It's difficult to keep the drive times down with the new tipping system. We're trusting the custies to be quick and efficient?

They wanted our times to be about 25 instead of 40, and our current record is 24sec. Then my manager is sometimes on our butt about being on the tablet asking why we took them at the box (when customers ask to see the menu) which is out of our control. Why are times so important anyway? Most drive-thru customers are either lazy or more often in a rush to get in and out

Going through this rn. Brand new manager is squeezing us for 50 second drive times, we do around 60-65k a week and last week had two days that were 11k in sales each. Also our food uph is often over 100 during peak but all she wants to hound on is 50 seconds or less at window. It’s very frustrating when everyone wants to order 3 drinks and some food for each car, and then have her breathing down our necks needed us to go faster.

We were chastised for having 45 seconds 🥹 very very high volume store that’s almost always chaos.

our goal is 50sec window times, but we also make around $10k a day on non weekend/holiday days lmao. i’m not sure what we make on weekends but if i had to guess it’d probably be around $11k, $12k if it gets busier than expected

it’s possible when we have proper staffing (on red cup day we had 35 second drive times! because we had enough people to actually run the floor for once), but seeing as they want to give us 4 people for peak it won’t be happening any time soon.

We have to have ours at 45

When I was a partner, I remember doing a lot of variations on this. It was stressful with five, but we did do four once or twice - one partner soloing DTO/DTR, one partner drive bar, one partner front bar, one partner soloing front reg + food + brew rotation. Both bar partners restocking themselves.

I remember one of those days w/4 the average window time was 50 seconds, and how terrified I was that we would get orders coming down to do that on the regular. The manager was really proud of us (and it IS a huge achievement), but damn, it's one thing to do it in a pinch with experienced people; another to demand people do it regularly, especially with current turnover.

It was so demanding and stressful for so many hours that I literally took hours to come down off of it, it was like coming down off a medication (I've not done drugs but probably similar). That this is still going on and is now expected (and not due to a callout) is disturbing.

Main we get like $10,000/day and they want us in 40 seconds all day average!!! 😭😭 3 people INCLUDING the SSV

So in my view, if solo drive or solo bar becomes a standard, drive thru times doesn’t matter. The bux makes record profits, they can afford an extra person and much more, they just refuse to pay the extra pennies to allow it.

Understanding this makes it really easy for me not to worry about whatever dt time goal/standard corporate has givin us.

If you’re manager doesn’t like your results when your solo, tell them you’re doing your best and trying to maintain customer connection. If they give you sass or threaten to write up, you can respectfully ask to shadow while they’re solo dt. If they decline, well I guess they can’t lead/train or they don’t care to and don’t deserve the amount of stress and effort you’re putting in so just go at your own comfortable pace.

If you’re an ssv all I can say is do your best. If you have a good manager, they’ll be doing their best, and you guys can tackle it together.

I’ve worked hourly at Starbucks for almost 10 consecutive years, been to many stores and have seen a lot of self preserving crappy managers. I’ve also seen a few good ones who’ve I’ve come to love and support any way I can as an hourly. My store is very high volume (last I checked we got 9k a day so I think that constitutes high volume). The standard for mid is solo drive, and business does not slow down. I suck at drive but I won’t say no, and I often solo it. I also have one of the best managers I’ve ever had in my 9+years and he doesn’t stress about it.

TLDR; If solo is the standard, no matter volume, don’t stress about time goals and focus on customer interaction. A good experience at the window will make up for the wait.

ALSO, if customers get legitimately mad, and wanna raise some news jus calmly apologize and mention Starbucks as a company won’t give us labor. If they call corporate, maybe they’ll listen but prolly not.

Bruh, my manager stopped scheduling certain shifts in the morning to hit DT times, but we have so many new people who don’t know how to do everything solo. I’m just annoyed because it’s almost impossible when people come to the window wanting to add stuff and change their drinks, Etc…. And 24 seconds??? Literally HOW??? How many people are on the floor to get that? I literally am given only like 6 people on a good day.

Low Drive times are essentially one of the biggest ways to earn labor for the store. This is probably your managers way of pushing slightly better drive times to increase labor. It’s not their only motivation though. Drives times are basically a way for managers to earn bragging rights and bonuses. If you want lower drives times it’s a team effort that requires organization and slight over staffing. You can also earn labor for your store in other ways, like staying on top of inventory I.e. making sure things are rung out properly, counts and pulls are done properly and in a timely manner. There’s a lot of things to account for but it’s gotta be a team effort

Coming from a drivethru store where customer connections is regarder more than drive thru times, I do not understand this.

How does the system calculate all this. It can't possibly be from when the customer pulls up to the box- when they've gotten they're drink and pull away from the window? Is there a sensor that tracks how long the car is at the window or does it go by how long until the payment is taken?

Amd is it an average? When I mobile order it prob takes 30 sec bc the drink is ready ! How are baristas expected to make a drink and take payment and put it out that fast ?

Just very curious how they measure this metric and what technologies are involved

Are you talking about for peak or all day?

Corporate is never going to say that the time is good. Once you get 50, it’ll be 45. All they care about is money.

Do the best job you can do and ignore management. They won’t fire you, they can’t afford to. We’re the part of the business that makes the money.

Hearing someone say they average 6000$ a day is like… oh you sweet child…

My store averages like 12k a day and yes its horrible

How can they say that directly after cutting hours nationwide

our store was pretty high volume, but i’m very lucky to have had such a good SM who always staffed us properly to keep our times down during peak. we’d usually end up at about 45-55 seconds but i set the store record with a 24 second, never been more proud of myself!

My manager left a note in the back this week about how we need to work on drive times but also need to “take time to stop and connect with every customer and learn something new about every customer each day they come by” like ok lmao

Lowest we ever got was 29 seconds for drive

Let order point times run a little higher and keep your strongest ssv on orders. 👍🏻 I was able to get 40 second window time average during peak with a two car stack regularly by asking more follow up questions to get the order correct the first time. I would check the orders and had designated spaces for each car in the stack. As the cars drive off the orders slide down. 🙌🏻 keeping someone planted at window is so important, the shift supervisor can do the sliding and grabbing things for window. I hope this helps!

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