The Customer Experiences With Costa Coffee that Leave You Spellbound
Customer Background
Costa Coffee, the world’s second-largest coffee chain, wished to elevate the coffee experience for US coffee lovers. Amid covid scares, Costa Coffee wanted to introduce smart cafes, autonomous coffee vending machines that can provide cafe-like coffee in just 90 seconds, round the clock. Sigma Solve helped Costa Coffee bridge the gap between emerging technologies and the known convenience of a regular cafe.
Industry
The Challenges
Costa Coffee wanted to transform the coffee experience by making various coffee options available for customers in 90 seconds. Developing software and deploying an AI-powered solution that autonomously manages vending machines required the juggling of multiple technologies, expertise in emerging technologies, effective automated testing, and the integration of a program into machines.
- Instructing the coffee vending machine to create a perfect barista-like coffee required an event-oriented mechanism.
- Managing refillment within the machine and inventory upon instruction demanded an out-of-the-box idea.
- Developing and maintaining the frontend layer for the kiosk and mobile app requires a well-organized and scalable architecture.
- Testing the machine was a bottleneck. It required script-based workflow automation to initiate one-click automation and validation.
- Infrastructure and deployment required meticulous planning, especially given the project’s complexity and unique architecture.
- Integrating real-time data tracking and analytics was critical to managing the machines’ inventory, sales, and vending machine health.
- Sigma Solve wanted to ensure operational reliability and security to enhance consistent product availability and enhanced customer experiences.
- Sigma Solve was tasked with developing a data reporting module that can provide insights into sales and inventory to strategize more sales through marketing.
The Solutions
Sigma Solve constituted a team of AI and cloud experts alongside highly skilled developers to implement a cloud-based, DevOps-driven system to build Costa Coffee’s autonomous vending machine-based retail store. We leveraged cutting-edge technologies and empowered coffee machines with artificial intelligence to pour glasses with the finest quality coffee. AI enabled Costa Coffee to predict demands, manage inventory, and offer coffee 24*7 in previously impossible locations, prioritizing sustainability.
- Sigma Solve implemented a Hexagonal Architecture, streamlining the communication between components and enabling an event-driven mechanism for seamless instruction delivery.
- The responsible API would pull the information, fire the sequence of instructions for timely refills, and minimize downtime, guaranteeing a smooth coffee preparation process.
- Sigma Solve employed a Headless Architecture, initially using React JS and later transitioning to a low-code platform, Retool. This saved costs and ensured modular and efficient front-end development.
- Sigma Solve implemented QA automation using Postman collections, enabling script-based testing.
- Sigma Solve automated deployment processes, incorporating Node.js API infrastructure, scripting languages, and AWS services like S3. Slack notifications facilitated quick responses to deployment outcomes, minimizing manual interventions.
- Cloud services were utilized to store and analyze data, making perfect sense for managing inventory and sales.
- A data collection and analysis system was installed to obtain insight into consumer behavior and help strategize marketing campaigns.
The Outcomes
Less human intervention, less time consumption, beverages on-the-go, secure online payment options, and quality consistency are some of the achievements of the partnership between Sigma Solve and Costa Coffee when Covid was at its peak in the US.
Postman collections reduced testing time to 15-20 minutes, ensuring quick identification and resolution of bugs.
An end-to-end automation solution reduced costs by hundreds of dollars and human dependency.
Sigma Solve resolves Costa Coffee’s workforce-related problems and enhances customer experiences in multiple ways.
Costa Coffee was able to reduce its labor costs significantly while delivering customer satisfaction.
Client Testimonial
