Six Starbucks Drive-Thru Etiquette Tips
Working in a drive-thru for any company is tough, and it is even harder when customers lack all notions of manners. I wish manners were not such a foreign concept for so many customers, and for your benefit I will produce some Starbucks Drive-Thru tips. Learn from them, and maybe your drink won't be made decaf. And for those of you that are the perfect customers, get a laugh out of some of these examples.
1. Please place your order at the speaker box, this is common to all drive-thrus and it is the same for this one.
It was hard for me to take people seriously when they bypass the speaker-box and proceed to the window to give me their order. I guess I could just never understand how someone could bypass me saying "hi how are you today?" very loudly through that very same speaker-box, and then come up to the hand-off window and go "I didn't know I had to place my order back there. But I want X Y and Z anyway." Well sigh. The customer ahead of you did it and now the three customers behind you are going to be annoyed because I have to waste time getting the bar person to START your drink(s) that could have been started over three minute ago.
2. When I say I cannot take your trash from your car and dispose of it for you because it is a health violation, don't yell at me.
I don't care if you think it is a dumb health violation, I personally think it's fantastic. No one wants to touch your week old McDonald's trash. And the cherry on the sundae here was when I once had to tell a mom that no I would not take her child's dirty diaper and put it in the trash for her. The lesson here? Don't hand trash to me. There is a trash can at the speaker-box and there is one as you exit the drive-thru. Dispose of your own trash, it's not that hard.
3. If I ask you "Hi! How are you today?" when you pull up to the speaker, it is really nice if you answer.
This annoyed me so much, but I guess it is not a complete necessity... countless times i'll start the conversation off like this only to be greeted with "frappuccino. Cold. Big one. Caramel." Ok caveman, pull on up and thanks for leaving my genuine question hanging in the air. But this is excusable and this alone is not enough for me to signal the bar partner to destroy your drink.
4. One person places an order at a time.
Ok cool. You're a bunch of teenagers driving in your car obviously BFF's and everything... but really when you are placing your order, it is not the time for five people to scream what they want because my answer is going to be "can one person talk first and then the rest of you wait your turn and place your order, because then I might be able to understand you."
5. Don't get annoyed when I confirm things.
Cappuccino and Frappuccino sound VERY similar when you're mumbling. If I specify if you wanted your drink hot or cold don't snap at me and say "I said frappuccino of course its cold." We do this because sometimes people are first time customers picking up something for their boss etc, and they will order a mocha cappuccino. Then when they receive it they look at it like it is a foreign object and go "wasn't this supposed to be like a milkshake?" So please, if I try to specify don't bite my head off. I just want to make sure you get the drink you are asking for.
6. If you are a kid and you are playing in my drive-thru, one word, DON'T.
I understand that my former Starbucks is by a movie theater. I understand this meant teenagers will loiter in the lobby. I understood that and I was extremely tolerant. But one thing I could absolutely not tolerate is when kids would run around in the drive thru. I truly despised those kids, because every time they passed the drive-thru sensor a beep used to go off in my headset. And when that happens 100 times and I start popping advil in the back room then I really really hate those kids.
In the end it is essential to remember that the people that serve you via drive-thru are humans too. They deserve respect and they deserve to be treated kindly, since after all they control the way the drink or food is made for you.
Published by Nicole Foley
I am a 21 year old student. I am a PSC and WSTU major. I am Starbucks shift manager. And I also work for RAINN, the rape abuse incest national network, and I absolutely love it. View profile
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13 Comments
Post a CommentI liked this article! It's a shame that quite possibly no Starbucks drive-thru patrons will ever be in search of this, though. I worked in a drive-thru store for nearly three years, and it was the one nuance that I couldn't handle in the end. After all of my time there, I still could not wrap my head around the concept of a drive-thru window at a coffee shop, where almost nothing ordered is ready-made (as touched upon in this article; 99 out of 100 drive-thru orders are for Frappuccinos, unless the outdoor temperature is below freezing -- then make it 90 out of 100.) Despite this, sales are through the roof in most drive-thru stores. They must be doing something right, when it comes to making money, that is. It didn't do me any favors, though. I'm still trying to regain my sanity, and delete those evil headset BEEPs from my subconscious...
