccinos is expanding.  In just a few weeks, so I hear, Starbucks customers of Vermont (somewhere in Vermont) will get their chance to try this new-fangled Frappuccino.  It doesn’t surprise me that the test is expanding.  It goes back to the company being thorough in testing before launching something as dramatic as this.  It does surprise me that Vermont is getting the new Frappuccinos in the middle of Winter.  I guess if Vermont can sell Frappuccinos in the middle of January, they’ll sell anywhere, any time.  Surely it must be cold there right now!

What do you think of the new Frappuccino?  Do you like the idea of overhauling the Frappuccino?

[[ Edit on January 1, 2010 - By random luck, a barista on the east coast sent me an image of some Frappuccino syrup that his store accidentally got.  He states that his store has never been part of the new customizable Frappuccinos.  The syrup simply arrived with a shipment of stuff, with no sku, and was not ordered by the store.  We know that the "Frappuccino syrup" is part of the new customizable Frappuccinos referenced in this blog post and so I want to share the image of the syrup with you:]]

An episode from Starbucks history:  brewed coffee at Starbucks:  At some point I will write a blog entry about the “experience” of “Brew on Demand” and what it means for Starbucks customers.  Rather than write one long book-length post on “brew on demand,” I am going to break up the essay into several short chunks.  This is the first piece of it, and aptly, it is the background story.

Once upon a time, Starbucks sold whole bean coffee scooped from bins.  As beans reached close to their expiration, store partners might use the beans to brew for a coffee of the day, or sample coffee via a French press.  The drip coffee choice on the brew and ready-to-go varied greatly since each store had great control to manage their inventory by brewing through coffee that might be close to its expiration rather than having to toss out expired product.  To this day, I actually don’t really understand why this model isn’t adopted in the stores to some degree.  I have walked in stores once in a while, and picked up a pound of coffee from the shelf, close to expiration, and wondered why it can’t be brewed as a drip coffee offering. It at least sounds like an efficient idea to me.

Coffee beans get delivered to Starbucks stores in large 5 pound bullets, in flavor-lock packaging.  The plastic flavor-lock packaging has a special one-way valve so the any carbon dioxide gas emitted from the bean is released, but no moisture gets in. Later, stores went to a variety of coffee offerings that were “coffee of the week” options. Again, store managers had great control over what to order and offer as their stores coffee option.  One store might be featuring Viennese Blend (long since discontinued Starbucks Blend) and another might have Sulawesi (discontinued coffee, though it makes limited offering appearances) on the brew.

Eventually, coffee of the week became more standardized from store to store. In all honesty, I don’t even know how that happened.  However by the late 1990s, early 2000s, each store would usually have the same coffee of the week available, though still not with perfect consistency.

From the late 1980s until Pike Place Roast, the hold time for Starbucks coffees in the stores was one hour.  To illustrate that this was the standard, I found this passage in Pour Your Heart Into It (Chapter 19), about Starbucks entering into partnerships with other corporations, and the importance of maintaining quality:

“Vincent Eades, who joined us from Hallmark Cards, has a quick way of weeding out inappropriate partners.  He simply asks them,’If a pot of coffee had been sitting on a burner for one hour and customer came in, would you serve them a cup right away?’  If the answer is yes, we show them the door.  If they’re not willing to throw away half a pot and brew a fresh pot, they don’t understand Starbucks’ commitment to quality.”

So, the picture I leave you with is that for at least two decades Starbucks brewed a variety of coffees in their stores, and the hold times were one hour.  As I recall, one would be able to walk into a Starbucks and find decaf all day, coffee of the week all day, and a lighter coffee like House Blend, as the morning brew.

Many people think that the lighter roasted coffees like House or some other Latin American coffees would be enjoyable as afternoon coffees. Traditionally though, very light roast coffees have a greater caffeine content than a very dark roast. Some of the caffeine in the beans is lost during the roasting process, and as the caramelization of the bean occurs.  Thus, the “mild” light roast Latin American coffees are usually the strongest pick-me-up coffees in terms of caffeine content.

That concludes the background story to “brew on demand”:  Historically you had a variety of coffees at Starbucks, and one hour hold times.

