Starbucks is known worldwide, and the demand for its coffee, drinks, and baked goods has gotten faithful customers lining up in the shops, sometimes for hours at a time, to get their fill. Of course, this is not exactly a time efficient way to go about things. The popular coffee shop, however, seems to have gotten this fixed, at least for its customers in the United States and in London.
Starbucks' mobile app has rolled out a useful new update which lets customers order their choices ahead of time. According to ITPro Portal, the mobile app has introduced the Mobile Order and Pay feature. Beginning Oct. 1, Thursday, users of the Starbucks app will be able to pre-order food and drinks across over 150 branches of the well-known coffee chain all over London. Upon opening the app, the user will pick his choice of food and drinks from the menu, confirm it and just pick it up.
The order will be sent to the user's branch of choice, strategically the one most accessible to him. An approximate of how long it will take before the user can pick the order up will also be shown. This is to have customers avoid falling in line and waiting in the shop for unspecified periods of time. This will also save customers who are commuting a couple of minutes and allows them to estimate their own time.
The function has already rolled out in the United States last year and has received positive feedback from users. The app has been said to help those who are speech and hearing impaired. "We think the easy-to-use feature will meet our customers' needs for convenience and customisation at any time of the day," said Ian Cranna, Marketing and Category Vice President EMEA.
The app feature is currently being tested in iOS for London users. If it turns out to be successful, it will only be a matter of time before it comes to Android as well. According to TechCrunch, the Starbucks app has already offered a mobile payment service with the app, which includes a reloadable Starbucks card. The coffee chain's app boasts of more that 16 million users in both Android and iOS.
