This post is a little late in the day since the hype is already over, but I feel like I had to make some sort of comment on it since it is very much at the heart of customer experience. And I hadn’t time to write anything until today.

So Starbucks have decided to try and call you by name and write it on a cup so they can call it out when your skinny mocha frappuccino is done. I say try because they can’t possibly remember all of them.

I remember the first time this happened to me. I was at a Cafe called Gusto, on Coogee Beach in Sydney, Australia. All I wanted was a Green Tea if I remember correctly, and the barista confidently says to me ‘Name…?’. I was half inclined to ask her to repeat herself since I couldn’t understand what on earth she would need that for, until I glanced behind her at the blackboard covered in a Sarah and a Charlotte. So I gave her my name and waited for her to put it next to Sarah and a Green Tea afterwards.

As it happened my housemate ended up waitressing there and she said it made customers happy when they memorised their names and orders so they could make them before they’d even paid for them. Which by all accounts has to be good service. But it’s a very personal service, used be independent coffee shop baristas to make their customers happy. There are many perils with this sort of behaviour – if I were a barista I’m not sure I’d like the pressure. Imagine trying to spell ‘Bartholomew’ without causing offense, or detect the humorous undertones of ‘Gail Force’ and ‘Amanda HugandKiss’. And then of course there’s the problem with all the accents and the dialects. It’s an articulatory minefield. There are lots of comments from coffee shoppers.

“Don’t know why everyone is so bothered by this… it’s standard practice across the pond as well as all over europe. who says you have to give them your real name anyway? besides, it’s fairly unlikely they’ll remember it next time…”

But isn’t that, indeed, the whole point? At least it was in Oz, they were so good at remembering order after order because everyone that turned up was a regular that it actually worked. And gave you a nice warm fuzzy feeling inside.

“What is the big deal?” says someone else. “There’s plenty of other things to moan about.” Yes certainly, but someone else outlines what bothers me the most:

“If a waitress asks my name & chats because she wants to thats lovely. If she does it according to her corporate script I’d rather she didn’t bother.”

You know full well that the contents of their nicely rehearsed message was relayed to them on a script on Monday morning’s meeting, and they don’t give a flying coffee bean what you think of it. They’re doing it ‘cos if the supervisor notices they’re not then they might have to clean the toilets that evening. And that’s not the sort of employee pressure I want to contribute to.

Besides all this, I’m well aware that it works in other countries quite well and many people appreciate the familiarity of having someone remember your name and your beverage of choice. However, I can’t help thinking that the American giant that Starbucks is, has rather underestimated the British somewhat. We are a reserved breed, and we like our privacy and can’t really make the connection between giving our name away for an Espresso. As someone outwardly expressed

“Someone stuck behind a counter doesn’t need to know your name to serve you. They are not your friends, unless of course you wish to make friends with them.”

Quite right, indeed. No need to get all ‘chummy’ as it were. What are they going to do when there are queues out the door, as there usually are at 9am in central London? As many others have commented, they would prefer Starbucks to get their drink order right first and not take 20 minutes about it, before trying their luck with names.

If they are going to persist with this behaviour I suppose we might as well all have some fun with it. What about saying your name was Robocop. Or Lord Voldemort.
Or:

“I started to go by the name Fonzy. At least when they called it out i could go ayyyyyy. Never got tired of doing it.”

Or you could always try:

“My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius, commander of the Armies of the North, General of the Felix Legions, loyal servant to the true emperor, Marcus Aurelius; father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife; and I will have my skinny latte with an extra shot, in this life or the next!”

(All comments shamelessly stolen from some comment box or other)