Starbucks deploys app within Microsoft Teams

Starbucks is recognizing the prevalence of virtual communication with a new Microsoft partnership.

The coffee giant is introducing a new Starbucks app on the Microsoft Teams business communication platform. The app enables users to send a personalized Starbucks e-gift card directly within a Microsoft Teams chat.

By offering this new app, Starbucks is building on a partnership it launched with Microsoft to enhance personalization in May 2019. The retailer has been leveraging Microsoft Azure-based reinforcement learning technology, a type of machine learning in which a system learns to make decisions in complex, unpredictable environments based upon external feedback, to provide tailor-made order suggestions in its mobile app. Starbucks is also expanding this technology to its drive-thru experience.

Starbucks Technology built the retailer’s new Microsoft Teams app and secured Microsoft’s vetting and integration. Using the new Starbucks app in Microsoft Teams, customers can give a Starbucks e-gift card by downloading the app in Teams, signing into or creating a Starbucks Rewards loyalty account, clicking the Starbucks icon in the “New Conversation” section of a Microsoft Teams chat or channel, and then selecting a card design and gift amount (from $5 to $100) with a personalized message.

In addition, Microsoft Teams users can select from a curated set of custom virtual backgrounds designed by Starbucks. Backgrounds include Starbucks holiday cups, as well as a variety of scenes including a cozy Starbucks moment at home and a snowy Starbucks store setting.