Key Elements of Starbucks Crowdsourcing Site - Case Study Example

MyStarbucksidea.com Name Course Name and Code Instructor’s Name Date Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 Introduction 3 Overall Impression of mystarbucksidea.com 3 The key elements of Starbucks’ crowdsourcing 5 Critic’s chief concerns of Mystarbucksidea.com 7 Justification of mystarbucksidea.com 9 Conclusion 9 Bibliography 10 Introduction Crowdsourcing entails sourcing of tasks that were traditionally undertaken by specific individuals to a group of people or community through an open call. The concept of crowdsourcing primarily depends on the fact that it is an open call to a community or group of people, gathering those that are best fit to perform tasks, solving complex problems while contributing the most pertinent and fresh ideas. In this regard, the general public can be invited through various media like social media to develop new technology, analyze large amount of data, give suggestions, and laud their concerns a bout various company products or services. Companies have managed to initiate mass collaboration through the use of web 2.0 technologies to accomplish their business goals. Starbucks is one among many companies that have embraced crowdsourcing with a single most goal of relational marketing; for instance allowing their customers to come together, socialize and suggest the best way they would like to be catered for. Through the mystarbucksidea.com, the company has succeeded in soliciting ideas and feed back from its customers (Turban & Volonino, 2011). Owing to these fantastic business initiatives, this paper seeks to analyze the overall impression of mystarbucksidea.com site and justifying that the company is sincere in its approach to identifying new products and services. Additionally, the paper will identify and discuss the key elements of Starbucks’ crowdsourcing site and how they are more than just electronic suggestion box. The report will also discuss the concerns voiced by critics and determining whether these concerns are valid. Overall Impression of mystarbucksidea.com The site is built on the ideas software platform that is essential in tapping into the needs of customers; in essence, the site is like a live focus group that never shuts down. It welcoming as customers are informed that they the only ones who know what is best for them. The web page is like a corporate democracy in action, the site encourages customers to make suggestions, other customers have the privilege to vote on ideas and discuss about them. Given this regard, the Starbucks’ management can see which idea elicits great support and implement them. The company has come to a conclusion that customers know better than anyone else what they need, how best they would like to be treated, and what kind of new products or services they aspire to acquire from the company (Starbucks Corporation, 2010. This openness to customers prompts customers to contribute vastly both on revolutionary and simple ideas that the company is interested in. The site also empowers customers to laud their views as it promises to make ideas happen. The site has three main categories of ideas that customers are allowed to contribute to, that is, products ideas; this are tied around products that the Starbucks chain stores offer. For instance they comprise of ideas about Coffee and Espresso Drinks, Frappuccino Beverages, Tea and Other Drinks, Merchandise and Music, Starbucks card, New Technology, and other product ideas. Secondly, experience ideas; this includes ordering, payment and pick-up, Atmosphere and Locations, and other experience ideas (Mystarbucksidea.com, 2011). Lastly, involvement ideas; here the company encourages customers to contribute as to how the company can build the community, social responsibility and other company involvement ideas inside and outside the US (KillerStartups, 2012). The main goal of this coffee mega-chain is to make improvements in its service delivery to remain dominant in the industry. Through Mystarbucksidea.com the company is directly interacting with customers and asking for their input (KillerStartups, 2012). For instance, any person can browse through the site encounter what has been suggested, read up on what changes the company has in development. For instance, the corporation has directly turned to its customers openly seeking advice and ideas as to how it can improve its services. The site makes customers feel connected to the company as ideas and suggestions are implemented (Mystarbucksidea.com, 2011). Registered customers are allowed to submit their own ideas, comment on ideas in progress and even vote on those ideas. The Ideas In Action blog is highly informative and keeps visitors updated on what the company is doing with ideas submitted on mystarbucks.com. This blog for instance informs customers about ideas that are under review, those that have already been reviewed, in the works ideas, and ideas that have already been launched (Starbucks Corporation, 2010. The recent ideas blog on the other hand displays the recently submitted ideas from customers and also allowing new submissions. Given this explanation, Starbucks is completely sincere in its approach for soliciting and identifying new product and service ideas. It continuously updates the customers on each step that the idea undergoes before being implemented or launched. The key elements of Starbucks’ crowdsourcing The