If it’s only mobile orders, then the connections are incredibly biased. Especially if that’s a recent implementation. Cafe customers are usually pretty chill and easy to talk to and I’ve never had too many bad experiences with cafe people, it’s always mobile people who throw fits over their drink not being out in 2 minutes (*cough* the grown man who had an adult tantrum during a rush on Sunday over a crossaint *cough* )

Makes sense. I always just felt that the stats/ratings were just….off. Never really as related to our own ability to form connections but typically lots of third party conditions affecting our scores. Like increased wait times (for our case: due to school in session, etc), not having a popular product (we’ve literally been out of chai and that has a hold on customers), a few bad apples who want to leave e a bad review vs the many customers who have great experiences but don’t leave reviews, etc….
I get customer connections are important but the blame always seems to be on the employees if scores drop but I’ve noticed no change in how well my coworkers do them. Just a change in seasons.

I used to hate when people would compare Sbux to fast food but after being at a DT location…it is so fast food lol. It just is, and a major component of that is the company constantly pushing us to move faster with less labor. Adding mobile ordering and DT locations, as well as constantly understaffing, pushed away any idea of the cafe atmosphere :/

Customer connections are total bs, idk when this company will realize they can’t have it all while overworking, understaffing, and underpaying their employees. The dumb question of “did the barista get to know you” and the use of customer names is beyond weird. I’ve found beyond a nice greeting and “thank you”, customers don’t generally want a full on convo with us and personally I think me trying to get to know them comes off weird af. They just want their drink and food. It’s even worse forcing that at the window, I’m trying to chat it up while they wait for their 4 frappucinos and they clearly aren’t interested and I’m standing there feeling like a clown as I try to act like this job isn’t taking everything out of me

Also, by being insanely understaffed to the point that barely anything gets done, who is supposed to connect to the customer in those moments? Guess that explains why the scores at my store are the lowest I’ve ever seen lol, we’re all fed up and overworked

Hoping the third place going away, and Howard coming back makes them reevaluate that whole process for you guys. As a manager, that was the single most infuriating thing about my job. Not only is it set up where most stores fail, it's such a lagging indicator; by the time you get the information, it’s too old to be actionable.