Vanilla cupcakes are back at Starbucks! They arrived back in the stores on December 26, 2009.  They’re not the same as last year’s cupcake though. There aren’t as many sprinkles, and the frosting is not as sweet as before. The cake part of the cupcake is not as moist. It definitely is a step down from what was knock-your-socks-off quality cupcakes for the past two years running.  I wish I had a picture of the previous version of the cupcakes, but alas, since I was not blogging back then, I didn’t think to take a picture.

The new cupcakes have caused enough discontent that there is even a mystarbucksidea.com thread about them:

• Reinstate the old vanilla bean cupcake

Despite that this is a small step down from last year’s cupcake, it’s still highly edible and I will be eating more than one of them! I just cannot resist vanilla cupcakes!

When I had my first vanilla cupcake this year, I tweeted about it and got like five replies which seemed like a lot to me!  This told me that I am not the only person who craves vanilla cupcakes, and so now it’s an actual blog post, as silly as it may be.  The cupcakes, in my humble opinion, have gone from an A++ to about a B, which still definitely a fine treat.

I was google-ing partly to find an image of the old cupcake and I found this:

http://www.wham2007.com/cupcakes/index.html

^ Someone has created a webpage just to rave about the ‘old version’ of the Vanilla cupcake.  There is an image of the old cupcake on there too, which I have borrowed from them…hopefully they won’t be upset:

———————————-

On another random note, I recently tried these lightly toffee-cinnamon sweetened almonds and thought they were delicious! Sometimes the packaged food on the shelves at Starbucks has hidden treasures but customers never know it because there rarely is any sampling of them.  It’s hard to tempt people to buy almonds when they have no idea what they’re really getting.  I didn’t buy them until they went on sale.  You can still find them now at your local Starbucks – on sale for $3.99 I think, but I assume they’ll be gone soon. They are great…here are the almonds:

Test cold case

For a few months in 2009, three Seattle area Starbucks tested some alternate food items at their stores. This was such a tiny food test it really almost is not worth mentioning on this blog.  It was only 3 stores, and a few short months late summer to fall 2009.  The test is over, and I already miss buying Rachel’s yogurt at Starbucks.  The few test stores in this test had a tall unique cold case filled with a few alternate food and beverage options.  Included in the cold case were things like hard boiled eggs in packs of two, carrots with ranch dressing, string cheese, hummus and chips, Izze’s soda in cans, and Rachel’s organic yogurt.

I have to assume that the purpose of the test was just a short experiment at looking at what other food items might sell at a Starbucks…

Of all the things listed, I freakin’ loved the Rachel’s yogurt. It was enough to bring me back to the test cold case over and over again.  Starbucks, would you pretty please put Rachel’s yogurt in all your stores??

Clover sign

And now for your guide to visiting Clover Starbucks stores in downtown Seattle:

Starbucks has been adding new Clover coffee brewers to a variety of downtown Seattle Starbucks stores. There are currently six Starbucks downtown with Clovers, so it’s time for a very short review and rundown of all six Clover locations.  Whether you’re a tourist visiting Pike Place Market and shopping, or whether you’re a regular business person coming downtown often, this is your guide to Clover Starbucks downtown (in chronological order as to when the store first received their Clover brewer):

6th and Union – (Dec 2007) This was the first downtown Seattle Starbucks to receive a Clover. They have had one since December 2007 and were part of the first – extremely small – wave of Clover Starbucks stores.  I believe this first few select earliest Starbucks to receive a Clover brewer included Queen Anne Starbucks, Madison Park, and 6th and Union.  This was the place where I first found the Clover brewer.  January 2008, Melody found the Clover and it was love at first sip.

Dear readers, please do not confuse this store with 505 Union Station Starbucks.  They are two different Starbucks at opposite ends of the downtown Seattle corridor.  Actually, 505 Union Station is really more Pioneer Square or International District area.  6th and Union Starbucks takes its name from Union Street.  The Starbucks at 505 Union Station takes its name from a building called “Union Station” which has nothing to do with the Union Street where one finds the 6th and Union Starbucks.

The 6th and Union Starbucks is actually located within the City Centre U.S. Bank Building in downtown Seattle, a large office building dominating the block between 5th and 6th.  There are entrances to this Starbucks from within the building, along 6th, and a large exterior entrance on Union Street near 6th, obviously from which the store gets its casual Starbucks name.  In addition, the pic of this store in this blog is taken from Union Street, facing the large Union street entrance.

