For people with disability, ordering food or drinks at a drive-thru has always been a depressing, or sometimes even impossible, experience. Recenty, however, a deaf woman discovered that the famous coffee chain Starbucks is making a new feature available for customers with disabilities, with a little help from technology.
Last Tuesday, a 28-year-old from St. Augustine, Florida, uploaded a video to Facebook which showed what happened during her visit to a local Starbucks drive-thru. The video shows her driving up to the ordering kiosk when a woman's voice emits from the intercom saying, "Hi, welcome to Starbucks. What can we get started for you today?"
Rebecca King, a member of the deaf community, does not respond and waits in her seat. A few moments later, a barista appears on a monitor. King begins to communicate with the woman using sign language, and to her surprise the barista signs right back.
The ecstatic King captioned her video on Facebook saying, "Starbucks! This is what I'm talking about!" The video has been watched more than 4.9 million times to date. "Share it away! We can change the world!" The video was shared like madness and has gone viral in just a couple of hours.
According to Action News Jax, the Starbucks barista in the video is a woman named Katie Wyble, a 22-year-old college student who has always had a passion for sign language. Wyble, who began studying American Sign Language in high school, says she's always been interested in sign language since she first saw a teacher use in preschool. She said she's also so happy that the video has been shared so widely on social media.
Wyble told Action News Jax she thinks there should be more people who need to know about what Starbucks is doing because it will take customer service to a whole new level. She added saying she hopes this incident will make more people knowledgeable of the things they can do to help others in the community. No help is too little when it's done for a good cause.
