Call PCC this is so aggressive

How can you improve customer connection if you have no time to connect with a customer because you’re understaffed?

Ethics & Compliance:

1-800-611-7792

"hours are reduced across the board" + "if you want more hours ask other partners to give theirs up" ?????? what the actual hell?

I'm taking a ton of business courses for school, and the number ONE rule, is to make happy employees.

Workers who feel mistreated, and under appreciated are less likely to perform well in the work place. They'll likely by snippy and less personable as compared to a worker who feels valued.

This is not the employees faults, it's the employers.

That being said, there are some people who are just rude to customers because they're working. We have people like that at my store, and the only fix is to find someone to replace them.

You should all quit en masse, if you are able.

“IF YOU NEED MORE HOURS: Ask other partners to give up their hours.”

**Translation:** If you need money, ask someone else if you can have THEIR money.

i agrée that this is shitty and unacceptable. my store is top in our district in CC (at a 68… that’s still “low”) but here’s a way i’ve been able to stay sane while also contributing to CC: only take that extra required step with gold card members. they’re the ones getting the surveys. having a bad day? dont push yourself to talk to every customer who pays cash or debit/credit if you don’t want to talk to them (beyond basic customer service), just focus on those gold card members.

Even if you like capitalism, there's no way that could appear fair. Wtf is this

This is an example of the type of shit that made me quit without notice after wasting 5 years (SS for half of that) with that company.

Not only is this unacceptable, it’s also unproductive.

This person’s store is struggling with connections because they aren’t displaying themselves. Fish rots from the head.

walk out. unacceptable.

This is super shitty wtf

As a customer, I never expect you to take the time to get to know me because...it’s a coffee shop. Where I go to get coffee. Typically right before I have to be at work and neither I, nor you guys, can really put that much into a developing a relationship between the time I give my order and the time I’m waiting for my coffee. But the times I come in and the barista is like, oh hey you - that’s seriously enough. What customers are taking these surveys? A smile, a hello, is totally sufficient. If I wanted a long conversation where I provide empty answers to baristas with forced enthusiasm for the appearance of connection I would go to Dutch bros.

But like. If we are not only understaffed, but rushed with 20 people in the lobby, dealing with 10 drink cafe, multiple drink mobile, AND multiple drink ubers, how the fuck are we meant to connect with every customwr we see on a more than intimate basis? Are we meant to be taking every one of them out for a first, second, and third date, meal and drinks included?

Genuinely disgusting.

Wow holy shit that’s horrible

My manager just high fived my team today over a connection score of 35 😆

my SM is one of the most lax and kind SMs and we tied in first for CC in the region last time they came out. perhaps its not stupid shit like this that helps the store, but hiring good people, from the top down.

someone please take away highlighters from our SMs.

the part that gets me is the "only 41% of our customers feel like we blahblahblah" THATS NOT HOW THE METRIC WORKS. that means that of the very random and very few people that took the survey, 41 people gave you a 100% score. if someone gave you a 9/10, that doesnt matter. its not an average score its the number of 10/10s you got. its the dumbest scoring system. if 41% of your customers truly felt like you treated then only as transactions, i could understand management being frustrated, but this note and the hours being cut is BEYOND what is appropriate in this situation. its aggressive and backwards and makes me mad for you

I’d transfer stores, this Is beyond ridiculous I’m sorry your dealing with this.

Customer connection scores literally set you up to fail. They are utterly meaningless numbers and this is totally wack.

“Ask other partners to give up their hours???” What??????

As a customer, should I ask to speak to all the employees and engage with them for 10 mintes? Including the manager.

Still feel like partners? Seems to me that you're being treated like a transaction

We are in a pandemic customer connection is really not my priority if it ever was... and all this to be paid 9 or 10 bucks?

Ah yes. Let’s threaten baristas livelihoods. That will surely make them feel like connecting with customers 🙄

i’m sorry what the FUCK

My #1 priority as a barista is being able to afford to feed myself, actually.