Columbia Center Starbucks – (Aug., 26, 2008) This store was part of a second wave of Starbucks Clover expansion. In August 2008 Starbucks did perhaps what was there largest wave of Clover expansion adding new Clovers to new cities, and adding several more to downtown Seattle.  The Columbia Center is Starbucks store 101 and is the oldest operating Howard Schultz Starbucks. The store started out as an Il Giornale in about 1985, which was the Howard Schultz coffee business before Starbucks sold to him their company.  In 1987, Howard Schultz purchased Starbucks Coffee Company for $4 million dollars, and the Columbia Center Il Giornale was renamed “Starbucks”.  It has continually been operating as a Starbucks since 1987.  The store number for Columbia Center is “101″.  The Il Giornale stores were numbered with “100″ series numbers whereas Starbucks of the same era were numbered with “300″ numbers.

This store received their Clover on August 26, 2008.  This is the Clover store closest to the King County Courthouse, Seattle Municipal Court, Seattle Municipal Tower, King County Administration Building, and City Hall.  The store is located on the 4th and Cherry side of the Columbia Center, on the street level, with main entrances both on 4th and on Cherry Street.

This store is open Monday through Friday from 5 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Click here for the official Starbucks blog entry about the August 2008 Clover expansion.

Also, Columbia Center store is mentioned in a previous blog entry here, because it is one of only a few stores with an old pre-1992 Siren on display.  Also noteworthy, the Columbia Center is Seattle’s tallest building.

505 Union Station – (Aug., 26, 2008) – This store is located at the extreme south end of downtown Seattle, and really is closer to the International District.  It is located right above a major metro tunnel stop, and it is the closest Starbucks with a Clover near Safeco field, and Qwest field.  This store gets hits with waves of customers as buses and trains pour into the area.  There are also a couple of significant office buildings nearby and as a result there is an intense morning rush in this store too.

The store is also close to King Street Station, the main Amtrak Station for Seattle.  If you’re visiting this store, be sure to say hello to “Ken” the store manager.  He’s a very nice guy, and the store is lucky to have a coffee-passionate and knowledgeable coffee master named “Tracy”.  She will gladly help you pick out your coffee choice and tell you more about the Clover.

7th and Pike (Aug., 26, 2008) – This store is located on the same premises as the Grand Hyatt hotel in downtown Seattle.  Don’t be confused though! It is NOT a licensed store.  This Starbucks is central to great shopping at Pacific Place downtown and the entire shopping core, as well as the Washington Trade and Convention Center.  It’s always busy.  I never see it die down.  It also has very late Monday through Friday hours. I believe the store is open until 10 or 11 on weeknights.

The 7th and Pike store is often open at times even when other stores are closed – For example, today is Christmas, and the store is open.

1st & Pike – “Heritage Starbucks” – (March 13, 2009) – This store opened brand new on Friday March 13, 2009.  It had one Clover at opening, and does such a volume of Clover sales that it now has two Clovers. I believe it is the only Starbucks operating with two Clovers! It is a beautiful store right at the entrance to Pike Place Market, and features an incredible store design of reclaimed wood, and has beautiful chalk menu boards.

The clientele of this store tends to be large waves of tourists visiting the market and few regulars as well.  If you visit this store, be sure to say hi to “Lea,” who is the warmest friendliest store manager you’ll ever meet. The team at this store is fabulous.  Every single time I visit it looks like they click very well together.  Coffeemaster “Jeremy”  will gladly help you pick out a coffee for your Clover selection. This is an awesome store.  Gorgeous store design and a fantastic team!

Click here to read more about this beautiful store.

Pacific Place -(exact date unknown, but added a Clover sometime mid 2009) – This stores lies on the western side of Pacific Place between Pine and Olive Way, and the front entrance is located on 6th.  It went through a mini remodel sometime in about the middle of this year, and added a Clover brewer then.  This store hasn’t been one of my main Starbucks that I cycle through so I don’t have much to say about it.  I assume that its primary clientele are shoppers feeding into it from Pacific Place or generally other stores nearby,

4th and Seneca (COMING SOON! Clover brewer coming March 2010) – This store does not have a Clover brewer as a I write this, but I have repeatedly heard gossip from multiple sources that this store will receive a Clover some time  in March 2010, or thereabouts.  I almost never go into this store, but I have to share a little story about today’s trip into this store (I am writing this on 12-25-2009).

