Starbucks will add ‘guardrails’ to app in effort to streamline mobile ordering

• Starbucks wants to curb chaotic and complex mobile orders.
• CEO Brian Niccol announced that “common sense” guardrails will soon be put on app customizations.
• Niccol aims to overhaul the chain after the company reported a disappointing third quarter.

Starbucks will soon start to crack down on excessive customizations made in its app as the company aims to improve its mobile ordering and in-store experience.

CEO Brian Niccol said the coffee chain will implement “common sense guardrails” on app orders in the coming months as part of the company’s effort to separate the pick-up process from in-store orders.

The former Chipotle head made the announcement during a “disappointing” third-quarter earnings call on Wednesday. Niccol joined Starbucks in September and has been tasked with overhauling the struggling chain.

The company’s app currently offers “all kinds of customization” on food and drinks, Niccol said, which complicates the ordering process for customers and incentivizes them to create drinks that are complex for baristas to execute.

“I also think we have some pricing architecture tied to guardrails to ensure that we end up with no surprises for, frankly, anybody, on what the price is of what they just built,” he added.

Mobile orders make up more than 30% of transactions at Starbucks stores, he said. But longer-than-expected wait times and crowded cafés have soured some customers on the Starbucks experience, Niccol added.

Niccol said the company is also prioritizing a new sequencing algorithm that enables accurate pickup times for mobile orders to avoid overwhelming the cafés.