Starbucks Bot Steps Up The Coffee Experience
You could soon be ordering your Starbucks coffee through a chatbot.
Starbucks chatbot debuts on Starbucks My Barista app and allows the user to skip lengthy lines for morning coffee via messaging or voice.
The announcement of Starbucks chatbot was made early this year and is an attempt towards making services more digital.
The company has been moving towards using technology for most of its orders. The app itself allows customers to earn rewards based on the frequency of store visits. These points can be redeemed at the store for food, beverage etc.
So far Starbucks has made it clear that the My Barista app will be accessible to as many as 1000 users for limited beta testing. The Seattle based coffee retail giant first plans to release the app on iOS, followed by a release for android phones. The company has also made reordering of coffee easier by integrating with Amazon Alexa. This would mean that customers can speak to Amazon Alexa and reorder their favorite drinks.
Such convenience will allow customers to finish other errands while their drink is being prepared at a location selected by them through the app. Starbucks remains committed at delivering coffee at digital speed and with voice assistants being in high demand, such move could bring an interesting tech wave to the coffee industry. Powered by Artificial Intelligence, My Starbucks Barista App was unveiled in Starbucks five-year growth plan strategy in December 2016.
Starbucks currently has eight million mobile paying customers with one out of three using Mobile Order & Pay. Hence the bot could make ordering simpler and easier for customers and additionally provide a fresh revenue stream for the coffee company.
In its five-year growth plan, Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson revealed, “My Starbucks Barista, powered by groundbreaking Artificial Intelligence (AI) for the Starbucks Mobile App. Starbucks Mobile App customers will be able to place their orders via voice command or messaging interface, delivering unparalleled speed and convenience, enhancing customer loyalty and engagement and further extending the accessibility of the Starbucks app.”
The advanced chatbot will allow loyal customers to engage and place multiple and specific orders. The interesting part of the bot could be that it may allow the chatbot to gauge at customer preferences and habits based on previous orders.