True story about today’s visit to 4th and Seneca Starbucks:

Today, I decided in the afternoon to go into downtown Seattle and take some pictures of the Starbucks for this blog. I figured that since it is Christmas, parking will be easy, few people will be downtown, and most Starbucks will be closed so perhaps that will lend itself to some nice photos without people in them.

I got to 4th and Seneca, after visiting several other stores, and saw that it was open on Christmas.  I took a picture and went in.

I walked up to the register.  There was no line.  I haven’t been to this store in a long long long time. In fact, I’m struggling to remember when I last walked into this store.  A friendly black apron barista cheerfully greeted me:

Black apron barista: “Hi Melody“

Melody:  A mix of thoughts racing through my head – unspoken, ‘holy shit. Should I know this person? Am I wearing a name tag or something? I’m a little warm from walking all over downtown. What should I order? How did she do that?‘

Melody: “What are you brewing?“

Cheerful black apron barista: “Pike Place. Our bold pick is Christmas Blend. Would you like me to brew you some?  We met at the 101.”

Melody:  Thoughts racing through head, ‘so now they’re hiring mind-readers too as baristas‘

Melody: Spoken: “No thank you. Actually I’m a little warm from walking around downtown. Venti Iced Chai.“  (Unspoken, Melody thinks, ‘Oh shoot. I still don’t really remember her. Did she cover a shift at the Columbia Center?‘)

Melody:  Spoken, “I’m writing a blog entry about all the downtown Starbucks with a Clover, and since I know your store will get one, I’m including you too…“

And then we continued to talk for a moment about my blog.  Pretty much, I was completely embarrassed that this baristas obviously knew me, and knew something about me, and yet I had no idea who she was.  She told me that she had been to my site,  I later learned (from the friendly bar barista) that the register barista is the store manager, Alisha.

For more blog posts related to the Clover, visit episodes #1 and #2:

• Clover Coffee experience episode #2 – August 26, 2008 to present
• Clover Coffee experience episode #1 – Includes the story of the “Black and Tan”

The official Starbucks Clover page is here.

Enjoy!  Many people write on MSI, or even in comments on this blog or other Starbucks blogs, that they want a Clover brewer to come to a Starbucks near them! I’d invite anyone to comment in this blog if they have a perfect Starbucks store in mind for a Clover, and why.  Just would be curious to see all of your thoughts on where Starbucks should put new Clover brewers.

Seasonal cap

In response to yesterday’s Via cap blog post, I got a fabulous email with a Starbucks cap picture. A reader saw the Via cap, and sent me two pictures of her prized blue Starbucks cap.  This cap was worn by employees as required headgear, and she tells me that the cap dates from about 1998.  The cap comes from a Starbucks in Illinois.  I love it.  Whoever designed this cap gets an A+.

Enjoy!

Starbucks Cap - back side

Via Ready Brew knit cap

Everybody needs a Starbucks Via Ready Brew cap!

This is episode #2 of ‘Starbucks schwag’.  ‘Schwag’ is the cool stuff that Starbucks produces that is rare and hard to come by but kind of cool (and a tiny bit dorky too).  Quite recently, a Starbucks Via Ready Brew knit cap fell into my hands at the bargain sales price of $15.00. I wanted to share my find with all of you.

Episode #1 of Starbucks schwag was my blog entry featuring a Starbucks lunchbox and other items. The link to that post is here.

I’m not totally sure why Starbucks produced these gray and orange caps.  The gossip I heard was that only a limited number of these caps were made.  There were solid orange caps used in a Via Ready Brew video on Starbucks’ you tube profile, but these gray ones are not the same item. Nonetheless, it’s an authentic Starbucks Via item, and the kind of thing that makes me giggle a little bit to wear.

It’s a toss up which is more beautiful: Via earrings or a Via cap? But since I wear more caps than earrings, I’m going to have to go with the cap!  The previous blog entry on the Via earrings featured earrings produced by either passionate customers or baristas.  If you’re looking to buy one of these caps for yourself, drop by 15th Avenue Coffee and Tea. I don’t know if they still have them but it’s the only place that I’ve seen them around.

On a related note, Starbucks customers on mystarbucksidea.com often ask for more Starbucks branded clothing items.  How do all of you feel about that? 

