I recently caught a post on Brand Autopsy that gave a peek behind the stats at MyStarbucksIdea.com ("Tough Love for Starbucks").  For those of you not familiar with MyStarbucksIdea, it is a site where Starbucks customers from around the world can submit and prioritize ideas for improving Starbucks.  It is the "poster child" of social media success that many people point to as a shining example of what you can get when you listen to your customers.  However, the post on Brand Autopsy points out that only 6 of the 53 ideas implemented actually originated from customers (though they all were purported to be from customers).  

I have mixed feelings about this...  On the one hand, I applaud Starbucks for reaching out to customers and actively listening to them in order to improve their business.  This is one type of listening initiative that many organizations should consider (though I think the digg-style submission system only works in certain cases). 

On the other hand, if the assertions in the article are true then these listening efforts could end up doing more damage in the long-term, especially if customers realize that these incremental improvements are nothing more than a shallow promise.  It's one thing to listen and demonstrate that you're listening, it's another thing entirely to act.  If you're going to build a listening initiative like this into your organization, make everyone accountable to it and don't just treat it as a gimmick to show that you're listening.  Your loyal customers will sniff that out pretty quickly. 

I caveat this all by saying that I can't personally verify what the blog post is asserting, so it could be that there is a reasonable explanation on the part of Starbucks that is missing here.  Regardless of how many ideas were actually customer generated, I think Starbucks deserves credit for doing what many companies have yet to even think of doing (or are afraid to try).  However, I hope that this serves as a caution to companies thinking of building new listening initiatives, in that you must be accountable to the results and honest with your customers about the ideas that are implemented, or risk the backlash and potentially negative feedback.

-Matt