Yet another example that large corporations don’t give a shit about their employees. Starbucks gives an appearance that they do with the benefits they offer but they truly don’t.

Honestly this is why we need fucking unions. I’m truly sorry you have to deal with this.

The make it or break it question "did my barista get to know me?" is the dumbest and most vague question on there. Everyone will interpret that question differently. Like "do they remember my name?". "Do they know my drink?". "Do they know my life story?". "I don't want to talk to these people, just give me coffee". There's some customers that love to chat and others who don't like to talk at all. If i see that customer is not interested in connecting, i will respect that because then it comes off as forced and some people just like their space (as an extreme introvert, i also like my space when i am out and about). I'm sorry that you have to deal with an SM like that. A paycheck is not a prize, it is something we all need to live. This is the kind of shit that will make good employees leave because they are not being treated well.

Jesus Christ, this is insane. As a customer i just want coffee, not a forced interaction with someone

Legally they can not send anyone home without their consent. You’re entitled to the hours you are scheduled. They can’t take hours away from you by sending you home.

Retaliation via cutting hours is illegal. This is according to my own SM who I had to speak to about cutting MY hours (which was actually an accident, thank god) but I had a manager at a different job who did shit like this. Y’all deserve better

Maybe this is because I'm from New York (lol), but I would never expect a barista to "get to know me" beyond being polite and friendly when we interact. I had no idea this was something that corporate pressures baristas to do. I'm giving the highest connection rating every time I do a survey for now on.

our connection score has never been higher than 41 oh my god

Cringe!!

Holy fuck, and I thought my location was bad. Good luck 🤞

I’m a shift at my store and we’re working to raise our score, it’s currently at a 31. This kind of behavior is downright evil. I know I’m still barely in management, and I have no weight to throw outside my district, but if you need someone else to support, count me in.

The arrogance.

this pisses me off so much, i’m sorry. i work at a drive thru store and they complain about wait times but also complain that we’re not making enough connections. the question is do you want customers in and out? or do you want us to talk to each one? it’s frustrating the conflicting feedback or ideas of how things should be done. good luck with your situation, this looks like hell

this is the exact reason why I want to quit my store. The DMs and the Managers only care about drive times and “customer connection” all while understaffing the team and disregarding the staffs well-being.

How the FUCK do they think making the understaffing issue WORSE is going to IMPROVE the stupid fucking customer connection score?

Like, "ah yes, let me make it so every single one of the employees at this location is not only more stressed out about money (because of less hours) but *also* more stressed out because they're being forced to increase their work load, that will surely make it so they are able to have cheerful interactions with customers on a consistent basis :)"

They reduced hours because customer connection dropped!? That’s absolutely ridiculous & honestly don’t think this is allowed especially in such an aggressive way to where it’s going to create a very toxic environment.

This is aggressive, and I think poor management to try to get partners to respond to this, and I think most partners in the store won't respond well, and are more likely to quit or transfer because of this.

But in principle everything the SM is trying to do is exactly what starbucks is. Starbucks isn't about great coffee, Almost anywhere you can find a starbucks you can find a better coffee somewhere within a few miles. The business model of Starbucks is about love-bombing your customers, making them feel good about coming into the store so that they come back and buy more stuff. That's why signs like this come up every so often, but signs about making better coffee almost never show up.

It's an indictment of our society as a whole that customer service is more important than quality products.

This is so beyond inappropriate for so many reasons.
My store just celebrated 41% as a great score idk what this person has up their butt but they had better be expecting a termination themselves. This is NOT the starbucks way and I can't believe they actually have the audacity to print this out.

Its makes me uncomfortable to know that I recognize those upper leadership names and that this may be a store somewhere in my area and if it is...I'm so sorry, I wish you all the best. And if you need someone to help fight I'll help you 💯

i work in a kroger starbucks and we’re unionized, idk if you are but PLEASE speak to your union or someone else higher up in the starbucks chain. that’s unacceptable

I always thought being clean, safe, and ready should be our priority but what the fuck do I know?

