Starbucks adopts IdeaStorm concept

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The Dell IdeaStorm was a revolutionary concept in customer relations. The idea was simple: Take the concept of Digg, tweak it a bit here and there, and unleash it so customers and employees can submit ideas. Anyone can then comment on any idea and vote to either promote or demote it. Those that rose to the top are then moved into action. To date, nearly 9,000 ideas have been submitted, attracting almost 69,000 comments. The ideas have been promoted almost 614,000 times. Some of the current top-promoted ideas include offering computers with no extra software and standardizing power cables for all laptops.

The IdeaStorm concept is so good I wondered when we would see other companies adopt it. That question was answered yesterday when Starbucks unveiled its version, a nearly identical site called ”My Starbucks Idea.” Here’s the main functions of the Dell IdeaStorm site:

And here’s the same functionality at My Starbucks Idea:

Which is not to accuse Starbucks of ripping off a Dell property, but rather to praise them for adopting a good idea. Knowing some of the folks at Dell, I’m sure they’re feeling flattered that the concept they initiated is gaining traction.

The launch of My Starbucks Idea comes as Starbucks is struggling as a population facing recession tightens its belt, which for many means foregoing a four-dollar coffee in favor of a one-dollar cup of joe. The site was introduced at its shareholders meeting yesterday, along with several other initiatives—such as a coffee blend to be ground fresh in stores, loyalty cards, French-press coffee and a bolstered green message—all of which follows a highly-publicized three-hour shutdown for store personnel training designed to bring consistency and high quality back to the company’s many, ubiquitous locations.

One improvement Starbucks could make to the site—which would also emulate the approach Dell has taken—is to highlight the ideas that have been submitted on the home page rather than make someone click a link that reads, “Check out the latest ideas now!” (Not to mention, I’m sick of people online telling me to “check out” anything at all.) Still the ideas submitted so far—after only a day—have merit. Free wireless Internet (already available at some of Starbucks’ competitors), coffee classes for those interested in learning more about the drink, and a free coffee on your birthday are among the early entries earning points and attracting comments.

Two companies using the IdeaStorm concept certainly doesn’t make this a movement, but it does represent a doubling of the number of companies employing the model. I suspect now it won’t be too long before it doubles again. For communicators working in companies trying to bolster customer relations and improve innovation, it’s a concept worth taking to management.

1. Take a peek under the hood and you’ll see that both are powered by the same Salesforce app, thus the similarities.

   Posted by Phil Gomes  on  03/20  at  05:10 AM

2. You beat me to it, Phil! I was going to mention that Salesforce.com also has an excellent example of this kind of co-creation/co-innovation/crowdsourcing product viability in IdeaExchange. I didn’t realize they were white-labeling it as well!

   Posted by maggiefox  on  03/20  at  05:16 AM

3. I’m pretty sure from my talk with Lionel Menchaca that Dell IdeaStorm started out using the CrispyNews service as a back end; this was the same service that Constantin Basturea used for the Digg-like site for PR-related content. (I even had a link on my blog posts to submit posts to Constantin’s site.) You can still do that over at http://www.crispyideas.com. At some point, Dell must have switched to the Salesforce.com platform. Since I know a few Dell folks read this blog, maybe one of them can address the switch and the benefits of using the Salesforce.com approach.

   Posted by Shel Holtz  on  03/20  at  06:04 AM

4. Salesforce *bought* CrispyNews:

   http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-salesforcecom-acquires-social-news-service-crispynewscom/

   Posted by Phil Gomes  on  03/20  at  08:25 AM

5. As the good folk above noted, Salesforce.com has a bustling site.  Also, <a href=\"http://www.powerset.com\">Powerset (my company) has tried to do something similar with Powerlabs.  I think more companies should be willing to let customers into the product development cycle at every point.  The big question in my mind is: what’s the best way to gather information from the users?

   Posted by Mark Johnson  on  03/20  at  08:57 AM

6. Thanks, Phil. That’s the one acquisition in the online space that I missed.

   Posted by Shel Holtz  on  03/20  at  12:53 PM

7. Happy to address the question Shel! I launched IdeaStorm for Dell and you all are correct… Salesforce.com acquired CrispyNews about a year ago and we worked with the integrated team there on our IdeaStorm site. Salesforce.com recently launched their latest release of the Ideas application, and you can check it out here: http://www.salesforce.com/products/ideas.

   Posted by Caroline Dietz  on  03/21  at  10:15 AM

8. Dell gets it. Caroline Dietz, from Dell, reads Shel’s post and provides clarification in the comments. Awesome!

   When has Starbucks ever done that?

   Wouldn’t it be great if some of the 48 Starbucks employees assigned to engaging Starbucks customers on the MyStarbucksIdea blog would venture out into the blog world and provide clarifying comments like Caroline did AND does for Dell.

