The Customer Experiences With Costa Coffee that Leave You Spellbound

Home Success Stroies 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

Food & Beverages

Technology Stack

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 for an optimized and reliable coffee machine.

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.

Cost reduction and machine reliability upscale the revenue of Costa Coffee considerably.

Sigma Solve helped Costa Coffee reach the untapped market and increase its sales multifold.

Client Testimonial

quote

Working with Sigma Solve Inc., has been an absolute pleasure. They have provided outstanding service, and delivered an excellent product! I highly recommend them and look forward to working with them for my upcoming new versions.

Christine Kevorkian

Sigma Solve Inc. is the best web development company I have ever worked with. They are extremely responsive and, what is equally important, care very much about the quality of their work. Time and again, they have successfully completed productivity and profit enhancing projects for me. And unlike many companies, they seem to ENJOY the challenge of finding the best solution to a problem or technology upgrade. I highly recommend them for all of your web development needs.

Tim Stephen

We have been working with Sigma Solve for almost four years and they have been a fantastic partner. During my career I have worked with many internet and e-commerce companies and this company is fantastic. They are very intelligent, creative and efficient and they always deliver on time and within budget. They also are available at a moments notice when the Company is in need of anything. I would highly recommend them to anyone looking for a fantastic e-commerce agency and partner.

Michael Gavelek

Sigma Solve handled a highly customized project with professionalism and delivered a quality site. They were responsive to our needs at every stage of the process, from planning and design through testing and launching our e-commerce site.

Kirsten Lambert

Affordable, projects completed on time as promised, always! Friendly, excellent communication. They have the best Project Manager and technology strategist. I have been working with SigmaSolve on many projects and for many years, and they never fail me. I will continue to work with them on any complex e-Commerce projects.

Andy Narendra

Excellent web development company. My clients are very happy with the quality of work, low cost, communication and quality of service. Would recommend Sigma Solve to anyone looking for Web development, Mobile application development, eCommerce or custom software application development. They are also experts in database management, integration

Sandip Gohil

Sigma Solve has been a great partner to Wild Coffee Marketing and Wild Coffee Content. The dev for our new business is on time and on budget and so is the work we bring the Sigma Solve team in for for our other clients.

Salomon Wancier

SigmaSolve has done WHAT they said they would do, WHEN they said they would do it, and for the quoted and agreed upon PRICE they said they would do it for!

SigmaSolve has been very cooperative, very timely, and very professional while building my Site AND with much needed updates and changes since the Site went Live.

I don't know how to say this without it reading like a sales pitch, but if you need a web development company you can trust to build and maintain your site correctly, THE FIRST TIME, and for a very reasonable price - I HIGHLY RECOMMEND you contact SigmaSolve! ...I found myself wishing I had.

Larry Hillis

Cardwave used Sigma Solve to help us develop a new data recovery service website using the 3D cart platform. This required a lot of back end work being undertaken for a software and we did not have the resource or experience of 3D Cart in house.

Biren was extremely knowledgeable and patient as we did change the specs and requirements at certain points during the project. It was very much a learning process for us in setting up the site and he was always great at giving us solutions to our problems. He carried out the work efficiently and the turnaround was really quick when we asked him to do specific tasks. I would highly recommend Sigma Solve and would definitely use them again on future projects.

Paul Norbury

It's not easy to find dev talent help that can get the job done let a lone for a good price. Sigma did that and it was great. They got the job DONE! Communication isn't always perfect and there can be delays (they're managing multiple projects) but I'll take that with good people, competency, priced for value and seeing the job thru to the finish any day in dev work.

Jono Castleton

Sigma Solve is our go-to custom programming service. We email them with what we'd like to have programmed. They email back a realistic quote. We say "Do it". And they do the programming... And the programming WORKS.

Eben Brown

The City of Tacoma awarded Sigma Solve a few of the Shopping Websites redesign projects. Their team worked with our team throughout all of the phases of the project, that included design, creation, testing and implementation.

Mike Hammoud

Sigma Solve Inc. delivered exactly what was needed in a timely manner. The team worked hard, going above and beyond to meet the client's needs. Their strong sense of professionalism and top-notch customer service paved the way for a seamless and successful collaboration.

Christine Kevorkian

We used Sigma Solve to create our eCommerce website and to perform SEO on two websites. On the website, they delivered the finished product on time, and they have responded quickly every time that we decide to make changes to the site.

I have been very pleased with the SEO work. You could not find either one of my companies on a Google search. Now we pop up on the first page on a variety of searches using Google, Bing, or Yahoo. Oftentimes, we are the #1 or #2 non-advertising hit.

Russ Martin

While the engagement is ongoing, the first version's UI/UX design has received great feedback from the market. The team is accessible, which streamlines communication to support successful collaboration. Moreover, they are trustworthy, diligent, and creative.

Nikolas Tichy

Amazing support services! Great response time, and very thorough. I have worked with other internet service companies in the past, where communication and knowledge was extremely poor. Sigma Solve has been been an awesome company to work with!

Tori Swaim

Thanks to Sigma Solve's work, the measurable outcomes of the project far exceeded the expectations of the client. The deliverables were high quality, on time and on budget. The team was highly organized, responsive, and exhibited a professional demeanor throughout the project.

Earle Holder

Very skilled, easy, and technical business that seems to be available around the clock 24 x 7. They have a superior response time and provide good solutions for technical challenges. I highly recommend Sigma Solve for website and application development.

Arash K

I recently had the pleasure of working with Sigma Solve Corporation for the development of my DocuSign AI application, and I must say, the experience was nothing short of exceptional. From the get-go, it was evident that the team is incredibly well-versed in AI modeling, a skill set that is crucial for the intricate work my project required.

Philip Dyche

Very good experience with this company. Biren is both very communicative and helpful in his approach. His coding improved the look of our website ten fold.

Natasha Fowkes

Thanks to SigmaSolve's continuous efforts, the team has saved the company over $100,000,00 on web development costs. SigmaSolve's in-depth knowledge of web development, excellent service, and responsiveness have led to a successful engagement thus far.

David Frazier

Job well done. Easy to work with and services were completed very quickly. We will use them again.

J McMasters

Sigma Solve Inc. delivered easy-to-use builds with a smooth UI for admins and users. Sigma Solve Inc. led a communicative, punctual, and smooth process, ensuring good project management. The client also praised their commitment to understanding their needs.

Jarrad Howard-Gentry