Starbucks Team Leaders

Several regulars in a group order coffee then sweeten it by taking the top off the sugar shaker & pouring.
Sister store I subbed at had a lady who orders a green tea frapp without the syrups & extra matcha; basically ice, milk & matcha.
Don't forget the 'upside-down' frapps with the whip in the bottom.
 
Xanatos said:
We had a regular who would get a venti 14-pump extra hot (no water, obviously... no room for that) chai and then complained that it wasn't hot enough because the chai we put in was room temperature. So one of my baristas started putting the chai into the steaming pitcher and then topping it off with milk and steaming it to like 180*. He loved it and got that drink almost daily for at least a year. We all knew him as "chai guy". Nice guy, as long as you got his drink right.

But I'm sure we all have stories like that. The worst one I ever heard was on r/starbucks. A guest wanted a "breath of splenda". She would get her tea unsweetened. Adding splenda was apparently way too much for her, so she told the baristas to literally just open up the package of splenda above the tea shaker, but not put any in. Somehow, that was the right amount. I just want to meet her and ask her 1) how she got it to that point and 2) if she is similarly insane with the rest of her life, or if it's just with Starbucks.
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That is the most obnoxious request I have EVER heard. A breath of Splenda? Bye.
 
Had a visit from my DM today. He's the type who always has to find something wrong. Well, it really pissed me off today. I had that place shining like new, pastry case full and beautiful, brand new aprons and small wares, the whole thing. I had my best baristas scheduled. Despite our amazing sales growth (we actually moved up a volume grouping) he had to find something to ding us on...he said the windows needed to be wiped down because he could see fingerprints on them. Sure, I'll get right on that.
 
@Xanatos thats a good point and a good perspective to have. I guess it's good that he's pointing out really small things because it means we're doing to big things right.
 
pianoman said:
@Xanatos thats a good point and a good perspective to have. I guess it's good that he's pointing out really small things because it means we're doing to big things right.
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Absolutely. If he's getting to the point where he's looking at the smudges on the windows, that means your store is nearly perfect. If he's talking about bigger things (sales, negative guest interactions, missing drink ingredients, etc), then you might have a problem.

For me, I look at it as him trying to help my store improve. We should be operating as similarly to a company operated store as possible. There are going to be some differences that you can't get rid of, but we want to follow those standards. And we want to execute them flawlessly. It'll never actually be flawless, but my DM will let me know what I should do to get better.
 
pianoman said:
Had a visit from my DM today. He's the type who always has to find something wrong. Well, it really pissed me off today. I had that place shining like new, pastry case full and beautiful, brand new aprons and small wares, the whole thing. I had my best baristas scheduled. Despite our amazing sales growth (we actually moved up a volume grouping) he had to find something to ding us on...he said the windows needed to be wiped down because he could see fingerprints on them. Sure, I'll get right on that.
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My DM is the same way but like Xanatos said, he's noticing those little things and as annoying and obnoxious as it is, you're not being put in compliance so think of that comment as a compliment so to speak. I'd rather hear a "Look at the trash can, it's dirty." Verse a "Why are you out of vanilla syrup?" any day lol
 
Several of our on-going problems are related to an overdue remodel but, when we press our DM for help, he just slaps our store with a non-compliance & our leadership accuses us of throwing them under the bus.
He's done this so many times our leaders don't even blink at the threat.
He was part of the reason I left.
 
1: Do any of you have couponers/scammers check out at Starbucks? The giftcard buyers like to try there. They seem to think baristas don't know what's going on.

2: Lately, we have had large Starbucks purchases returned to different stores. Purchases are made on the app with balances of over $500. We have had the returns a couple of times in the last month--they want cash back, which the register prompts for. When you put it back on the app, they leave without returning the rest. Today, we had someone clean us out of retail mdse. All purchased on the app in several different transactions. My closest sister store is about 35 miles away, and they still come to us. Are any of you experiencing this? I would think they would want to work in areas with more stores around.
 
Never had any suspicious returns at my store. Whenever something gets returned they always want it back on their Starbucks card and it's never more than a cup or two.
 
I've heard of one scam, but haven't experienced it (and I don't know if it'll work at Target or not, but it might). A guest puts tells the barista to put $500 on their card. It gets scanned and everything, but hasn't been paid for. At this point, the money does show up on the card, even though the transaction hasn't been paid for yet. They "search" for their wallet and go make a phone call. They call their friend (who is at a different Starbucks) and tell them to use that card to pay for $500 worth of stuff - this transaction goes through. The first person goes back up to the register and says they can't find their wallet, so just void it. But the friend had already used the money. Then go return it for a nice profit.

I hope this isn't actually feasible anymore. It seems like Starbucks would catch on quickly and close that loophole.

Also, if they want cash back, I wouldn't give it to them. They could be doing some other scam where they fraudulently get money onto a Starbucks card and then that's how they're turning it into cash. I'd tell them they get it back the way they paid or they can GTFO.
 
My AP already knows about the returns. The returners go to the service desk to return the mdse. They act like that's normal, and sometimes the GS TM doesn't know to send them to Sbux to do the return. It gives back cash, because the SD cannot credit a Sbux card. Even at Sbux, it prompted cash back. You have to do the cash return, leave the cash in the drawer, and basically issue a new giftcard in the return amount and "pay" with the cash that is already in the drawer. I think the fraud is when they load the app in the first place--like buying the Visa giftcards. I could never be AP because I get so frustrated with dishonest people!
 
They tried returning like more than 50 cups at my store once and one of the baristas taking the transaction was a new TM I had and the scammer told her she didn't want the money back on the card, she wanted it in cash and she was about to do it but luckily I had just came in and one of my veteran baristas tried to stop it and the scammer insisted so she came and told me what was going on and I went and told the scammer that they get it back on the Starbucks card since that's how they paid in the first place or they could leave with their cups. They chose the former.
 
Couple years back we had a scammer who'd buy ~$100 in drinkware with Starbucks giftcards then head directly over to the service desk to return them for cash (since service desk can't reload a SB card).
Fortunately corp caught on real quick & service desk was instructed to send them BACK to SB & it would go back on the SB giftcard.
Our scammer pitched a big fit & AP ended up trespassing him.
We haven't had anyone try the reload "Oh, I forgot my wallet" one namely because it didn't show up until the transaction was complete.
 
redeye58 said:
Couple years back we had a scammer who'd buy ~$100 in drinkware with Starbucks giftcards then head directly over to the service desk to return them for cash (since service desk can't reload a SB card).
Fortunately corp caught on real quick & service desk was instructed to send them BACK to SB & it would go back on the SB giftcard.
Our scammer pitched a big fit & AP ended up trespassing him.
We haven't had anyone try the reload "Oh, I forgot my wallet" one namely because it didn't show up until the transaction was complete.
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I'm surprised that we didn't see this more at my store, I don't think any of our Guest Service Team except for maybe the Starbucks trained ones would know to do that.
 
Wow! Fraudulent people are getting more creative. We rarely get returns at the company side. If they return merchandise that was paid with a Starbucks card, the system will only give them store credit.
 
Sickofspot said:
Wow! Fraudulent people are getting more creative.
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Yes, they are. They also buy the kcups, coffee, and cups that look less like "Starbucks" stuff so they can try to sneak it by at the service desk. The 2 stores closest to mine don't have Starbucks. I wonder if they will try to return there, and if they will be able to.
 
When you guys close, do you wash the floor mats? And if so how did you do it?
 
We mop them and let them dry overnight. The cleaning crew rolls them up in the morning and cleans the floor, then puts them back.
 

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