Starbucks
Reviews and Complaints

Saturday, january 9, 2016- my daughter and I entered a very busy store (sycamore commons, matthews, nc). We anticipated a modest wait for our coffees but we were not prepared for the lack of communication and lackluster approach to resolving my inquiry for a lost cup of tea. My reciept shows our orders were placed at 3:34pm. At 3:48pm, I asked about the "the nameless chai tea" since the birista did not ask my name. The birista (with a smuged name tag) said it will be ready. I asked him to call out the tea without a name becuase the store was so crowded and loud. He sarcastically replied, "I will not... But when the tea is ready I will call it to the bar". Onlookers were silent, but their eyes and non-verbal response to his reaction spoke loudly.in my opinion, that was a missed opportunity to creatively ask my name and assign it a cup. We then waited another 7-8 minutes. I re-visited the register to learn the status of the tea. The birista mumbled words to his colleagues and continued working and engaging with his colleagues. Shortly after, the birista created the tea and yelled, "hey, where's that lady?" I quielty gathered the tea and exited the store at exactly 4pm. As a longtime customer of the brand, im really shocked by the experience shared. I drink coffee daily — local and along the eastwrn seaboard. My work involves a high level of travel and I enjoy connecting with folks wherever life takea me. I think it hurt more to recieve this level of customer service right here in my own neighborhood. I do understand that busy time periods can add an extra layer of stress on employees, but there was clearly missed opportunities and poor signs of customer engagement shown. I reached out the manager and she e-mailed me back, "i'm so very sorry" — without noting how she planned to make things better or reassuring me that it will never happen again. Building relationships over coffee makes starbucks unique. They missed the mark.

I am writing this review here as a warning to future customers walking into a starbucks store managed by chris ali (previously at store# 4350: 20 william kitchen rd, scarborough, on, m1p 5b7) to be cautious of him and his employees (e.G. Starbucks shift supervisor, april) based on the following incidents: 1. Starbucks should not allow their managers to make careless comments that can easily be misconstrued by customers. Perhaps it is starbucks' culture to be 'laid-back' but it should never be acceptable for a male manager to say "wow!" to a female customer upon first impression (particularly since nothing warrants this type of attention just for walking into a coffee shop in everyday wear). If female customers walking into starbucks like this type of attention from him, he should be reserving this type of ‘special treatment’ for them and only them. Otherwise, it is not a compliment and it is not customer service. Under any other circumstances in any other company that provides customer service, this type of incident would not be tolerated towards customers (female or otherwise) at all. 2. A starbucks store has a manager in place to manage a store and part of that includes listening to customers’ feedback regarding their experiences. While most managers understand the nature of their job entails interacting with customers, this starbucks manager has not only refused to acknowledge a customer when he/she has a legitimate complaint, he has also deliberately disrespected the customer’s wishes to not be subjected to further harassment from the entire staff (including the manager himself) and they have also continued the same harassing technique and taken it even further upon themselves to personally retaliate against the customer for not wanting anything more to do with this.in this case, a manager at this store who refuses to handle customer service situations is not needed – please remember to take down his name and the name(s) of his employee(s) involved in the incidents and report to the district manager/corporate headquarters immediately. 3. Starbucks should not be offering food samples if they cannot stand the thought of customers eating a small piece of food for free. This manager thought I was eating his food for free despite being passed to everyone else in the store – the reason being because I mentioned it in a feedback letter to compliment him. Instead, he took the same feedback letter and eagerly ran off to show his own manager for praise and then turned around and accused me of eating his food for free. 4.in the event of not knowing how to provide customer service, disrupting customers’ routines is not the answer. Instead of leaving customers alone and managing the store, this manager would intentionally go out of his way to purposely antagonize customers by pulling pranks to incite a reaction (and then laughing uproariously afterwards) and making customers do things for him, thereby deliberating making them angry. He would even teach these tactics to his employees and then pat himself on the back for successfully angering/harassing a customer. Customers are not there for you to prank around – we want nothing to do with the starbucks games. If starbucks managers feel there isn’t enough to do on a daily basis, they need to ask their own manager on what else can be done. 5. Managers should not force customers to write feedback letters for their own promotional use to look good in front of his/her company. Customers should reserve the right to provide positive feedback on their own (starbucks’ famous ‘word-of-advertising’ method), but not at the manager's request for one in order to make him/herself look good before his own company. Sending the same employee to continually harass me (e.G. The service level will decrease until you do this for us) until I was forced to falsify a positive feedback letter for the employee should not be tolerated by the company. By doing this, starbucks has lost credibility under this manager’s doing because all ‘positive’ things said about the company are generated falsely. 6. Managers/baristas who engage in ‘establishing rapport’ have a responsibility on their part. Customers who walk into starbucks are not looking for assistance nor are they looking to gain anything from starbucks – they are simply there to make a purchase and mind their own business. However, when managers/baristas are looking to establish a rapport and interact with customers, it is important to keep in mind that this rapport means you do not prank the customer around over and over again. This manager has not only allowed his employee(s) to conduct ‘customer service’ in any manner possible, but has also made it acceptable for even the shift supervisor in charge to also conduct her own ‘pranks’ and to follow customers outside of the store. 7. Managers/baristas should not trespass the boundary into their customers' personal lives. Not only is this a severe breach of privacy and respect on the company’s part, it is also completely unwarranted and has nothing to do with providing customer service. A coffee shop is a place to relax and enjoy your own affairs and interaction with other patrons, not to have a manager/barista continually steal information from you or pry into customers' private, personal details when customers do not wish to disclose them. It should not be a requirement for starbucks employees to be involved in customers’ personal lives at all. 8. If starbucks employees are unsure on how to do their jobs, they need to be re-trained. For some reason, despite starbucks providing training for their baristas, they still manage to be incompetent at their jobs and this manager has not even bothered ensuring that baristas are following starbucks’ regulations. As a result, it has become the customer’s responsibility to deal with each and every starbucks barista and the shift supervisor for not knowing how to provide customer service. If starbucks employees (including managers) feel they are overworked or unhappy or do not want to provide a service anymore, they should take this up directly with their own manager and not out on the customer. 9. Managers should be wary of using the 'making a connection' as a sales tactic. This manager did not want customers engaging in ‘hellos’ and small talk with him yet he would force customers to accept the outrageous customer service tactics bestowed upon customers, such as touching, inappropriate comments, unnecessarily 'helping out' and then having the same starbucks employee glare at the customer when he/she approaches the same employee, small talk that goes nowhere, insincere hellos, prying into customers' personal details, and so forth. The whole scheme was very manipulative and insincere. Their idea of a 'customer connection' was to pretend to like the customer first before hitting him/her with a sales tactic and then giving the cold, degrading treatment for not complying with them from then on. When a manager’s intention of ‘making a connection’ is only focused on sales instead of customer service, he/she should not be surprised when customer service standards immensely fail with the result of a customer filing a complaint to starbucks’ corporate headquarters in the end.

