Starbucks Says It Mistakenly Sent Push Notification to Customers: 'Sean K Is Having a Real Tuesday' Many iPhone users got what the company said was an accidental ping from "Sean K."
By Gabrielle Bienasz •
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Starbucks accidentally pinged a host of customers who have its app downloaded with a test notification on Tuesday, according to The Verge.
"Some customers received a test notification from the Starbucks app in error. This has since been resolved and can be ignored," Starbucks wrote on Twitter.
The apparent notification made in error said, "Hello test1 from Seank." It seems that it only went out to iPhone users, The Verge noted.
Entrepreneur found one employee on LinkedIn, Sean Kim, who has worked at Starbucks since 2017 and is currently a manager of technology product & solutions (which seem a conceivable provenance of an app notification) at the company. They did not immediately respond to Entrepreneur's request for comment if they were the mystery notification sender.
Notification and communication errors from large businesses are not uncommon, and people usually wonder if an intern is to blame. These blunders can range from the funny (like a test email to HBO subscribers that actually was sent by an intern) to the inappropriate (CNN running an ad for Applebee's over footage of Ukraine amid the invasion).
We mistakenly sent out an empty test email to a portion of our HBO Max mailing list this evening. We apologize for the inconvenience, and as the jokes pile in, yes, it was the intern. No, really. And we're helping them through it.
— HBOMaxHelp (@HBOMaxHelp) June 18, 2021
Starbucks' Tuesday gaffe inspired a couple of jokes on Twitter.
@StarbucksCare you good? pic.twitter.com/8wEYS8FmWv
— Katherine Egan (@KatNicoleNYC) March 28, 2023
There were also expressions of sympathy (and jokes about) for "Sean K."
seank from Starbucks is gonna have a fun day pic.twitter.com/PRoQYegMR6
— Tom Warren (@tomwarren) March 28, 2023
Obligatory hi my name's SeanK and todays my first day working at Starbucks on their Push Notification Organic Growth Marketing User Experience Testing Team!!!!! pic.twitter.com/SiHqmTivUL
— Camille!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (@Cake986) March 28, 2023
Sean K over at @Starbucks is having a real Tuesday pic.twitter.com/6kGs1ytWB8
— Savanna Tomei (@SavannaTomei) March 28, 2023
Many also referenced a debate in the tech world over whether or not employees should "test something in the production environment," which, as one user explained on LinkedIn, means running a test in the same space that the user is in -- i.e., live, on stage, etc.
Starbucks' former CEO, Howard Schultz, will testify before Senators on Wednesday on the company's many complaints from the National Labor Relations Board.
