Photo: Ben White

This is How I would Solve The Starbucks and Chipotle Problem

Experience Centered Design

Online ordering services have run rampant for a while now. The market is flooded. However, people who use these services face nothing but disappointment (article).

New digital ordering services have introduced a cacophony of problems. These types of online apps have added unnecessary stress on employees and have degraded the overall consumer experience.

In my mind, this problem can be solved by using experience-centered design (ECD). ECD is a segment within human-centered design that focuses on addressing people’s desires, values, and feelings. The ECD process attempts to focus on historically ignored areas of problem solving.

These new problems, instigated by online ordering, have become too familiar at places like Starbucks and Chipotle. I asked my good friend Ryan to compile a list of pain points, and he graciously allowed me to share them with you.

Pain Points at Chipotle

1. Online orders and in-person orders go through the same line, which means the person at the restaurant feels like he or she is stuck in line forever as on-line orders grow.
2. Online orders skew wait times for in-store customers, which makes them feel like online orders are prioritized.
3. Online customers are allowed to jump to the front of lines, diminishing experience for those who order at the restaurant.

Pain Points at Starbucks

1. If a customer orders coffee online and gets delayed, then the coffee is cold when (s)he gets there. Things get worse if you order a frappuccino.
2. People order online during the busiest times, compounding wait times for everyone.
3. Online customers are allowed to jump to the front of lines, diminishing experience (see sample experience map below) for those who order at the restaurant.
4. Food is best fresh, and online ordering impedes on freshness.

http://theoperationsblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/experiencemap1.pdf

If you value experiences, then you must work towards making your customers content. To ensure customers are not frustrated by wait-times, prioritization, and stale food, the experience-centered design process would suggest that venues manage emotions through interim and permanent fixes.

Permanent fixes cost a lot more money but they are fairly straightforward. A few examples of permanent fixes:

1. Online orders and in-person orders should never go through the same line. This means companies will have to hire extra people and create extra space to manage the new influx of orders. They should use services like Forge to hire on-demand.
2. Online orders and in-person orders should be handled by separate checkouts: this would resolve inaccurate wait times for in-store customers.
3. Unless companies are moving towards exclusive online orders, people who order at the venues need to also experience an unfair advantage. For in-store orders, Chipotle could offer a build your own burrito service, and Starbucks could let coffee drinkers dispense their own coffee.

These solutions will undoubtedly cost money. Starbucks and Chipotle are probably in need of an interim mitigation as emotions are probably already running high. This is my stab at a few temporary solutions.

Solutions for Chipotle

If Chipotle is concerned about improving in-store experience, they need to reduce the amount of time customers spend waiting in line.

Here are a few temporary solutions to reduce the wait time for in-store orders:

1. Pre-package the salsa and guacamole to reduce checkout time.
2. Instead of putting the spoon back in the center of the tray, place it on the far right to allow for a one full sweep of the meat, beans, or rice. Of course, a left hand server should place the spoon on the far left.
3. Pre-filter the bean juice to avoid filtering during the serving process.
4. Use squirt guns for salsa, sour cream, and guacamole.
5. Build the extra $$ for guac into the final price of a burrito so employees don’t have to decipher the hand written labels on the aluminum wrapping. It doesn’t seem to matter how good you are at deciphering hand written codes, having to read hand written labels adds churn to the checkout process.
6. Instead of having the linebacker watch employees, have the linebacker handout free chips and salsa or free meat samples for customers when the lines are long. Wait times will feel substantially reduced if customers are distracted by free food.
7. If possible, create a separate location for the online pickup orders from the in-store checkout to avoid the feeling of betrayal for in-store customers.

Photo: Mark A Carbone

Solutions for Starbucks

If Starbucks is concerned about improving in-store experience, they need to focus on temperature and timing.

Here are a few temporary solutions to help mitigate Starbucks pain points:

1. Heat the online coffee orders by extra 10 degrees to preserve freshness.
2. Distract in-store customers with free baked samples.
3. Play slower music to eliminate a sense of rush.
4. Place a sleeve on cold drinks to reduce melting rates caused by warm hands — this may preserve the freshness of frappuccino’s for a little while longer.
5. This tool doesn’t exist today, but use something like BeeFree to manage online orders, online pickup, accurate wait time estimation, and inventory control.

Once the solutions are implemented, the venues would have to then test whether or not these are actually improving the overall experience. If frustration levels haven’t changed, if people decide to visit competitors because of these problems, then my solutions are meaningless and must be revisited.

Solutions are also not the only ones that must be revisited. If the solutions aren’t working, it’s worth revisiting the problem as well, because I might not have a good pulse on it. For example, the real problem for Chipotle stores nearby universities, might be in-store orders.

If a high percentage of the demographic are digital-natives, Chipotle may consider going towards online orders exclusively. Or, at minimum, opening a Chipotle-pequeña, where all you do is go pickup your online ordered burritos, salads, or tacos.

Thanks for indulging me through this journey to improve the experience at Starbucks and Chipotle. If you have a few ideas of your own, please share. Maybe, someone from these venues will be inspired to take action!