I am writing this review here as a warning to future customers walking into a starbucks store managed by chris a. (previously at store# 4350: 20 william kitchen rd, scarborough, on, m1p 5b7) to be cautious of him and his employees (e.G. Starbucks shift supervisor, april) based on the following incidents: 1. Starbucks should not allow their managers to make careless comments that can easily be misconstrued by customers. Perhaps it is starbucks' culture to be 'laid-back' but it should never be acceptable for a male manager to say "wow!" to a female customer upon first impression (particularly since nothing warrants this type of attention just for walking into a coffee shop in everyday wear). If female customers walking into starbucks like this type of attention from him, he should be reserving this type of ‘special treatment’ for them and only them. Otherwise, it is not a compliment and it is not customer service. Under any other circumstances in any other company that provides customer service, this type of incident would not be tolerated towards customers (female or otherwise) at all. 2. A starbucks store has a manager in place to manage a store and part of that includes listening to customers’ feedback regarding their experiences. While most managers understand the nature of their job entails interacting with customers, this starbucks manager has not only refused to acknowledge a customer when he/she has a legitimate complaint, he has also deliberately disrespected the customer’s wishes to not be subjected to further harassment from the entire staff (including the manager himself) and they have also continued the same harassing technique and taken it even further upon themselves to personally retaliate against the customer for not wanting anything more to do with this.in this case, a manager at this store who refuses to handle customer service situations is not needed – please remember to take down his name and the name(s) of his employee(s) involved in the incidents and report to the district manager/corporate headquarters immediately. 3. Starbucks should not be offering food samples if they cannot stand the thought of customers eating a small piece of food for free. This manager thought I was eating his food for free despite being passed to everyone else in the store – the reason being because I mentioned it in a feedback letter to compliment him. Instead, he took the same feedback letter and eagerly ran off to show his own manager for praise and then turned around and accused me of eating his food for free. 4.in the event of not knowing how to provide customer service, disrupting customers’ routines is not the answer. Instead of leaving customers alone and managing the store, this manager would intentionally go out of his way to purposely antagonize customers by pulling pranks to incite a reaction (and then laughing uproariously afterwards) and making customers do things for him, thereby deliberating making them angry. He would even teach these tactics to his employees and then pat himself on the back for successfully angering/harassing a customer. Customers are not there for you to prank – we want nothing to do with the starbucks games. If starbucks managers feel there isn’t enough to do on a daily basis, they need to ask their own manager on what else can be done. 5. Managers should not force customers to write feedback letters for their own promotional use to look good in front of his/her company. Customers should reserve the right to provide positive feedback on their own (starbucks’ famous ‘word-of-advertising’ method), but not at the manager's request for one in order to make him/herself look good before his own company. Sending the same employee to continually harass me (e.G. The service level will decrease until you do this for us) until I was forced to falsify a positive feedback letter for the employee should not be tolerated by the company. By doing this, starbucks has lost credibility under this manager’s doing because all ‘positive’ things said about the company are generated falsely. 6. Managers/baristas who engage in ‘establishing rapport’ have a responsibility on their part. Customers who walk into starbucks are not looking for assistance nor are they looking to gain anything from starbucks – they are simply there to make a purchase and mind their own business. However, when managers/baristas are looking to establish a rapport and interact with customers, it is important to keep in mind that this rapport means you do not prank the customer over and over again. This manager has not only allowed his employee(s) to conduct ‘customer service’ in any manner possible, but has also made it acceptable for even the shift supervisor in charge to also conduct her own ‘pranks’ and to follow customers outside of the store. 7. Managers/baristas should not trespass the boundary into their customers' personal lives. Not only is this a severe breach of privacy and respect on the company’s part, it is also completely unwarranted and has nothing to do with providing customer service. A coffee shop is a place to relax and enjoy your own affairs and interaction with other patrons, not to have a manager/barista continually steal information from you or pry into customers' private, personal details when customers do not wish to disclose them. It should not be a requirement for starbucks employees to be involved in customers’ personal lives at all. 8. If starbucks employees are unsure on how to do their jobs, they need to be re-trained. For some reason, despite starbucks providing training for their baristas, they still manage to be incompetent at their jobs and this manager has not even bothered ensuring that baristas are following starbucks’ regulations. As a result, it has become the customer’s responsibility to deal with each and every starbucks barista and the shift supervisor for not knowing how to provide customer service. If starbucks employees (including managers) feel they are overworked or unhappy or do not want to provide a service anymore, they should take this up directly with their own manager and not out on the customer. 9. Managers should be wary of using the 'making a connection' as a sales tactic. This manager did not want customers engaging in ‘hellos’ and small talk with him yet he would force customers to accept the outrageous customer service tactics bestowed upon customers, such as touching, inappropriate comments, unnecessarily 'helping out' and then having the same starbucks employee glare at the customer when he/she approaches the same employee, small talk that goes nowhere, insincere hellos, prying into customers' personal details, and so forth. The whole scheme was very manipulative and insincere. Their idea of a 'customer connection' was to pretend to like the customer first before hitting him/her with a sales tactic and then giving the cold, degrading treatment for not complying with them from then on. When a manager’s intention of ‘making a connection’ is only focused on sales instead of customer service, he/she should not be surprised when customer service standards immensely fail with the result of a customer filing a complaint to starbucks’ corporate headquarters in the end.

