New Starbucks CEO, Brian Niccol, shared just a few months ago that Starbucks planned to address one of its most significant customer pain points: long wait times. Alongside the implementation of other changes, such as shortened menus, Starbucks has begun a technology pilot at dozens of U.S. Starbucks locations to reduce wait times. If you’ve noticed your Starbucks is a slow process, perhaps these changes will come to your favorite Starbucks location soon.
According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, this pilot has successfully reduced the average wait time by two minutes. Due to the success of the test pilot, Starbucks plans to expand it to an additional 10,000 Starbucks locations across the U.S. Living in a highly populated region of the Northeastern U.S., I’ve had first-hand experience waiting too long for a Starbucks order. While it’s never bad enough to keep me from returning, it’s certainly noticeable, especially in specific busy locations. If you’ve ever had to forgo an order you’ve already paid for (through mobile order) because you were running late, you may have experienced this too.
The new pilot system, called the Craft System, is designed to speed up the process of making drinks and interacting with customers by pulling espresso before steaming milk, rather than after. Starbucks partnered with a tech firm to develop this idea, striving for orders to be completed in a four-minute target. The new technology also focuses on reducing the time it takes to complete mobile pick-up orders and sorting orders based on their complexity. Additionally, Starbucks wants to avoid orders sitting on the mobile pick-up counter for too long before the customer picks them up.
