OPU far from guest services

Joined
Sep 30, 2022
Messages
551
My store had its OPU moved to a new location pretty far from guest services. How do you communicate an order is ready to be picked up by someone? Right now we are using walk-in channels 1-4 to talk but it’s getting annoying for others to hear that all day.
 
OPU exclusively on 4. We give the last name and they process the order and bring it to the service desk. It works sometimes and sometimes they are swamped with drive-ups so the service desk is left with no advocate while they go get the order. Having been in that position several times, I will say that it makes me uncomfortable to leave the service desk unattended and even more uncomfortable to come back to the glares of the now 3-4 people long line.
 
OPU exclusively on 4. We give the last name and they process the order and bring it to the service desk. It works sometimes and sometimes they are swamped with drive-ups so the service desk is left with no advocate while they go get the order. Having been in that position several times, I will say that it makes me uncomfortable to leave the service desk unattended and even more uncomfortable to come back to the glares of the now 3-4 people long line.
They should just have a “service desk” at that new OPU area so guests can pick up their order there, then the official service desk at the front can just be returns and other things.
 
Excuse me for not knowing but does it not differentiate when putting the order in to hold if it is an OPU or a Drive up? I have seen the remodel stores still have the hold space up front and assumed that OPU went there and the Drive ups went back to the new expanded off stage drive up space.

I know that when my store goes through remodel our drive up space will literally be on the complete opposite side of the building and this could be a big hassle for the team.

Also another thought is what happens to guests who want to place a Starbucks drive up, the drive up team members have to walk all the way to Starbucks and back to the drive up space . That seems ridiculous.
 
Excuse me for not knowing but does it not differentiate when putting the order in to hold if it is an OPU or a Drive up? I have seen the remodel stores still have the hold space up front and assumed that OPU went there and the Drive ups went back to the new expanded off stage drive up space.

I know that when my store goes through remodel our drive up space will literally be on the complete opposite side of the building and this could be a big hassle for the team.

Also another thought is what happens to guests who want to place a Starbucks drive up, the drive up team members have to walk all the way to Starbucks and back to the drive up space . That seems ridiculous.
It does, but retrieval of the order is the same app.
 
It should have a symbol when bagging with a car trunk for drive up and just a bag for pick up. I only have one area so I don't really look.
 
Excuse me for not knowing but does it not differentiate when putting the order in to hold if it is an OPU or a Drive up? I have seen the remodel stores still have the hold space up front and assumed that OPU went there and the Drive ups went back to the new expanded off stage drive up space.

I know that when my store goes through remodel our drive up space will literally be on the complete opposite side of the building and this could be a big hassle for the team.

Also another thought is what happens to guests who want to place a Starbucks drive up, the drive up team members have to walk all the way to Starbucks and back to the drive up space . That seems ridiculous.
No way to differentiate between opu and drive up. At my store all orders are stowed in the place. With our remodel we got a huge space behind guest services. You might get that with your remodel. Cooler and freezer is a little down from the other storage space.
 
It should have a symbol when bagging with a car trunk for drive up and just a bag for pick up. I only have one area so I don't really look.
This is what ours has ^^^. We look at the symbol though to keep the OPU at the closest door to GS and the DU orders are closest to the door they walk them out of. Sometimes it works out, sometimes people muck it up... but we try lol

A friend I went to college with (forever ago lol) is a new SD in a Target that is finishing up a remodel and they make their people stow OPU behind GS and drive up in the new space. He said the store POT has gone right down the toilet and it used to be a really high performing store. Top notch team like fulfillment basically ran itself. STG if mine starts pulling that shit I will lose my mind. Most of our OPU has the cooler/freezer stuff attached to it so they have to come to the drive up area anyway. Doesn't make any sense to put the fulfillment people out when someone from drive up or GS is going to have to run it regardless. These days they have more people working drive up than they do OPU anyway.
 
It should have a symbol when bagging with a car trunk for drive up and just a bag for pick up. I only have one area so I don't really look.
I stow a lot of orders for flex and I’ve never noticed this. At my store it doesn’t really matter a lot of guests switch pick up to drive up and drive up to pickup.
 
It does, but retrieval of the order is the same app.
GS should have devices to retrieve pickup orders from light duty behind GS while there should be a separate DU team handling DU orders in the new hold area. Only times they should have to communicate is when it’s a pfresh order since walk-in coolers and freezers would be at the new hold area or when a guest changes their pickup method.

It works just fine like that at my old store that just remodeled. There should be more than just one person at GS during peak times so that long lines aren’t an issue, allowing you to walk backstage to grab orders.
 
Last edited:
They need to change the symbols in Put to Hold so that DU and PU don't look so similar at a glance imo. It's too easy for my brain to miss. Like one symbol should be a car, and the other should be a P, or something.
 
I asked a few people at my store and they said that the new OPU area is going to be Drive Up ONLY while the area behind guest services is going to be OPU only.
Now if corporate will prevent users from switching to drive up after a certain time.
 
Excuse me for not knowing but does it not differentiate when putting the order in to hold if it is an OPU or a Drive up? I have seen the remodel stores still have the hold space up front and assumed that OPU went there and the Drive ups went back to the new expanded off stage drive up space.

I know that when my store goes through remodel our drive up space will literally be on the complete opposite side of the building and this could be a big hassle for the team.

Also another thought is what happens to guests who want to place a Starbucks drive up, the drive up team members have to walk all the way to Starbucks and back to the drive up space . That seems ridiculous.
Also when guests can change their minds after stowing and at pickup it dosent matter. Only thing that matters cold stuff in fridge and frozen in the freezer. It’s absolutely rediculous!
 
I asked a few people at my store and they said that the new OPU area is going to be Drive Up ONLY while the area behind guest services is going to be OPU only.
Now if corporate will prevent users from switching to drive up after a certain time.
When my store remodeled we got one storage area behind guest services for drive up and OPU. I guess all stores are not the same.
 
When my store remodeled we got one storage area behind guest services for drive up and OPU. I guess all stores are not the same.
A big issue was COVID. A lot of full store remodels had already been planned out prior to 2020. These all included expanded hold spaces for OPUs and Drive Ups behind guest service - but nobody could have predicted the sudden surge in online orders when lockdown happened. Suddenly even those massive, newly-expanded hold spaces were too small - and even stores that had JUST remodeled not even 2 years prior needed to go through another one to expand their hold space for the drive-up teams.
 
A big issue was COVID. A lot of full store remodels had already been planned out prior to 2020. These all included expanded hold spaces for OPUs and Drive Ups behind guest service - but nobody could have predicted the sudden surge in online orders when lockdown happened. Suddenly even those massive, newly-expanded hold spaces were too small - and even stores that had JUST remodeled not even 2 years prior needed to go through another one to expand their hold space for the drive-up teams.
My remodel was about a year ago. Our storage area/closet is pretty big.
 
Back
Top