- Starbucks is mulling a change to how customers get coffee when they order through the chain’s app.
- Customers have been asking to choose a specific pick-up time, CEO Brian Niccol said.
- Mobile ordering is one of the areas that Niccol is looking at as Starbucks attempts a turnaround.
Starbucks might soon ask you to choose a time to pick up your morning cup of coffee.
It’s one change to the chain’s mobile ordering system that Starbucks is considering to make life easier for both baristas and customers, CEO Brian Niccol told the Wall Street Journal.
Right now, Starbucks’ mobile app provides customers with a pick-up time — sometimes as little as a few minutes — when they place an order. Often, that doesn’t reflect when the customer can actually stop by to get their drink, especially if they aren’t near a store when they submit the request, Niccol said.
“When you mobile order, you’ll get a message that says that the beverage will be ready in three minutes,” he told the Journal. “But you physically can’t get there in three minutes.”
That leads to a mismatch between “when the customer wants it and when we should be making it,” the CEO said.
Some Starbucks customers have been asking to choose when they can retrieve their order, Niccol added. “The number-one request is actually ‘Let me pick what time I can come pick up my beverage,'” he said.
Starbucks’ mobile ordering system has been a sore spot for customers as well as employees who make their drinks.
Some store employees, whom Starbucks refers to as “partners,” told Business Insider last fall that their locations were often overwhelmed by the number of mobile orders. That led to long wait times for customers as the partners struggled to prepare drinks and catch up, they said.
Promotions for members of Starbucks’ rewards program, especially those offering customers a discount if they ordered multiple drinks at once, had contributed to the problem, workers told BI. Under Niccol, Starbucks has reined in the number of promotions it offers to rewards members.
Niccol became Starbucks’ CEO in September. Since then, he has detailed a turnaround plan for the coffee chain aimed at fighting sales declines.
Niccol said earlier this month that Starbucks’ mobile ordering system “chipped away” at the chain’s “soul.” Many baristas were too busy preparing drinks to chat with customers and provide other personalized services that Niccol wants the chain to be known for.
Niccol told the Journal that he wants to make improvements to Starbucks’ mobile order system over the next year.
“At a minimum, we will be a lot better than where we are today,” he said.
Do you work at Starbucks and have a story idea to share? Reach out to this reporter at abitter@businessinsider.com.