   Posted by john moore (from Brand Autopsy)  on  03/21  at  02:22 PM

9. It seems that they’re just listening though…
   “We’ve got a team of more than 40 Idea Partners, whose specialties range from coffee to entertainment to community programs, ready to hear your ideas.”

   It’s a good start, but why not have a dialogue with their community? Will they be able to build community without interacting?

   I agree with John that the ‘listening employees’ should go out and participate in the community at large IN ADDITION to the one they just put up.

   Posted by Connie Bensen  on  03/21  at  03:30 PM

10. John (Moore) and I talked offline about this Saturday. We both worked at corporate, although at different times. For my part, it seems as if the Starbucks effort was launched with no planning and no one in charge. Forty plus partners will spoil the soup.

    Posted by Lewis Green  on  03/24  at  10:21 AM

11. Lewis, you would certainly have more insight than I would. But I suspect the tool is not cheap (as part of Salesforce.com’s offering), so somebody at least had some budgetary authority. There also needs to be some management of the tool to decide which ideas to move to action.

    I keep hoping someone from Starbucks offers up answers. Hope springs eternal, fortunately, because we may have to wait an eternity for that to happen…

    Posted by Shel Holtz  on  03/24  at  11:16 AM

12. Shel,

    With 40 plus partners reviewing ideas, my guess (I have no inside knowledge) is that each idea that makes it through the partner filter moves along to the appropriate department head. Whether or not they need to then take the best ideas to the Executive Committee, who knows? Just based on the 40 plus partner concept, if I were on the development team, that is not what I would have recommended. Too laborious and bureacratice.

    Posted by Lewis Green  on  03/24  at  11:28 AM

13. 1. Salesforce is selling the tool in a bizarre way. Been trying to get a straight answer out of them.  It seems that you get the tool for free for internal (employee) use if you are a customer.  If you want to do what Dell or Starbucks did, it seems to be $1 per login per month.  Sort of weird.  I have told them that I would have bought it by now for at least 2-3 clients if they would just give me a simple price. http://blogs.salesforce.com/ideas/2007/09/how-is-ideaexch.html

    2. Caroline is the only person in the world who has run a site like this, and she’s fantastic.  We all need to study what she does at Dell. I interviewed her here:
    http://blogs.salesforce.com/ideas/2007/09/how-is-ideaexch.html

    Posted by Andy Sernovitz  on  03/25  at  03:25 AM

14. Ooops- interview is here:
    http://www.damniwish.com/2007/10/dell-redemption.html

    Posted by Andy Sernovitz  on  03/25  at  03:27 AM

15. Andy Sernovitz,
    I agree, Dell has done a wonderful job with their IdeaStorm. To be fair though, we launched the TurboTax Idea Exchange *before* the IdeaStorm tool launched. The concept is the same, although the tool is different (we didn’t even know about the Salesforce implementation at the time).

    Here’s the catch though: you need to join the TurboTax Inner Circle to see it/use it: http://www.turbotax.com/innercircle/ . Our implementation was developed by a small company called WhyNot: http://www.whynot.net/

    That said, I’ve been impressed by Dell since the Idea Exchange launch on 3 fronts:
    1) I’ve always been impressed by guts. It seemed to me that Dell made a big decision to jump into the world of corporate transparency head-first. In my experience that’s no small or easy task.
    2) By going with Salesforce, I assume their tool must be scalable and have some nice reporting tools available. As others have mentioned here, I called Salesforce to get a price quote… it was a long and fruitless discussion from my perspective. Quite frankly, if I can’t give my boss a number of how much it’s going to cost, it’s pretty hard for me to get approval… it’s that simple.
    3) IMO they have done a wonderful job in getting their entire team behind the Idea Exchange. Again, that’s no small or easy task.

    Christine Morrison
    Leader, TurboTax Inner Circle

    Posted by Christine Morrison  on  03/25  at  07:56 AM

16. i’ve been a regular on dell’s ideastorm website and it’s great seeing other companies such as starbucks and cononacle (ubuntu) adopting the same concept. best of luck to them. the biggest advice for starbucks though is to keep everyone informed on the progress of an idea, especially popular ones

    Posted by jdelidc  on  03/28  at  10:13 PM

17. My name is Jamie Grenney and I manage the Salesforce Ideas Product line, and have worked quite a bit with Caroline from Dell. They’ve done a fantastic job.

    For those who are interested we run a live demo each Friday at 11:00 PST, so feel free to join.
    http://blogs.salesforce.com/ideas/2008/02/salesforce-idea.html

    I also blog quite a bit on the use of these types of communities.
    http://blogs.salesforce.com/ideas/blog_index.html

    Posted by Jamie Grenney  on  04/04  at  01:42 PM