Starbucks Bets on Robots To Brew a Turnaround in Customers (bbc.com)
- Reference: 0180720816
- News link: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/26/02/02/1443247/starbucks-bets-on-robots-to-brew-a-turnaround-in-customers
- Source link: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cew8qzdxnnjo
The company last week reported its first same-store sales increase in two years in the U.S., where it earns roughly 70% of its revenue. Shares still slid 5% on concerns that heavy spending, including $500 million to boost staffing, had hurt profits. CEO Brian Niccol, who joined in 2024 after engineering Chipotle's turnaround, told the BBC he is confident consistent growth will address that; the company has pledged to find $2 billion in cost savings over three years.
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cew8qzdxnnjo
Robots can't be worse than ATL Airport baristas (Score:2)
Worst coffee I ever had was at the Starbucks in the airport in Atlanta. That's saying something, since I've traveled in almost 40 states and a dozen foreign countries. Generally fast food places can serve a reliable, if mediocre, product. I don't know what they did but it was foul.
If fast food chains are anything to go by... (Score:2)
I'd say they have this backwards. If I'm using the drive-thru, I prefer talking to a person, since it's inconvenient sticking one's hand out of the car to select the choices. If otoh, I'm in the restaurant , I prefer the kiosks, where I customize my orders very finely, pay for it there and just wait for it. The only thing the employees have to do, aside from cooking, is to bring me the order
I think that Starbucks' reputation for just feeding expensive and more bitter coffee is finally catching up w/ th
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I prefer not to touch the screen that 100 other people who don't wash their hands properly have been poking, right before I handle my food and drink.
Some places have a QR code you scan and then use your own device to order. That's okay, as long as it works with Firefox and uBlock, no 3rd party cookies.
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You can always wash your hands after placing your order, if that bothers you so much. Or use a stylus pen
Tipping (Score:3, Funny)
Donâ(TM)t forget to tip your robot servers!
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Fortunately, this is not difficult, since most robots have difficulty keeping their balance.
Deja vu (Score:2)
> ... testing robots that take drive-through orders, virtual assistants that help baristas recall recipes and manage schedules, and scanning tools that count inventory ...
Wow - the first chapter of Marshall Brain's "Manna" was both eerily and specifically prescient: [1]https://marshallbrain.com/mann... [marshallbrain.com]
Since it seems that we're firmly on the path of his story, I recommend the entire work to anyone who is interested. It offers two logical possible outcomes. One is bleak and dystopian, and the other is wonderful and utopian.
The wonder of it is that we could go either way, or even both ways. If we manage to handle global warming, then something like the paradise which Brain posit
[1] https://marshallbrain.com/manna1
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> It offers two logical possible outcomes.
Well, no, depressingly, it offers one plausible outcome and one highly flawed 'utopia' that isn't very consistent.
So in his utopia, you might have think a community came together to make a socialist society, but no, it's some miraculously benevolent rich dude who only managed to pull it off because a bunch of people sent him their money as an almost 'lottery ticket' to get into this society. Given the way rich people work, in practice you'd have had a dozen billionaires all promising to 'kickstart' this ut
Such a disconnect... (Score:3)
> "We lost our focus because we got a little too distracted on efficiency and technology, and lost, I think, our focus on experience, customer and connection," he said.
Ok, that sounds like you accept you've tried to 'business and tech' away a decent customer experience, and that you are going to circle back to more customer friendly territory..
> rstricter uniforms for staff and rules that bar people from using the bathroom without a purchase.
Umm... that makes you think the customers are going to think you have a *nicer* connection to them and their community?
> The company is trialling an AI-powered chatbot, which can help match drinks with customer moods
Ok, this is *exactly* how you said you were already screwing up, so you want to double down?
> At drive-throughs, Starbucks is testing a system to process orders
Again, this sounds like more doubling down on the 'tech' you said had distracted and diminished the customer experience?
Fine, but surely there's something consistent with what you claimed to do...
> To improve the vibes, staff were urged to return to writing customer names on cups by hand.
Yeah, that'll fix your problems...
Times Have Changed (Score:3)
My local Starbucks used to be a warm, inviting, wood-toned mecca for caffeine-adled worker-bees and wanna-bees. The recent remodelling makes it look alot more like a McDonalds. I don't know how I'm going to feel when I walk in a see Command Data bending Rosie the Robot over the expresso machine.