On january 3 2016 we went to get two coffees at the store inside target west in wichita ks first the lady that took our order was not to friendly we asked if we could get our card stamped and she said that they didn't have a punch or sticker which is okay but then the order was not right at all. I got ice coffee instead if the hot so her I am. It really isn't that big of deal but I do spend a lot of money there and that store was not good at all so I will not ever go back to that store to buy any coffee which is sad because I enjoy your coffee.

Last year my husband bought me a coffee travel mug that came with free refills for a month. The first issue with this mug, that he spent around $20.00 on, was the fact that he bought it thinking you could have a refill on your drink of choice. No where on the label was there anything that stated that it would be for coffee only. He would have never bought it had this been indicated in the labeling as I don't drink regular coffee. I did some research and found via the web that I was not the only one who had this issue. My new issue is that this mug has cracked from the top where the lid goes straight to the middle. Again, via the web, I have found that there is no product warranty. What a disappointment this coffee tumbler has been. I have got to use if for 11 months and to start couldn't even fill it with a drink I like. Very disappointing.

Starbucks brags about your free birthday coffee, but they do a lot to make sure you do not get it. No notice is sent to you and the free coffee is available only for two days. By the time you remember you get a free coffee, it is expired! They send you notices on everything else, but not this. You expect better treatment after paying their extremely high prices all year and maintaining their "gold" status.

