Starbucks! This is what I'm talking about! ❤️Share it away! We can change the world! :)
Posted by Rebecca King on Tuesday, November 3, 2015
WASHINGTON — A Starbucks in St. Augustine, Florida, is offering a new service to help its deaf customers order at the drive-thru: two-way video ordering.
Customers can use a video camera system on the digital ordering boards to sign their order to coffee shop staff at a new store near Florida’s School for the Deaf and Blind. Four employees at the store know American Sign Language, according to Starbucks.
News of the video ordering option came to light this week after deaf customer Rebecca King took a video as she placed an order for two coffees and then shared it on her Facebook page. The video has been viewed more than a 6 million times since it was posted Tuesday.
“It is a big deal to (the) deaf community that Starbucks has one now. Nowhere else has that!” King told First Coast News of the video-ordering option. “We all want to have that at every drive-thru in the world.”
The video shows King pull up to the order board and wait. Soon Starbucks employee Katie Wyble pops up on the screen and the two begin signing.
Wyble told Jacksonville TV station Action News Jax that she first developed an interest in learning sing language in preschool. She says she regularly uses it to communicate with customers at work, according to Starbucks.
“Starbucks! This is what I’m talking about!” King wrote in her Facebook post. “Share it away! We can change the world!”