LMFAOOO your manager thought this WOULD motivate partners?

'ask other partners for their hours' uhhhh wth

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But in all seriousness. report them if they have not been doing any helpful coaching whatsoever. "coaching" ranges anywhere from "Oh soap is blue" to changing your entire approach towards a work day. its a lazy broad term and they need to do better

Everytime I or someone else complains about working here or mentions the serious issue of workers getting pushed and assaulted, several bootlickers come in and say starbucks is the best workplace and it's better than so many other places and they have never seen a customer or manager mistreat a worker. Many of you are bootlickers or work alongside bootlickers who will side with corporate even as you get stabbed by an unruly customer.

Oh great! So it’s okay if someone is at the window for three minutes while I chat with them?

So on my district we’re still on a COVID schedule. So no mixing shifts (morning vs afternoon) with out a two day window between shifts.

We also still can’t go to different stores to pick up hours nor borrow baristas.

So half of what they’re telling you to do wouldn’t work if your district is following similar guidelines.

they would take hours from a human being during a still very active pandemic cause of “customer connections.” when more than half the time, the customers we have to make connections with treat us like absolute and utter shit.

no matter how nice an employee is to a customer, if the wait time for that customer is extend my long bc of the EMPLOYERS inability to staff, you will 99% probably not get a 7 on that questionnaire.

While the customer is waiting for their items, you say, “So my boss requires me to try and get to to know your life while your getting your coffee so either pretend to tell me or go ahead and tell me where you live and your social while your at it”

this is how you make your employees MORE unhappy and unwilling to talk lol

Yikes... that sounds so terrible. My manager and shifts know I’m the worst at connecting with customers (thank u anxiety!) so I’m never on front, cafe bar, or in window during peak. I’m one of the fastest baristas we have, but if I’m talking I get distracted, so I’m usually on drive or cold bar. Early mornings are the only time I can comfortably be in the window and talk to guests cuz I’m also solo drive at that time.

This is screams poor management. So glad I'm leaving this company next week.

My SM gave us all the exact same information (same wording too) but she did it verbally.

Customer connection is dumb. Idk if it’s like this at all stores but at mine it’s based off of a survey that people take. People who have good experiences don’t leave surveys, they just come back and enjoy the service. People who have a one off and experience leave a negative review to fuck with us.

It’s just a flawed way to base. In my district we have the lowest score of all the stores but for me personally customers always say I made their day, and I’m an absolute joy to talk to. I just think it’s hard to quantify something like that. If you really wanna get an idea have a manger talk to customers ever now and then and ask them how they felt service is. People just don’t take surveys. I’ve had so many pleasant experiences places but I’m not gonna take a survey to say I did, I’m just gonna go back.

Idk it bothers me that customer connection is determined like that. At least at my store the manager doesn’t harp on it and like cut our hours and stuff, honestly it’s only been mentioned once in like the four months I’ve worked there. But that’s the end of my rant.

Time to quit that shithole

fuck that, call ethics.

Wow yep I should call partner resources! This isn’t okay especially since we are admist of a pandemic! Oh transfer because we’ve just entered a hostile environment territory

I thought our number 1 priority was making drinks and food like they ordered though... imagine the customers walk in and all I want to do is talk to them. 😂

However, as a ssv it’s very frustrating for me when we have all the people staffed for dto to stay planted and connecting and they just refuse because they aren’t a “people person” at that point I do tell them that’s part of the job and we all do it.. I’ve never actually sent anyone home for it usually that gets them a little more engaged.

Seriously though how hard is it to ask how they are doing or if they are enjoying the weather? They shouldn’t be at the window longer than what those two questions take to be answered.

My stores CC score is a 21 😂😪

I can’t imagine any sane person thinking this would make a positive impact on their store.