To sum everything up, treating anyone; especially people in customer service as less than a human is inexcusable and people doing so should be ordered to charm school.
Business Owner #1 - Yes. Customers are in a rush. We do our best to attend to their needs and make their drinks with five million customizations as fast as possible, and get them out of the drive thru line. However, being in a hurry does not justify the rudeness and abuse that I observed (and was even the target of) working at a drive thru store for 2 years. It's a sad day when the general public actually supports bad etiquette and rudeness because "you're in a hurry." The extra two seconds saved from answering a completely polite and socially acceptable question is not that conducive to getting out of the drive thru line faster, nor am I asking, "How are you doing?" because I want to socialize. I don't want a monologue, but an acknowledgment of myself as a human being would be nice. There are plenty of other people who are in a hurry and still have the decency to polite, and maybe even respond with, "How are you?!" afterward. And while I'm not condoning messing with another person's d
I couldnt agree more with you on the promotion crap, I hate doing it because of the reasons you state it. Unfortunately us lowly baristas have no say in the matter and a lot of the time we get in trouble if we don't do it.
You can bite it. If people complain enough about bad behavior, public sentiment might actually change enough to shame such people out of doing that sort of thing.
Guaranteed you're one of these lot.
I couldn't agree more. I never worked in foodservice, but I did work in retail (Barnes & Noble, Borders, Target). I HATE retail work with a passion and I feel sorry for those people that do it. I encountered many of those same problems there. Another problem was when I was assigned to work in the Children's area, and parents took that to mean that I would watch their kids while they went off to look at other things in the store. Customers on the cell phone during a purchase was another problem. Some would just not get off the phone during the whole transaction and then come back and complain because they didn't realize how much they ended up paying or they thought such and such product was on sale, etc. Morons.
The people that had poor ettiquette when they showed up at your window, they still have it now. All you've done is make yourself look like a whiner on the internet. Almost everyone has had their fair share of crummy service jobs. They move on with life, get a better job, and one day try to convince a barista to dispose of their child's soiled diaper.
dearest business owner,
do you think that starbucks baristas are trying to sell/promote products for their own entertainment? ha. it's called corporate standards and regulations. you should know this if you are truly a business owner. i doubt your employees want to do 100% of the duties you assign to them. and for your information, we have people from corporate who secretly come into our lines to check up on our customer service skills, therefore, asking each and every customer how they are/how their day has been going is not only polite and sometimes even genuine, it is required. sorry for working at a job where we are expected to be decent human beings. it's easy to see which of our customers were raised correctly. why don't you go to mcdonalds and order from someone who can't even speak your language. :)
shouting five at a time just doesn't work.
* ... playing in the drive-thru? Dangerous. But why put up with it? Ask them to leave. If they don't, call the cops.
Just want to reiterate:
My disgust for people who take it upon themselves to 'get back' at customers in the manner intimated several times in the article. Why do you think this is acceptable. Likely, it's only because you realize you're not (most of the time) going to get called on it, because you can obscure things in food. Not cool. Think of this being done to you in other contexts, if you act bitchy: haircut. medical examination. psych session. investment advice. Heck, even a restaurant.
PLEASE NOTE: I AM NOT SUGGESTING THAT LACK OF TIME IS A JUSTIFICATION FOR RUDENESS ON THE PART OF THE CUSTOMER. IT IS NOT. Customer's can / should say thank you. But drop the expectations of forced socialization. You are a business, not a country club / golf course / dinner party / neighborhood barber shop.
3. Stop force selling me things. Please. Just stop. If I want it, I'll ask for it. Again, maybe there's a different set of factors in-store, but in a drive-thru context, when people are in a hurry, cut the promotion crap. (And, by doing that, you'll have extra time to do the verification)
Good Points:
* Verification is fine. It takes a second and it can make a huge difference in process flow - more than what would be saved by not doing it. However, don't all sbcuks have electronic screens now? That, plus a decent communication system (so that we can actually hear you) should do most of the job of a verbal verification.
* People should know how to place orders - shouting fi