Personally, I think clothing items are hard to merchandise. If you’ve ever spent hours with a folding board working in retail, you’ll think twice about Starbucks ever selling logo t-shirts in every store.  I’d hate to see Starbucks more associated with t-shirts than bags of coffee beans.  Here is an example of what I mean from mystarbucksidea:

“Starbucks apparel”

This is an OPEN thread so feel free to comment on anything related to Starbucks. Click on the “archive” button for an easy way to browse previous blog posts.  Would you wear a Starbucks Via cap this Winter?  

Thank you Larry Aldrich of Seattle Custom Framing for his assistance with photos in this blog.

StarbucksMelody models the Via cap

Via Ready Brew knit cap logo

SananiCoffee-closeup

Consider this blog post your introduction to a coffee cupping and Arabian Mocha Sanani.  Please join me in today’s coffee cupping at 15th Avenue Coffee and Tea. (Cupping was Saturday, December 19, 2009).

Once upon a time, Arabian Mocha Sanani was a core coffee at every Starbucks store.  Then, roughly about one to two years ago, Starbucks narrowed the availability of this great coffee.  Likely, the supply of the bean was too thin to send to over 6000 stores world-wide, and so the result was that this great coffee was eliminated from the North American market.  Sanani returns to North America now and then as a seasonal, limited once a year offering.  However, the UK and Ireland never removed Sanani from their core line up, and still to this day, our friends in England and Ireland can enjoy a great cup of Arabian Mocha Sanani by Starbucks Coffee any time they want. I am jealous.

Lucky for me, a Starbucks partner in London, knowing my passion for Sanani, has generously given me a bag to indulge in.  A photo of the coffee is attached – Notice that the packaging looks a little different than the Americanized coffee packaging.  Starbucks’ Sanani coffee is roasted at their Amsterdam roasting facility.  I received a precious pound of this coffee from my friend in London just this past week, and then took it to 15th Avenue Coffee and Tea on Saturday the 19th for their daily cupping experience.

From the Starbucks website, we hear that Sanani is “our most exotic and unpredictable coffee, laden with flavors of deep port wine, berry fruit, warm earthen spices and cocoa.”  It definitely is a rich, deep, exotic experience in a cup of coffee where wine notes and berries come together.

The coffee comes from Yemen, which rests on the Indian Ocean. Sanani refers to the coffee-growing region around Sana’a, the capital of Yemen.  Starbucks recommends pairing this coffee with items like a currant scone or a slice of spicy carrot cake, if you’re doing a coffee “tasting” with this coffee.

Today, I experienced this coffee as part of a “cupping”, which is not the same thing as a regular coffee “tasting”.  A cupping does not involve pairing the coffee with any food, but rather it is an exercise in experiencing the flavor of coffee on your palate and in your mouth, and discerning the sharp differences in coffees from a few different growing regions.  A cupping of coffee is what roasters and those who source coffee do to determine which coffees they’ll buy, and determine the best roast level for the coffee bean. A “cupping” is an important part of  continuing coffee education.  A “tasting” is an experience of one or two coffees, often eaten with food, and a “cupping” is about really understanding each coffee’s unique flavor profile.  In contrast, with a “tasting” there is often a discussion as to how the food paired with coffee brings out or changes the coffee’s flavors.

I arrived at 15th Avenue Coffee and immediately told a barista that I had brought a pound of Sanani to cup with the other coffees. The barista pretty quickly ripped open the package and had a good smell of the aroma of Sanani.  Typically, Sanani has spicy, wine-like notes to it.

The cupping process begins with a barista weighing out 14 grams of beans.  I’ve been to many many Starbucks cuppings and it is always 14 grams of beans. Sorry, but I don’t know why that is the magic number. The beans are ground through a grinder at a finer grind, close to an espresso grind. The cups of ground beans are placed on the cupping table, in order from lightest body to boldest. Just as with a wine tasting, the heaviest wine is last, so is true for a coffee cupping too.

In the next step, the barista adds water to the beans.  My understanding is that the water is “hot off the boil” and that the coffee ‘brews’ for approximately 3 to 4 minutes.  A crust-like layer forms at the top of the cupping cup. This is not a crema and it is not to be consumed!  Next the crust is broken and the cupping participants get a good smell of the aroma of the coffees.

In the next step, customers and baristas remove the crust.  This actually takes some skill to do without removing too much coffee or making a mess. Either that, or I still need remedial crust removal training.

