Starbucks wants to make sure customers aren't caught up in counter chaos at busy times.
The coffee chain has been struggling with how to serve walk-in customers as well as those who've ordered on the app without staff getting overwhelmed and consumers having to wait around. It says it's experimenting with a new algorithm in a few stores that "smooths out those rushes of mobile orders" that some baristas have complained about.
Starbucks will also start to separate mobile and for-here orders using risers and shelves at the pick up counter, and is developing an option that would allow customers to schedule a time to pick up their order, CEO Brian Niccol said on an earnings call Tuesday.
Some stores have struggled to fill mobile orders without long wait times, Starbucks store workers, whom the chain calls "partners," told Business Insider last year. Starbucks mobile orders hit stores in real-time, which can lead to a bunch of orders piling up at once and overwhelming staff, the partners said.
On Tuesday, Niccol said that Starbucks is tackling "bottleneck situations where the mobile ordering really overwhelms the production experience, to the point where we can no longer provide a great service experience."
Niccol has said he wants to improve customer service and make Starbucks stores places where customers want to linger.
At Starbucks' drive-thru lanes, it's easier to space out orders and give partners more time to prepare food and drinks as customers wait in line, Niccol said. "We know how to get the window times we're after," he said.
By contrast, "there's no gating on the mobile orders," Niccol said.
Baristas often end up making mobile orders for customers who aren't at the store yet while making people who ordered in-store wait longer, he said. Pick-up counters get crowded, and partners don't have time to chat with customers or provide good service, Niccol added.
"We gotta fix it," he said.
Starbucks is using the algorithm in just three stores at the moment, but early results show improvements in financial performance as well as employee and customer satisfaction, Niccol said.
"It sequences those mobile orders, so it can allow the café order to get fulfilled in a timely fashion and with a touch of humanity," Niccol said.
The algorithm is one of several changes that Starbucks has made lately. Earlier this month, the chain said it would start requiring visitors to make a purchase in order to get a free cup of water or use the restroom.
Starbucks has also reduced promotions for rewards members, reintroduced self-service bars for milk and other condiments to its stores, and asked baristas to start writing messages on to-go cups.
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