Consider the issues faced by perceptually challenged people when they try to access restaurants designed for fully-functional customers. In response to inquiries and initiatives by individual franchisees, Starbucks is opening a special location at which all the servers will be fluent in sign language…
Starbucks has special aprons for its staff who known Sign Language. And folks who’ve
been to one of the ASL locations already open say the atmosphere is
much more relaxed – and quieter – than a regular store.
You won’t have to be deaf to work at the new Starbucks Signing Store in Washington, DC, but it helps. All counter staff (also known as baristas or, simply, servers) will be fluent in American Sign Language (ASL), a standard hand-signing communication for the deaf.
While optimized for the hearing-impaired, regular customers will be able to write their orders on menu cards and hand them to the baristas who will issue the customer an order number. When any order is ready is ready for pickup, the number will appear on a video monitor visible across the dining room.
The Signing Store will open this October.
Enlarging on a good idea…
The DC Starbucks isn’t the first such location, though.
The idea was first explored back in 2016 with the opening of a Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Starbucks now known for hiring deaf employees, win partnership with a non-profit organization called Society of Interpreters for the Deaf. The idea was intended to serve employees as well as customers. In Malaysia, only about 1 percent of deaf adults are employed. Compare that to North America , where about 50 percent of deaf people are employed.
Similar initiatives have been floated, round and about, by other franchisees and even individual baristas. For example, a Florida Starbucks retrofitted the regular video screen ordering terminal at its drive-thru, back in 2015, ‘go live’ enabling two-way ASL conversations between deaf customers and a barista named Katie who has been using ASL all her life.
A win-win all round…
Catering to the hearing-challenged community is a great idea for Starbucks. Hearing-impaired customers will probably flock to the locations which offer ASL ordering. For now, at least, it’s a convenience the deaf cannot access anywhere else. My guess is that Starbucks will see both PR and sales gains as a result. And you can bet that the idea of enabling ASL ordering will quickly spread to other stores and other chains.
What next?
My pal Peter, who is visually challenged, will probably be wondering when someone will come up with a way to accommodate his communication issue on menus and touch-screen ordering boards. No solution to that one races to mind, but it’s something I’d be spending some serious development time and money on, if I was Starbuck’s corporate headquarters…
Listen up, Starbucks…
You’ve mare tour brand synonymous with serving he challenged and folks are going to expect more big things from you on all challenge fronts!
~ Maggie J.