And now finally comes the best part of a cupping: You taste the coffee. Each participant takes a cupping spoon, and scoops a small amount of coffee from the cup. Now comes the part where each person slurps loudly and either spits out the coffee, or consumes it.  This is the place where there is magic. About four other customers participated in today’s cupping, and one immediately said that the Ethiopian Yirgacheffe, tasted “dessert like“.  Another participant honed in on the “floral” notes of the Panama La Esmeralda Diamond Mountain coffee.  Both of these two coffees are current offerings at the Starbucks Clover locations. (A Clover is a special brewer and at this time less than one percent of all Starbucks have a Clover brewer.  The small number of Starbucks with a Clover also receive a supply of “small batch” coffee which are usually limited supply single-origin coffees.).

Today we cupped the following coffees:

* Unnamed 15th Avenue Coffee (a barista early in the morning had grabbed some beans from the display green bean bags and tried roasting it in the store’s toaster oven.  It was most likely a bean from Guatemala).

* Starbucks Panama La Esmeralda Diamond Mountain (Currently available at all Clover Starbucks)

* Starbucks Guatemala Finca Medina

* A Kenya Gichathi-ini from another roaster

* Starbucks Ethiopia Sun Dried Yirgacheffe (Currently available at all Clover Starbucks)

* Starbucks Arabian Mocha Sanani (Currently available at Starbucks in the UK and Ireland)

Notice the coffee cupping spoons too in the pictures below; they’re nice heavy weight spoons with the Starbucks logo on them!  Click on the pictures to view the full sized version (the cupping spoon will be pictured in full).

Here’s the pictorial story of today’s cupping: Enjoy!  (Special thank you to Larry Aldrich of Seattle Custom Framing for his assistance with some of the photography).

[[Edit on 12-20-2009 - I've made a few edits for grammar. Also, just a reminder, there is a related blog entry here discussing the two mercantile Starbucks stores, and how they're different from a regular Starbucks. There are two non-branded Starbucks - 15th Avenue Coffee and Tea, and Roy Street Coffee.]]

Sanani Coffee

SananiCoffee-Backside

AStarbucksCuppingSpoon

15thAveCof-19Dec2009

14grams Of Coffee

GrindingBeans

GroundBeansGroundOnTable

BaristaAddsWater

BrewedCoffeeWithCrustOnTop

CustomersRemovingCrust from Coffee

CuppingSpoons

CuppingIsOver

There is a new page tab which now says “Starbucks Whole Bean Menu”. I have added this page to make it easier to know what Starbucks coffees are produced and limited information about the coffee’s availability.  My idea with the menu board page, is that as I have written something about the coffee, whether from a review, or tasting, or cupping, I will add a link to my blog entry.  I’m still working on filling in links, and I have two coffee related posts scheduled within the next few weeks. I will keep my Whole Bean Menu board up to date!

We’ll give this a try and see how it works!

MSI homepage Dec., 2009

Has My Starbucks Idea been a winning innovation for Starbucks? Is it effective?

On Wednesday, March 19, 2008, at the annual shareholder meeting, Starbucks launched a customer-suggestion site called “My Starbucks Idea“. This blog post is a discussion and review of mystarbucksidea.com since its inception.  In the nearly two years of the site, it has been through a number of changes. For example, when the site was brand new, there was no way to subscribe to a thread.  About a year after the site was born, the ability to add a thread as a “favorite” was added. Unfortunately, if you subscribe to too many, you tilt the system. I have 539 threads listed as “favorites” and I haven’t been able to access them in months – when I click on favorites, it loops me back to the home page. Though I keep adding new favorites, as if one day it will work again!

When the site was new, lots of in-store signage helped promote the site, as well as a floating icon on starbucks.com which said something like, “Got an Idea?” and then if you clicked it, it took you to mystarbucksidea.com.  The floating icon lasted for about six months, as I recall, and even sometimes prompted people to start threads complaining about it.  This was in many ways the best era of MSI, in my opinion.  The driver for many people to come to MSI was that icon, and once Starbucks removed it from the homepage starbucks.com. site traffic seemed to slow down.  Now, in November 2009, MSI seems like a far quieter community than what it once was in 2008.  It’s never really picked back up to that 2008 level.

In March 2008, when mystarbucksidea.com was new, I had no idea that I would be writing a blog 15 months later, and so unfortunately I wasn’t making any screen captures or somehow otherwise memorializing the important changes and discussions at MSI.  As a result this blog post will just be a ramble of my observations from being a participant in MSI from its very beginning with almost no nice screen caps to illustrate my story.