The actual reasons I'll never go to Starbucks? (Score:1)
1. They are anti-union / treat their workers poorly.
2. There are non-corporate, local options that are higher quality and that treat their workers better.
3. Their coffee sucks. Starbucks was "good" coffee in the 2000s because I was coming from drinking Maxwell House.
It's also hilarious that they cite the CEO as responsible for "turning around Chipotle" when Chipotle fucking sucks now.
I'm fine with it (Score:2)
Fire them all. Replace with Robots. If Starbucks just sells coffee, I might return as a customer.
(Although not sure why I'd abandon the coffee shops that I've meanwhile patronized who never did get distracted from, you know, serving coffee....)
The moment Starbucks employees said "we stand with Hamas" as far as I'm concerned I hope they all have the opportunity to immediately move to Gaza and start helping with the rebuilding of terror-tunnels, rocket factories, and hostage-cells. I problems with things I
Maybe make better coffee? (Score:2)
I see no reason to spend $5-10 on burnt coffee... never mind working it up into these fru-fru things that have more calories than I need in a single day in even just the small one.
Nope (Score:2)
> help baristas recall recipes
Because part of the culture of coffee shops is to bark instructions at the barrista as to the exact way to make _your_ personal latte*. There are no such things as standard recipies.
*I take my coffee black. Straight out of the pot. I don't even have to say anything. They see my car pull up and have my morning coffee ready when I approach the counter. No need to even fully wake up.
Drug Dealers. (Score:4, Insightful)
> ..as the 55-year-old coffee chain tries to reverse several years of struggling sales.
1. Realize you're a drug dealer. People come to you for a fix of that drug. Not a shot of politics. Not a chaser of liberalism. Just the puro.
2. Realize there are other drug dealers. Namely me, myself, and I, who can make one hell of a cup of coffee for many times less.
3. Realize you're in a Recession. In a Recession, people have plenty of time to make a cup of coffee while looking for the kind of job that supports $8 coffees. If there are no jobs to support $8 coffees, you ain't selling no $8 coffees. Price is your pain. Probably because you promised a barista a living wage without realizing the cost of living shouldn't be tied to a cup of coffee.
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4. If only their coffee didn't taste like sieved, week-old diarrhoea
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Why is liberalism bad? Why is it wrong to protect and respect individual liberty over a caste system or kingdom?
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"Shot of liberalism"? You *are* talking about the company that's been fighting against its baristas unionising for years, right?
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> "Shot of liberalism"? You *are* talking about the company that's been fighting against its baristas unionising for years, right?
That really doesn't mean anything. Starbucks is one of those companies that likes social liberalism... because it's a great way to appeal to their prime customer base, which are urban and suburban women between 18-45. Think of it as virtue signaling used for marketing.
BUT... they don't like economic/labor liberalism. This is where companies like Starbucks and Target are free market to the core. In their view, they get the best of both worlds: the growing single female customer market (which is overwhelmingl
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I know this is very non-internet-2026 but let's try to look at this with a teensy bit of nuance?
A company can be
a) against its servers unionizing,
AND
b) deeply liberal politically
This is not mindblowing IRL. It is normal.
I know one political side in the US today is very, very 'purist' in its dogma: "if you do not agree entirely with every jot and tittle of every single radical position, you must be an alt-right-fascist"...you know the old thing we all made fun of Bush Jr's simplistic "with us or against us"
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The particular politics that are causing people to avoid Starbucks are that they don't like unions and have branches in occupied Palestine, supporting the genocidal IDF attack on Gaza.
It also doesn't help that their coffee is disgusting. Even if they weren't doing that stuff, it's so bitter and nasty that I wouldn't drink it either. Their food is crap too.
They aren't unique, many of the big chains have gone to shit lately. Nero was never great but is truly awful now. Costa was always mediocre. I wonder if i
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Why I go to Starbucks? .... being outside the US, I don't. I simply don't.
It's not good coffee. Most drinks are simply sugar bombs. And baristas that have checked out of caring, simply overheat/not care about the coffee.
This, and the well known tactic of setting up ghost stores to try and force popular local stores out of business mean I'll not venture in to one. (ok, once every two years because my partner needs to pee and its the only thing open. Then I will sample an Espresso or Flat White and be disappo
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Agreed. Starbucks coffee is disgusting. When you've tasted proper coffee in places like Europe or Australia, you can never go back to the Starbucks slop.
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Agreed. Starbucks coffee is disgusting. When you've tasted proper coffee in places like Europe or Australia, you can never go back to the Starbucks slop.