I'm a Kate who had a holiday sweater today so I'm just gonna take that compliment if u don't mind

These are GREAT ideas. Wish Starbucks would poll their customer base for things…

So I actually really appreciate your feedback about this because I've often wondered how the customers feel about us having cut labor and because of that having to literally force conversation on you guys when you come in. As sad as it is to say I'm actually happy to see that it's not just us that think it's awkward and forced. Thank you.

that’s even WORSE good lord the customer connection score is such garbage

Fair enough 😅

Soooo.... I think you have it backwards, I'm not complaining, my point was that the Starbucks barista, in a busy city centre branch, *didn't* view me as an annoyance, or at least they made me feel like I was valued even if I wasn't to them, and that this meant something to me after getting shitty service for ages at an independent. An independent that wasn't nearly as busy as Starbucks, one where they had it seemed like more staff than customers most of the time, where they were arbitrary in deciding whether to honour deals or not, where they didn't even attempt to hide that I was an annoyance to them. I didn't go into the details of just how bad the service in the independent was, but my bar is very low, I will always assume that the employee has a sucky working life and make allowances, I just expect the smallest amount of courtesy, and that absolutely isn't unreasonable of me. It was godawful service, I didn't imagine it, it happened.

Bad service without a good reason absolutely exists, it *is* a thing, there is not 'always a reason' someone is rude to you and we shouldn't have to accept it just because the person might be overworked. Citation? I spent 15+ years in various retail jobs myself, I've worked with people who were overworked and undervalued and still went out of their way to at least attempt to show like the customer was important to them in the worst conditions, absolute legends of human beings. And I've also worked with people who weren't in the least bit overworked and were rude to customers all the time, because they were just rude people, who made customers wait for no reason at all, came in still under the influence of alcohol/drugs, who regularly stole, who didn't pull their weight and made their whole team suffer, who shouldn't have been employed in the first place.

I'm not an asshole, I'm not gonna flip out if someone is abrupt with me because they've had a bad week, I'll always assume their job sucks and so be super polite to them regardless, but I'm not gonna have staff be outright rude to me and say 'oh well! I bet they have their reasons!' and still use them, I'm gonna go somewhere else, we can do this as consumers, we have choice. And if I get unexpectedly great service, like I did at the Starbucks in my original comment, I want to be able to feed it back, and my point was that I was frustrated that I couldn't. I'm in the UK which isn't a tipping culture so I don't always get to express my satisfaction or dissatisfaction through tips.

Human interaction is important to some people, it's important to me, I value it, and I don't apologise for expecting a basic level of decency wherever I go. Customers are very often assholes, yes, but sometimes staff can be too, people are people and just as you shouldn't have to accept a rude customer, of course you shouldn't, I shouldn't have to just accept a rude server anywhere, or just anyone rude to me in my daily life in general.

>So, this is an arbitrary distinction I know, but certain things that are part of customer service I would consider to be part of the product. There’s just stuff like how long you wait, how much you pay and how clean everything is that I think does tangibly interact with the product.

I think you've just hit the nail on the head. 👍 If I'm buying a TV, the service is a lesser component, it comes and goes but the quality of the TV is of lasting importance. But I've drunk my coffee in ten minutes, and so the service, the wait time, takes on a greater value relatively speaking.

Also, it's a daily ritual, so it's important to find a regular place where you can just take comfort in consistent, friendly, speedy service and concentrate on your actual day ahead, rather than get derailed wondering what might be unpleasant about your visit. I honestly didn't expect to find that at Starbucks over an independent and was just a little sad that it was made impossible to pay it back in some small way.

Thank you! I think I'll pop in in the new year and speak directly to the store manager, it doesn't seem fair on the barista me just leaving it because of roadblocks at corporate.