Throughout the last months Starbucks has been mired in a process of change following the plan “Back to Starbucks”, promoted by his CEO, Brian Niccol, and who intends to recover the essence of the offer that popularized the company. The objective is to grow the business and focus on their cozy coffee shops, simple menus and the focus on the client. And this is including, among other things, the return to Emblematic handwritten vessels.

One of the company’s new policies requires that its baristas write the name of the consumer and personal messages in the paper vessels of the orders to carry, as Starbucks had years ago. The intention is to seek emotional connection with the consumer and create memorable experiences, as well as humanizing the company.

The coffee shop chain has communicated the initiative with “Not my name”, an audiovisual piece that is part of the campaign “Hello again”, with which Starbucks is being presented again to consumers. Created by the agency Anomaly, The video exposes, playing with the popular song “That’s Not My Name” by The Ting Tings that “Each cup is designed to cheer up your day”

The recovery of written messages has been received positively by consumers in general terms. Moreover, these have become a tendency to Share the messages they receive through Tiktokwith dozens of videos that accumulate thousands of visualizations.

Company employees are not only writing by hand the names of consumers and brief messages loaded with optimism, but some are also making drawings in the vessels or writing long texts. On many occasions these are memes or scenes of popular films, as is the case of “The newspaper of Noah”.

Employee complaints

However, despite the positive reception of the initiative, some Starbucks employees have made their criticism visible. They consider that it is a forced way of establishing connections with consumers and, in addition, hinders workflow and slows down the rhythm of preparation of orders, which, in turn, can lead to complaints by users.

In this regard, Starbucks employees consider the new task Increase stress levels, especially at peak hours. Therefore, they consider appropriate, in case of not wanting to reverse the new extent, the incorporation of more equipment, which would also contribute to offering the personal touch that the company is now looking for.

Employees also ensure that some consumers have misunderstood the messages, Understanding that the baristas were flirting with them. This has led the chain employees to pay special attention to what is written in the vessels and to avoid, for example, draw hearts.

The changes introduced by Starbucks in recent months go beyond hand written messages in their vessels. It is also cutting its menu by 30%, eliminating items that are not sold, And he aspires to improve his proposal with fresh coffee in just four minutes. It is including vegan options and eliminating the additional cost for alternatives to traditional milk, and is also limiting orders through the mobile to 12 articles by customer and reintroducing elements in coffee shops, such as condiment stations or ceramic cups.

The “Back To Basics” plan is an answer to a period of declines in sales and seems to be fruit, at least in terms of income. As Starbucks has recently announced the company reached 9.4 billion dollars in revenues in the fourth quarter of last year, although its sales have decreased by -4%.

“Although we have barely fulfilled a quarter of our change of course, we are acting quickly to put into practice the efforts of ‘Back To Starbucks’ and we have seen a positive response”Brian Niccol said during the presentation of results. “We believe that this is the fundamental change in the strategy we need to solve our underlying problems, recover confidence in our brand and return the business to long -term sustainable growth“