Build 2016: Starbucks uses Microsoft Office Add-ins to capitalise on 'hyperconnected' caffeine addicts

Now you can book a Starbucks business meeting - and pre-order your latte

Microsoft and Starbucks showed off an innovative use of Office Add-ins to process coffee gift vouchers and enable customers to book business meetings and pre-order coffee through their smartphone.

From the stage at Microsoft's Build 2016 developer conference, Starbucks CTO Gerri Martin-Flickinger explained how the firm is always looking for innovative ways to use technology to attract more customers.

Explaining how even the company's celebrated Clover brewing machines are now IoT-connected with Cover.net, which "interconnects and drives the brewing recipes", the ex-Adobe Systems CIO laid out how much information Starbucks now possesses on its customers.

"We have a lot of data - we do about 90 million customer transactions a week," said Martin-Flickinger.

"We know information about what people are buying, where they're buying and how they're buying it, and we are understanding things about our distribution channel and our inventory.

"And when you think about that big data problem, it gives us an amazing opportunity to stitch data together and provide personalised experiences in our stores with things like music, but also experiences for our customers to give them special offers."

Martin-Flickinger talked about the "Happy Birthday treats" the company sends out to registered customers, adding that the company intends to keep building on this "human experience" to try to attract more customers.

"One of the ways we've recently engaged digitally with the human experience is through mobile order and pay applications. In fact, today 17 million people use that application to order and get their Starbucks coffee, and 21 per cent of all of our transactions in the US are not done with cash, they're not done with plastic credit cards, but with mobile pay on your phone."

Martin-Flickinger said that this showed that Starbuck customers "like innovation" and "like interacting with Starbucks in new and interesting ways".

The next step is to "take some of that Starbucks magic and bring it closer to customers", she said, to enable the purchase of gift cards - which one in six adult Americans have received at some point - with only "three clicks".

Using an "Add-in" code extension for Microsoft Office and Outlook, Microsoft's team demonstrated how easily a customer's details, password and gift card can be processed and issued.

"You can even co-brand them for projects," Martin-Flickinger said, showing a Microsoft Build logo on the animated voucher.

Next, Martin-Flickinger showed how customers can use their smartphones to set up a meeting at Starbucks.

She said Starbucks will be making the Add-in available to the public very soon.

While both examples handled by the Add-in are relatively small and simple innovations, they demonstrate the way small transaction consumer industries can capitalise on the spread of connectivity as the IoT takes hold.