Bean there…Done that…

At Starbucks, it is all about ‘you.’ Chanting the simple mantra of “people before products,” the company has been able to communicate that it cares about consumer experience. It gave them a platform to speak their minds. Once this was in place, all that had to be done was spotting what people really wanted. And, if an idea made sense, ‘Your Starbucks’ adopted it.

When it comes to e-marketing success stories, Starbucks has to be on the list. The company did not stick to existing sites for this… it created My Starbucks Idea. This platform asks the simple question “What’s your Starbucks idea?” and invites people to express what more the company could do for them. This became a channel for such a free flow of customer feedback that the company was able to get its market to do its marketing. Starbucks lovers began visiting this online community and posting their ideas. They could also see ideas posted by others, comment on them and vote for/against them. This wonderful forum, that was thrown open to people in March 2008, had generated over 70,000 ideas till its first anniversary.
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