Pls give us an update, this is extremely unfair & I hope you get a change of leadership or somethin soon

What are they going to do? Fire all of you? I'd double down on that threat and see how low the cc score can really go before deucing out

Just wow. I’m appalled

Has this been shared with local media? Often Sbux stories get attention, l’ll bet if this is leaked it will too

That's how you kill a store mfrs just gonna go somewhere else

Partners won't even unite to demand safe working comditions. Wtf do you expect

Also the survey is such a misguided statistic! They only report the scores that are 7/7. So 1-6/7 count the same.
No true surveyor or statistician would EVER realistically use Starbucks' insane system.

They should have just used bright pink paper instead. What a waste of highlighter ink

Our manager doesn't ever blame us for a lack in score and always makes sure to psych us up / let us know how thankful he is for the effort and hard work and even tho we run skeleton crews after even a single call out we managed to hit #1 in our state recently with around a 71. Your manager is shit they need a discipline lesson on how to treat people better. This? Passive aggressive and childish as fuck. call one on one meetings and see where your partners need improvement you lazy salaried joke.

Is what you should say to them if all else fails

I would flip my shit

YIKES. i’m sorry your manager is a DICK. what are they doing to help improve the connection score??? reducing hours does not help create a better environment. call any number you have to, this is all sorts of fucked up.

As a customer I’m only concerned with 2 things: 1. Are you efficient and not an ass 2. Is my order correct. I’m not there to make friends.

if my manager ever did this i’d be so upset 😭

I re-read this multiple times to make sure I read that correctly.
I’d definitely call this in, it’s ridiculous.
Give up hours? That’s taking away someone’s: daycare costs, bill money, gas money and food money.
Hope the situation gets better! Keep us updated!

we never got it in writing but our SM said the same thing. the only thing no one is following it and how as SSV that cares more about the store than our SM. I try to coach but when our SM doesn’t do anything other than send groupme text that we need to do better, whats the point??? And how can you coach someone that don’t want to be coached and one of them a SSV that still is very new to SBX

Transfer to another store if you can. This is so passive aggressive and frankly bullshit.

I see you didn’t cover the DM’s name and his boss lol. I understand how you feel, my store was down on customer connection too and we got hours cut down. And it’s not because we didn’t have partners not doing their jobs or not showing up, we got hit by three cases of COVID at my store and had to change our hours around. Sometimes they want us to connect with people and have conversations with them and not every time they want to connect with us or they just want their coffee and be on the road again. Also if it’s the Adam, I’m thinking then I know how hard it’s to get to work with him.

Nope the fuck outta there

Wtf?!??

Yo just straight up have hour long convos with customers when they come in. Just do it. If you don't think a customer will wait and converse with you that long DM me your store and I'll show tf up and legit bullshit with you for hours.

This is so fucked

I am genuinely so sad and disgusted for you to have that type of management, it’s disgraceful and I hope they get a call from PCC putting them in their place.

fucking yikes. People need these jobs to pay for bills and this is how you respond? Seems like corporate needs to do some internal management review!

Id be looking to transfer. And call the ethics line.

Wow. If this is coming from your DM this is not managing correctly or efficiently. What the actual fuck? Don't listen to anything about customer connections. That's complete bullshit.

ah nah baby that ain’t gonna work :/ y’all should just walk out one day and report it to pcc

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yikes

what can the customers who aren’t gold card holders do about this?
who should we email or complain to?

i worked at a coffee shop similar to starbucks and i would hate getting bagged on for not “connecting” enough. i hate seeing you guys go through this.

41 isn’t bad though...

I love capitalism. A lot.

This is not capitalism. This is a hostile work environment, depending on where you live it may be illegal (telling people to not call out which you should if you have covid symptoms or have a disability or illness) and needs to be reported.

Also, depending on your location, a reduction in hours can be viewed as constructive dismissal.

Contact corporate.

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