This week's news shared how Luckin Coffee, the Chinese coffee chain, requires all orders to be placed via a mobile phone. No barista will take your order. To me, this shows how even coffee is now a digital product. Software has eaten (sipped!) even the coffee market. This week's news cycle also shared that Starbucks is closing its standalone, mobile-led to-go stores. (It is keeping drive-in locations.) To me, this suggests divergent strategies: Luckin is leaning into digital and mobile, and Starbucks is resisting. We've seen this movie before. Just ask Blockbuster.

This also reminded me of brick-and-mortar leaders telling us how stores can survive against Amazon and digital-first competitors by offering great customer service.  My take: customers 99% of the time don't care about customer service or the people offering it. Customers want quick and easy, and that means: using their mobile phone to get it done. 

Amazon embodies how customers prefer mobile phones over customer service in the retail space. Every customer has Amazon in their pockets and they order billions of dollars in goods without ever talking to a person, shaking a hand, or receiving a human thank you. Reason: they don't care about the 'thank yous.' 

And, to drive the point home: try calling Amazon customer service. Amazon's customer service is famously awful. Amazon doesn't want to talk to you. They just refund you and/or issue a chargeback to the seller. It's the complete opposite of a human transaction. And this works: Amazon has eaten everyone else’s lunch and now reigns in retail. (What helped them advance to  so far so quickly? The old guard retail industry’s delusion that customer service somehow equals or trumps digital mobile convenience.) 

Among our 1,500 brick-and-mortar stores, 50% of wedding gifts are given online. Just 25 years ago it was: 0.1%. I predict in five years it will be 70%.  Seventy percent of people don’t give a gift via their mobile phone because they prioritize customer service and in-store displays.  In fact, just the opposite. 

If you encounter someone who tells you their retail store's leading quality is people-centered customer service, shake them. They need to wake up and see the digitally centered customer service future. Mobile phones are replacing the front desk.  They should open their mobile phone and order a Luckin coffee. 

Homework:

This week I asked my team to do everything a client would do via their account--but via our mobile interface. I want us to figuratively unplug the desktop and lean into mobile. We want to ask, "What would Luckin do?"

Imagine your primary source of customer service is your mobile website. Just like a customer can only order a coffee via the Luckin mobile app, imagine that is the case for your product or service.   

Your challenge: Try to experience your company's service or product completely via your mobile device.

Read the full Luckin article: 

https://www.wsj.com/business/retail/china-luckin-starbucks-coffee-chain-6f0999a5?st=ua3sjr&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

Read the Starbucks article: 

https://www.wsj.com/business/earnings/starbucks-earnings-q3-sbux-stock-382db7ae?st=bTAzsE&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink