Menu
Login
I visited costa coffee at watersones 20.08.2012 at 11.21 am and was served by "jodie" service excellent, as i'm disabled there was no problem in table service! When I was about to give this young woman a "tip" I noticed that all the tips went to some "charity". I was very upset at not being able to show my appreciation to this young lady and also the rest of the staff..
Surely its the customer who decides were the money goes and not head office. As you are a large company maybe you should take on the resposibilty of making sure the schools were built and let your customers carry on the the usual way of saying thank you for good service.
Yours elizabeth martin.
Store reference no.[protected]
The complaint has been investigated and resolved to the customer’s satisfaction.
my daughter worked in the tring branch of costa; when I asked her how much she got in tips she said she doesn't get any; I asked her to find out what happens to the tips and discovered that they go into a "transport fund for the christmas staff party" ; the waiting staff seem to have no say in this and I think it's diabolical-some staff are casual and if return to uni or whatever will miss out entirely.
You need not worry as i'm fully aware that not all the money raised in these stores goes to the COSTA FOUNDATION, as the staff do use the money for bus fare, food ect, this money even gets used to buy supplies used to do the charity instore such as fancy dress, crayons as well as tools for the competition, some stores are lucky to raise £100 for this charity, so feel free to relax in the knowledge that should you be faced with this dilemma in future you need not worry at all. I myself many years ago manged to raise a whopping £500 in 2days for this charity and the customers were winners to as they all got gifts courtesy of other companies in the area, the prizes cost me nothing and the money raised was 100% unlike most stores, as many staff had there hands in the charity collection, to prevent this in my store I controlled the whole raising event as the same was happening in the very store I worked in, to prevent this I took control and managed to raise a large amount in the 2 days and bank the money immediately, the cause is a good one as they are trying to give an education to a lot of young children in Africa as education over there is not as it is here and the conditions are very poor, should you feel you can always give the money direct to the individual when they come to the table but be discreet.
I appreciate your concern as I used to work in Costa. Tips are for staff's great service. It does not feel fair to take this gratitude away. Donating to charities should be voluntary, and not mandatory at the expence of minimum wage employees.