In fact, it wasn’t unusual for me to get to the cash register and my drink would be there waiting already made.  I always wondered what happens if I change my order!  But they knew I was a regular and what that meant.  And I got faster service for being that regular – something I might expect to get at a neighborhood cafe, but not at a big national chain.  The baristas there are my friends – I’ve seen them get married and have kids (and, they’ve noticed when I got married, and when I stopped on the way to the hospital after our kids were born, to get coffee after a long night).

But the other day, the wheels came off.

What happened?

It seemed like a little thing – and I’m sure the folks in HQ thought they knew what they were doing – rolling something out to this location that they do at lots of the high volume locations.  They started printing stickers for the cups instead of writing on them with a marker or grease pen.

Its the kind of automation that seems to make sense.  It might even make overall throughput slightly better, or error rate slightly lower.  But my observations follow:

1. They don’t ask my name anymore when I order.  I just order.  The new employees aren’t learning my name.  They aren’t my friends, and aren’t becoming so.  They also don’t know my drink, which is even worse.
2. My drink doesn’t get started until after I pay.  Sometimes the person making drinks is literally idle because the cashier has gotten behind.  The barista behind the espresso machine no longer jumps the line by making regulars’ drinks in advance.
3. I spend an extra 5 minutes in the store on average.  It is no longer a quick stop for me on the way to work – its an expensive distraction from getting started with my day.

So, I’m looking at buying an espresso machine for the office.  So, I bought a Nespresso machine for our office.  I won’t have to wait in line, and they won’t have to learn my name or my drink.  Or collect my money when I’m in Austin.

Besides just ranting about Starbucks, this is a bit of a cautionary tale – sometimes an “obvious” technology improvement or automation can actually slow things down because it robs the people involved in the process of the independent volition to make a difference – or to delight the customer.  The trick is to introduce tech that enhances that individual ability to execute rather than stifling it.  This is critical for BPM projects especially.  We can’t forget that for all too many of our processes, “delighting the customer” is still a goal.

Related posts:

1. Stop Working at Starbucks
2. Fixed Effort, Variable Scope? #bpmCamp 2010 @ Stanford
3. The Economy and Process Improvement