My wife and I visit the hwy 278 standalone store in hiram, ga, twice a day. Over the past month or so, our experiences in the store have greatly deteriorated, from the service we receive to the taste of the coffee. Several months back, my wife and I can remember enjoying my fresh hot venti coffee coffee, in the morning and in the evening. Now, the coffee either tastes like burnt milk, or, bitter, stale dishwater. I asked the barista one day how often the change the coffee grounds and how often they clean the machine. She told me they use the same grounds up to 5 times before changing them, and, that they only clean the machine when the health inspector is due. I replied, 'nasty', and, she said 'yep, our new manager doesn't care!' the other problem is, aside from this one employee, the others never speak or make eye contact. When other employees are working the drive thru window or the registers inside, they never greet politely, and, they roll their eyes if you order more than one things. To put it bluntly, they are all rude! I have since started going to dunkin donuts instead of starbucks over this. I calculated that on average, I was spending $300 a month at this store. Not anymore! And, I have reported what I was told about the coffee machine never being cleaned to the health inspector's office.

Hello I am a 17 year old senior in high school, living with my single mom and 9 yrs.. Old sister. I told my grandmother how much I would love to be a member of the starbucks team. So I went online put and filled out the application. Checked in at the 71st st. Store to let them know that I had applied. No one seemed to very interested in talking to me. I went back online and updated my application last week and took my resume into the store in hopes to feel hopeful after talking to someone in charge. But not, the manager was so short and rude, she cut off when I was trying to ask her a question. All she said to me is, "i'm not hiring,"? Then turned and walked away. I'm 17, is this the kind response I have look forward to entering the job market.

Starbucks located in phoenix off 7th street east. Downtown

Always something going on there, croissant had molded bread and something very nasty on this other piece I took picture of. The drink always has more whip cream in it then actual frappa

Not the first time in the past month something was wrong, and to think I ate the first bite and then realized it was nasty once I put my glasses on.

Lashawn jordan
[protected]@aol.com
[protected]

I ordered caramel frappuccino from the starbucks inside the store and found a very long hair hanging inside the cup. The staff never apologize and told us this is not his and he blamed us. We the manger he was extremely rude and racism and came ask us to leave the store or he will call the staff to take us out of the store by force.

"bolo head" is slang in hawaii for bald. Often used in a derogatory manner.
An employee at the kahala mall hawaii starbucks wrote this on my cup to describe me instead of my name. Pretty unprofessional!
I saved the cup and snapped a photo of it.

At our local shopping mall, here in st. Pete, fl, we have a starbucks. Well, I feel that it's incredibly rude of them to deny their customers access to their restroom. My friend, who I was sitting down with, and drinking their coffee, had to go out into the mall to search for a restroom, while six feet away from us was the starbucks restroom, which had a sign on it, saying "staff only". I've complained to their company about their rude and inconsiderate behavior, but it did absolutely no good.

I went to the starbucks store at cyber 2 building for 2 cups of coffee. Got a long queue there and the baristas were not speed up even though the line has already long. What make me really felt bad is somebody who's behind me got the order first. And after half an hour one of the senior guy named leo came and help (after half an hour? Please!). Well hello! You should be there earlier. I saw some people also complain about this poor service. What a bad day I had today!

I am writing to complain about the poor and bad service which I received at your store starbucks 2 located cairo festival mall. I used to go to your store every weekend with my daughter who loves all products. Last friday, I asked for a fully fresh drink without any additional because I have a stomachache and they advice me to have a lemon juice with a fresh mint. When I was waiting for order, I found that they used lemon from metro market and soda with a very bad tasted and when I talked to one of the staff he talked to me using unaccepted way of dealing and when other tried to apologize he replied impolitely and all these attitudes I do not expected from starbucks. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

I have been to three different starbucks from la mesa, ca, rancho bernardo, ca, and huntington beach, ca and I have tried to order the caramel crunch frappuccino. And every single starbucks has been out of the crunch topping. The barista today said that it is being fazed out because it is a summer drink, it needs to be taken off of the ordering list if they cannot correctly make it. It is also just the beginning of summer, how can it already be "fazing out". I am a loyal starbucks customer and am quite irritated and disappointed with your company!

-amy

I spent a few days at the westin in snowmass village, co where a starbucks is located on the premises. At the end of my stay, I realized that there was a discrepancy between the prices showed on the menu boards and the prices actually charged at the register.
When I realized that, the personal tried to credit me for the overcharged transaction, credit that I still don't see on my credit card report. They had to charge me another item to prevent overcharging me as, obviously, all the prices entered in the cash register were higher than the displayed ones.