With Unorthodox Approach to Social Media, Starbucks Engages Their Customers in a Unique Way.

Forrester Hinds    October 13, 2015

Organisation name: Starbucks

Websitehttp://www.starbucks.com/

IndustryDesigner caffeinated drinks.

Want to create a positive social media interaction for every customer? Starbucks should be your model.

Being one of the first companies to adopt social media as a form of communication with consumers, Starbucks is no beginner at using the various social platforms at our disposal today. Whether they use Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or Pinterest, Starbucks maintains the same user experience and communication.

Have an idea for a promotion, product, or atmospheric change? Starbucks offers an online community on their website to suggest, critique, and pitch to Starbucks employees. The My Starbucks Idea service has incubated and launched a number of ideas from added options for additives to placing an order through their proprietary phone application:

Communication with the customer and consumer is a priority for Starbucks, to the point that they allot several times a day for answering questions and commenting on Starbucks-themed posts. The rigidity to the Starbucks brand and the sheer number of replies they make to almost anything Starbucks-related has caused a steady following and any issues customers had to be immediately rectified with minimal incident.

Got a Verismo Coffee machine? Why not try making a Peppermint Mocha at home?

This tweet is an example of how Starbucks is constantly interacting with customers; they provide ideas for the use of their products and reply to customer comments.

 

Unique experience at the register?

Not satisfied with the product you received? Be prepared for an official Starbucks reply:

Starbucks was even a featured example at the University of South Wales – Australian Graduate School of Management Leadership Agenda series event:

As a matter of fact Starbucks is almost unanimously declared a poster-child of successful social media use when interacting with customers and providing them with marketing materials.

Lessons for others: Starbucks offers an almost blemish-free model for communicating with consumers and customers. Companies, new and old to social media, could stand to learn a thing or two from them about: engaging customers, providing tips for usage of products or products to order, encouraging questions, suggestions, or even just maintaining the brand through multiple platforms. Starbucks is truly an embodiment of their mission statement: “To inspire and nurture the human spirit – one person, one cup and one neighborhood at a time.”

Author: Forrester Hinds, Social Media for Business Performance Student, University of Waterloo – To contact the author please direct any questions or comments to: fhinds@uwaterloo.ca

If you have concerns as to the accuracy of anything posted on this site please send your concerns to Peter Carr, Programme Director, Social Media for Business Performance.

Information sourced from:

http://www.starbucks.ca/coffeehouse/community

http://mystarbucksidea.force.com/

http://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/how-starbucks-crushes-it-social-media

http://www.digitalsparkmarketing.com/creative-marketing/social-media/starbucks-marketing/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_Ij0IjTvHw