Let’s start at the very beginning of the story: The day that MSI was born to the public. On the morning of the annual shareholders’ meeting, friendly Starbucks partners passed around cards to the meeting attendees.  They were cards about 3 x 5 in size (roughly), and basically asked you what’s your idea for Starbucks.  The cards were collected, and we shuffled into the meeting.  Howard Schultz announced a “transformation agenda” for Starbucks which included mystarbucksidea.com and describing it as follows in a press release: “Starbucks first online community, that takes the Starbucks Experience outside the store and enables customers to play a role in shaping the company’s future.”  That day at the meeting, Chris Bruzzo, Chief Technology Guy (I’m not totally clear on his exact title), got on the stage and demonstrated on a large screen the new cool site mystarbucksidea.com. It had been pre-loaded with customer ideas, and pre-loaded with ideas that came from the cards filled out that day at the meeting. The earliest idea threads all said, “custidea” or something close to that because they were not started by individuals with profiles.

Early on, the site only had the ability to have “up votes” and a person could not vote down a thread. I have heard it said that Chris Bruzzo firmly believed that it was important not to have down-votes, and only up votes, but then in response to the many people who came to the site wanting down votes, MSI gave in.  By late 2008, the site had the ability to vote down.  It would be important to note that this created a strange dynamic that threads that existed before negative voting (and still to this day this is true) always had much higher point totals than threads created after the advent of down votes. A person may only vote once a thread, up or down, and then either adding 10 points to the thread or subtracting 10 points to it.

So what have we seen from mystarbucksidea.com and what is the upshot? Overall, in my humble opinion, sadly, I think there are more “cons” than “pros” with the site.  It pains me to say that, because I enjoy participating on it.

Here is the downside to MSI: (In no particular order)

* Well an obvious problem is that it is an open slate for anyone to write anything about Starbucks.  This means that if Starbucks, or high profile Starbucks figures make the news due to jet planes, Sonics, or store closings, there is sometimes a wave of new threads of people trashing Starbucks for the hot topic of the moment.  When you give your customers a wide open empty page to write on, controlling it becomes difficult.

* It seems that many people have little interest in the merits of the conversation. People would rather listen to how it is said, than what is being said.  Customers who complain about their pet issue, and threaten to leave Starbucks, are met with negative votes. The down votes come from the angry tone of the post. Since many partners (and other customers as well) cannot get past how the message is being said, the result is that people are overlooking often an area where there is genuinely room for improvement in the business.

There are so many of these kinds of threads, it is hard to mention them all!  It’s a shame because many baristas respond with similar tone, happy to let the customer go to a competitor.  Of course all those customers add up, and they mean something to the changing character of the business, the demographics of the customer base, and even the brand image. No matter how angry an MSI thread appears, it shouldn’t be treated by Starbucks partners or other customers as, “well, he’s just a complainer” attitude.

* Point totals mean very little. Great ideas get down votes. Some ideas have very high points because they’ve lived on the site forever, long before down votes existed.  At times, I think people vote ideas down because people are simply tired of hearing about them, not because there is no merit to them.

* The duplication of ideas causes problems about how meaningful any information on the site is.  As previously mentioned, meritorious threads sometimes receive down votes simply because people are tired of hearing about them.  The moderators attempt to merge threads, which I applaud them for, but this requires a subjective judgment call at times. Is a thread that says, “Please recycle and compost” the same as a thread that says “Why can’t a put my glass bottle in a recycle bin?”

* The area of the site with the most valuable information receives the least amount of visitor traffic.  The Ideas in Action area of the site is woefully neglected by visitors. When a person signs in to the site, he or she is directed to area of popular ideas. Of course, this is not the most factually useful area of the site.  Ideas in Action has content on everything from Shared Planet, Coffee options, new products, new store design, to Vivannos.

The unfortunate result is that most people happily create new threads, over and over again, on topics that have previously been thoroughly discussed in the Ideas in Action area of the site. I have sometimes thought that there are very few novel ideas that have not been touched upon in Ideas in Action. I wonder if Starbucks could just eliminate “new ideas” and the entire “ideas” area of the site in favor of structured conversation in the blogs.

