This is one of the things I can’t stand about Starbucks. “Customer connection” is bullshit and should be trashed entirely. But aside from my ranting the customer connection score is measured by a randomly sent out survey to loyalty members. If a rewards member makes a purchase at a store they have a chance of getting a survey asking if someone at the store tried to get to know them. Then the customer has an option from 1 to 7, 1 being the lowest score. If the customer selects any any number but 7 the scores goes down. As far as I know the score goes down by the same amount wether the person selects 1 or 6.

Customer Connection scores are calculated by surveys that are sent out to customers who use the Starbucks app to make a purchase. They ask a variety of questions ranging from cleanliness to food/beverage taste and ask them to rank us on them 1-7, 7 being the best. The only question of this survey that actually affects the CC score is “Did my barista make an effort to get to know me?”.
The benefit of connecting with customers and lower OTW times is that, if you’re doing it to actually get to know the customers rather than to just hit the metric, is that it makes your shifts better. A good shift isn’t going to have tons of angry customers and high drive thru times.