A rest is as good as a change

If it ain’t broke, leave it and take the rest of the day off.

One of my local branches of Starbucks – a test site, I’m guessing – has improved its ordering process. Well I say improved, but what I actually mean is ‘improved’. Which means, of course, it’s considerably worse. And yet I’m sure they started out with the best of intentions. It’s just that somewhere along the way, things didn’t quite work out as expected. And so in the face of a little local difficulty, they did what most misguided people do. They ignored it. Here’s how it used to work:

I brave the queue, reach the till and order my usual: a grande, skinny, sugar-free hazelnut, decaf, extra hot, wet latte. A mouthful (in both senses) but no great challenge when the Starbucks till wallah has a thick felt pen and a little adhesive slip with boxes they tick or write in (or over).
Then, the slip is passed to the barista, stuck on the gleaming metal plate over the hissing pipes and gurgling outlets.
I pay, and move along to the end of the counter.
(I try to connect to Starbucks’ free WiFi, usually fail, and wonder why I bother. Not really relevant, but why pass up the chance to moan?)
The barista delivers my coffee, and I move off to the toppings, where I shower it with an obscene quantity of chocolate powder.

So far so good. Or at least it was. Last time I was there, the till wallah had a touchscreen, with a slightly hesitant finger hunting and pecking the appropriate button. Grande (peck), skinny (peck), sugar-free hazelnut (peck), and so on. “Very high tech,” I said, as he pecked his last and looked up. “Hmm,” he replied, as if not convinced. And then I saw why. “Grande, skinny, sugar-free hazelnut…” he barked over the hissing and gurgling to the bemused, foreign (Hungarian, I think) barista. Who duly wrote it down with a thick felt pen on a little adhesive slip and put it where, just a week earlier, the till wallah would have placed it. So the ordering end of the supply chain is automated, and production end is slowed down. Not very clever. “Wouldn’t it make sense to transmit the electronic order to the barista?” I asked with an air of amusement and feigned innocence. “They do that in the US,” he said wearily, “but not here. Yet. At least I hope not yet.” I felt his pain and smiled sympathetically. “Everybody here thinks it’s a really bad idea,” he continued. “But nobody listens to us.”

The only constant

Change, change, change. It’s the byword and the watchword and the gospel according to Marketing. Without it, companies grow stale, wither and die. So we become change maniacs. Upgrades, rebrands, repurposing, repositioning and reorganising. We just can’t get enough of it. But often, we make changes that are pointless and unnecessary. You’ve done it. So have I. I ploughed ahead with a website upgrade (I use the term loosely, as it was more in the down direction if I’m honest) that I half-knew was doomed before I pressed the Big Red Button. And still I did it. Why? Because I’d invested so much time in it. Because I was propelled by the unstoppable impetus of project mode, and the looming inevitability of a (self-imposed) deadline. Because I was tired of the old site – which in the end I had to revert to anyway. The thing is, it’s often for our benefit, not our clients’. They’re quite happy with what they’ve got, thank you very much. But we tell ourselves they develop ‘brand blindness’ and ‘product fatigue’ and that we need to change or else the world will pass us by. But does it have to be so radical? ‘Disruptive’ is on the lips of marketers across the global village. Challenge the established order. Break the mould. Dare to be different. Question orthodoxy. Go on – you know you want to. Just do it. Which is fine. Disrupt the market, the sales process, the retail channel, the production engine, the business model, the marketing mix. But don’t disrupt the customer. If you roll something out, make sure it’s thought out. Properly. If there’s a potential problem on the horizon, don’t brush it aside as I blithely did, and hurtle towards the adrenaline rush of the Big Red Button.

Inside the comfort zone

When was a kid, I sometimes mistook stock phrases. We all do it at that age. My sister thought ‘to all intents and purposes’ was ‘to all in tents and porpoises’, which is infinitely more memorable and certainly more fun. The one I remember was ‘familiarity breeds contempt’. My innocent ears heard this as ‘familiarity breeds content’. Of course it did – your familiar teddy, toy, TV programme, blanket. Why wouldn’t you be content? You can imagine how crestfallen I was when somebody pointed out my error. And yet, and yet. To this day, I still believe that my mishearing had a grain of truth in it. Familiarity does breed content. Don’t underestimate how happy your clients are with things just the way they are. Everything changes all the time, and the pace of change seems to get faster and faster. So give them a marketing teddy and stop changing, already. Unless it’s a big, exciting, eye-popping, game-changing, forget-all-that-came-before change. Make your change work for them, not you. Or them before it works for you. Because they’re what pays for the change through their continued loyalty and returning custom.

The refill drill

Meanwhile, back in Latteland , Zsa Zsa handed me my steaming drink and beamed a broad smile. Just to be on the safe side, I ran though my complex order. “Extra hot?” she said quizzically, then looked down at her scrawled slip. “I don’t get that.” Didn’t, I silently corrected. “Well I definitely asked for it, ” I said in my most conciliatory tone, topped off with a smile that belied my unshakeable determination to have my order in all its glory. She took my coffee back. She couldn’t just heat it up, of course (Health & Safety – what else?) so she had to start all over again. So there. Delay, waste and frustration. Unhappy customers and staff. Another triumph of change. I stepped back to make way for the next disgruntled customer and fiddled with my smartphone to see if I could get WiFi working. And landed on a brand-new Starbucks WiFi login page. Oh joy.

Kevin Ideas, Marketing.