* The structure of mystarbucksidea.com can actually make customers feel less heard than if there were no MSI at all.  Unfortunately, for some repetitive ideas, when looking at moderator responses, it appears over and over again like as if mods are say, “we’re working on it.”  After a while, from the customer perspective, it simply appears like no answer at all.  In the end, it leaves the customer or participant the feeling of talking to a brick wall.

* The use of mystarbucksidea.com can blur with the purpose of Customer Relations: Customers come on the site repeatedly to make store specific complaints, only to have moderators tell them that MSI is geared towards finding universal ideas, and not store specific ideas. Of course then to the customer who doesn’t understand what MSI is, he or she feels like she has to complain twice, and doesn’t understand why the corporation can’t take a complaint from the MSI part of their website.

* Starbucks store-level partner participation can great poor customer relations:  It is unfortunate, but sometimes a customer will have a complaint about something, and the comment response will be an angry barista type response.  The “Starbucks experience” is continued from the store, to the online site, and the customer comes to MSI still expecting to receive welcoming, kind, reassuring words. It is not like the image of Starbucks ends with store experiences only, and that MSI is some distinct entity.  Rather, the green siren is proudly displayed on the site, and the psyche of the customer is geared towards have a continuation of the great customer service and legendary experience for which Starbucks is famed.  Once in a while, baristas post hot-headed comments which reflect poorly on the image of Starbucks.

This can work both ways. Sometimes store partners post helpful and knowledgeable answers to threads.

Some of the positive aspects of mystarbucksidea.com are as follows:

* The site can be highly entertaining.  Actually this is one of several reasons I keep coming back to the site. I have to just laugh at times at the ideas that are posted. Take a look at this sampling of ideas:

Catchy name for a bigger size (a customer wants a 40 ounce latte!!)

Star Wars theme day (a customer somehow thinks baristas should dress as Star Wars characters on a given day)

Some people want (a paragraph run on sentence of what people talk about at MSI)

Kissing Booth (customer wants to kiss girls at Starbucks)

Build a Starbucks theme park and rollercoaster (appears to be a serious plea for a Starbucks roller coaster)

* The site is an amazing opportunity to create a community of customers and partners in vibrant discussion. This is a critical part of the site. I admit, I log in to mystarbucksidea and wonder what CranBliss, Pechipy, BetterBefore, Chicagobrocks, and many others have posted.  I look forward to comments in orange, because the moderators give the place a lot of warmth, even when they have no good answers to hard questions.

Mystarbucksidea.com is fundamentally a community.  It allows people to talk about what is happening around the world at Starbucks and compare and contrast experiences.  Sometimes people who leave mystarbucksidea.com are sorely missed by the regulars. I enjoyed getting to know “Breve” on mystarbucksidea.com, and I wish that Momiji would come back and post again too.

Certain moderators are missing.  Though I know that sbux_nric is now at another part of Starbucks, I miss her comments.  And I don’t know where sbux_mguiste has gone, but I want him to post again too. He just disappeared, which never really feels good.  If Cecile, Brendan, and Sally stopped posting, I’d think there had been an upheaval at the Starbucks headquarters.

* There is a wealth of information in the site:  If you are one who is clicking on the links found in my blogs, you’ll find that many posts have some link back to the Ideas in Action area of MSI.  If I am referencing the Vivanno, I might link back to the original Vivanno launch entry in Ideas in Action. There is simply a wealth of information about everything from store design to products to Shared Planet, all in Ideas in Action.

What might be done to improve the site?

* Eliminate the ability to so easily create a new thread. I realize this is antithetical to the site’s purpose, but until there is some control over the million duplicate threads, the site will always be lacking in meaning. This may mean that really, Starbucks should just offer a blog.  Whether it is a blog framed like starbucksmelody.com or other popular blogs, there should be a lot more control over ideas.

* Eliminate down votes: Perhaps Chris Bruzzo was right all along. Customers don’t like to see their ideas receive hundreds of negative points, and it discourages future participation when a person starts a thread, and it is met with huge negative points.

* Enhance profile capacity: Since the site is a place where people can connect with each other, a basic private messaging system might be useful.

* Add some formatting to the comments. Having long block comments with no ability to make a new paragraph, bold, or underline, thwarts effective use of the comments.

*Drive more traffic to it: There is no way to get a representative sample of customers on any topic, if the traffic is too small.

I could probably write more about mystarbucksidea.com, but this blog entry is getting quite long. I turn it over to my readers now. What do you think of mystarbucksidea.com?