Mystarbucksideas.com was designed with regard to four main themes that are essential in encouraging visitors to contribute new ideas, evaluate the existing ideas, vote, and finally comment on the ideas accordingly (Bloomberg Businessweek, 2012). These elements include, sharing, voting, discussing, and seeing. These elements will be discussed independently. Share: this element allows visitors to post their Starbucks idea. Anyone visiting the site can post an idea. The posted Starbucks ideas mainly comprises of Starbucks products, services, community contribution, or changes in operations (Marc et al., 2009). Vote: the web page lets visitors view what other customers’ suggestions and voting on the ideas that they agree with. In essence the company allows the community to decide what is important and that that is irrelevant (groundswell, 2008). Visitors can create electronic suggestion boxes where other customers can critically evaluate and vote on the ideas. This particular element is of great value to the company making it unique. Consequently, through the voting element, the company can prioritize ideas that are of relevance and which can be attractive to its customers. Discuss: this entails inline comment streams that enable community members to exchange ideas with other customers from approximately 40 Starbucks Idea Partners from various departments to answer questions while also providing insights to the discussion (groundswell, 2008). In this regard, members can provide feedback by commenting on Starbucks ideas of others. The designated idea partners are vital in making sure that discussions are sustained (Turban & Volonino, 2011). See: the Ideas In Action blog is significant in helping customers see what actions the company has taken with regard to the suggested ideas while having further discussion tailored to top ideas. Inn essence, through the blog customers can track the idea’s progress towards its final implementation (groundswell, 2008). For this matter, there is a running tally of votes displayed next to each entry. Further, the ideas are tagged by the company with regard to the four status icons i.e. under review, reviewed, in the works, and launched. This feedback helps the company to demonstrate its responsiveness to customer’s ideas (Turban & Volonino, 2011). These four components have provided the company with an ongoing loop of discussion and interaction between the customers and the company and the final action taken by the latter. Mystarbucksidea.com is considered to be the first of its kind to present a true two-way conversation of point for customers and the company to interact on a vast scale. According to groundswell (2008) customers are highly interested and participate actively in the online conversation through mystarbucksidea.com. The site experiences immense traffic since its inception with exiting participation rates (Jan & Doug, 2010). Many ideas have received thousands of votes coupled with comments (groundswell, 2008). The company has also received surprising ideas that has helped it to prioritize its current efforts and initiatives. For instance, big ideas like healthier morning and food options together with bold coffee discussions to smaller ones like reusable cold cup present a major force that is highly directing the company’s future. Owing to the aforementioned facts, the Mystarbucksidea.com site is more than just an electronic suggestion box; ideas from customers have been launched. For example ideas like; Sugar free syrups, Skinny mocha, K-Cups Please, and mobile rollout to Europe have been launched. Consequently, according to My Starbucks Idea (2010) To Norway, and Taste testing Events are ideas that are in the works. Further, Almond Milk Please, Please Bring back Chonga and Hawaiian Bagels!!!, Stars per DRINK, not per transaction!, Platinum Status, and Sugar – free Chai Tea Latte are some of the ideas that are under review by the company. Given this observation, the company is committed to making it happen rather than just taking their customers’ ideas for granted. The site also links directly to Starbucks.com where customers can purchase products. Critic’s chief concerns of Mystarbucksidea.com Mystarbucksidea.com has elicited much criticism; according to mystarbucksmelody.com (2012) the site is an open slate for anyone to comment anything about Starbucks. In so doing, the site is open to malicious individuals to give trashing Starbucks in relation to the topic of the moment. Consequently, giving customers an opportunity to write on an empty page, page management becomes extremely difficult (Venkat & Francis, 2009). Further, StarbucksMelody.com (2012) postulated that point totals mean very little. In this sense, great ideas are at time not voted for. Additionally, some ideas achieve high points due to their longest stay on the site. At times people can vote ideas down simply because they are tired of listening to them and not because that there is no merit. Accordingly, the most valuable blogs with highly valuable information receive the least amount of visitor traffic. In this regard, StarbucksMelody.com (2012) established that, Ideas in Action blog is usually neglected by many browsing visitors. For instance, when individuals visit the site they are directed to popular ideas, which are in one way or another irrelevant. Consequently, visiting individuals happily create new threads on topics that have previously been exhaustively discussed in the Ideas in Action section of the site (Venkat & Francis, 2009). Other findings have established that the Mystarbucksidea.com web structure can make customers feel less heard that if there were no MSI at all. The overall impression created particularly for repetitive ideas, when viewing the moderators’ responses appears like we are working on it. Given this fact, the customers’ perception after a while is that there is no answer at all. At the end of it all, customers feel that they are talking to no one (Eric, 2010). Nevertheless, the use of mystarbucksidea.com can ruin or blur with the purpose of Customer Relation. For instance, customers visit the site to make store specific complaints while site moderators tell them that the site is geared towards finding universal ideas rather than store specific ideas. The final Starbucks experience is continued from specific stores to the online site, hence customers visit the site expecting welcoming, reassuring, and kind words. However, the manner in which site moderators handle them is not consistent with customer relations concepts. Justification of mystarbucksidea.com The site is highly interactive thus highly entertaining. It presents an amazing chance for creating community customers and partners in vibrant discussion. Moderators give great encouragement even when they do not have good answers to hard questions (Umair, 2011) . The site is fundamentally a community where people talk with regard to what is happening around the Starbucks’ world while comparing and contrasting the experiences. Consequently, there is a wealth of information in the site. Visitors navigating through the site’s blogs will find posts that link back to the Ideas in Action. Accordingly, there is vast information about everything from store design to products to shared planet (Nadine, 2009). In order to enhance the efficiency and usability of the site, the company’s site managers should eliminate the ability of easily creating new threads, eliminate down votes, enhance profile capacity, add formatting to comments, and drive more traffic to it. Conclusion Mystarbucksidea.com is the first social media site from Starbucks with a single most aim of connecting with customers through co-creating the future of the company. The company’s idea to crowd source, primarily depends on the fact that it is an open call to a community or group of people, gathering those that are best fit to perform tasks, solving complex problems while contributing the most pertinent and fresh ideas. The general impression of the site is welcoming allowing visitors to give ideas and suggestion with regard to their expectation of the company. The site is built on four elements; sharing, voting, discussing and seeing, these elements are key in helping the company know the needs of its customers. However, critics have established that the company is not really committed to implementing customer’s ideas as most of the launched ideas were already under consideration before the site was established. In this regard, in order to enhance the efficiency and usability of the site, the company’s site managers should eliminate the ability of easily creating new threads, eliminate down votes, enhance profile capacity, add formatting to comments, and drive more traffic to it (Damien & David, 2010). Bibliography Bloomberg Businessweek. 2012. Hey, Starbucks, How About Coffee Cubes? Retrieved on 11/1/2012, from http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_17/b4081000030457.htm Damien M. and David A. A. 2010 Strategic Market Management: Global Perspectives. London: Willey Bussing-Burks. Eric, A. 2010. Social Media Marketing: Game Theory and the Emergence of Collaboration. New York: Springer, p. 96. Groundswell. 2008. Winning in a world transformed by social technologies: Mystarbucksidea.com. Retrieved on 11/1/2012, from http://www.forrester.com/Groundswell/embracing/mystarbucksidea.html Jan, Z., and Doug S. 2010. Social Media Marketing All-in-One For Dummies. New York: John Wiley & Sons, p. 94 KillerStartups. 2012. MyStarbucksIdea.com - Starbucks Wants Your Two Cents. Retrieved on 11/1/2012, from http://www.killerstartups.com/Web20/mystarbucksidea-com-starbucks-wants-your-two-cents#ixzz1j964jD2X Marc B., Marc R. B, and Carlye A. 2009. Behind the cloud: the untold story of how Salesforce.com went from idea to billion-dollar company - revolutionized an Industry. New York: John Wiley and Sons Mystarbucksidea.com 2011. My Starbucks Idea. Retrieved on http://www.starbucks.com/coffeehouse/community/mystarbucksidea Nadine, P. 2009. The Idea behind the Starbucks Experience: The Main Elements of Starbucks’ Strategic Diamond Scholarly Research Paper. GRIN p 34 Starbucks Corporation. 2010. My dtarbucks Idea. Retrieved on 11/1/2012, from http://mystarbucksidea.force.com/) StarbucksMelody.com. 2009. Commentary: Critical discussion of Mystarbucksidea.com. Retrieved on 11/1/2012, from http://www.starbucksmelody.com/2009/12/15/commentary-critical-discussion-of-mystarbucksidea-com/ Turban E and Volonino, L. 2011. Information Technology for Management: Improving Strategic and Operational Performance, 8th Ed. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Umair, H. 2011. The New Capitalist Manifesto: Building a Disruptively Better Business. Chicago: Harvard Business Press, p. 80 Venkat, R., Francis G. 2009. The Power of Co-Creation: Build It with Them to Boost Growth, Productivity. London: Simon & Schuster Read More