Starbucks Consumer Reviews

BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA -- My day could be going much better, thank you, except due to the Fact that I went to visit your 257 South La Cienega Boulevard, Beverly Hills, California 90211 (310) 659-9562 location and Received Very Abusive And Poor Service!

It started off so so and then got Worse!

Back on Wednesday, August 17, 2016 at approximately 6:30 P.M. I was a Legitimate, Paying Customer and bought at least Two (2) Products from that particular location.

While I was there, I asked one of the employees for assistance in applying my most recent receipt to the StarbucksForLife.com Game since it is new and I did Not Know How To Play It and she said that she did Not Know Much About The Game and said that she would eventually help me, but did NOT have any time to do so at that time.

I then contacted Your Toll Free Number For Customer Service and Got The Help That I Desired since Your Store Employee Was Just Not Qualified Enough And/Or Unwilling To Help Me.

While I was at your store enjoying My Two (2) Starbucks Items That I Had Purchased, I was Just Talking To One Of Your Female Employees about How Much I Like Starbucks and about Some Of The Wonderful Benefits that they Provide To Their Employees such as A Free Pound Of Coffee Once Per Week and for whatever reason, This Female Employee Went Behind My Back And Reported ME To Her Angry, Disgusting Manager Named IVAN About It and I Will Discuss This A Little Bit Later On In What Had Happened And In What He Said To Me!

Furthermore, at approximately 7:21 P.M. just as I was getting ready to leave the store, I asked One Of The Female Employees To Take A Picture Of Me In The Store since I Am A Very Loyal Fan And Customer To Starbucks and She Refused Stating That She Thinks That She Is Not Allowed To Do So In Which I Found To Be Quite Rude and Low Class To Say To Me.

She did ask her manager, IVAN if she could just Take My Picture and He Told Her No That She Can Not!

Then His Disgusting, Rude and Malicious Mistreatment and Verbal Abuse Comes Out Of Him Towards Me!

Please NOTE: IVAN Wrongfully Accused ME Of "Patronizing" Your Starbucks Employees And Harassing Them Based On What I Had Said Above And Threatens To Call The Police On ME!

Please NOTE: This Is The Worst and Most Disgusting Experience That I Have Ever Had At A Starbucks Location and I have NEVER Heard Of This Disgusting Garbage Coming From A Manager's Mouth Against Me In My Life At Starbucks!

Please NOTE: I said and did Nothing Illegal and You Have Hired Managers To Take Out Their Personal Problems Out On Customers And Call The Police On Them For Any Reason!

I am NEVER Going Back To This Starbucks Location Ever Again!

I personally will NOT Tolerate This Type Of Uneducated and Low Class Verbal Abuse And/Or Threats Coming From Any Starbucks Employee and Neither Should You; Especially For Doing Nothing Wrong And/Or Nothing Illegal, Period!

Howard Paul Shore
Angry And Upset Starbucks Corporation Customer

/HPS

GRESHAM, OREGON -- On Thursday December 04, 2013 at approximately 5:45 PM I stopped off at the Starbucks 2233 NE Burnside Rd
Gresham Oregon (503) 465-8091 to purchase hot chocolate for my neighbor's son. This Starbucks is located in the Oregon Trails Shopping Center. My complaint involves a lack of trust and integrity at Starbucks. Is free stuff good?

Review this scenario: I purchased some hot chocolate for my six-year old friend. I was wearing new black ski gloves. I removed the ski gloves and placed them on the counter so I could pay for the purchase. After I paid I left the black ski gloves on the counter. I sat down and waited for the young man to finish his chocolate and left.

Review his behavior: When I left the cashier he did not yell out, “Hey Mister you forgot your new black ski gloves on the counter!”. When customers leave their hats, gloves or wallets on their counter that does not automatically mean that Starbucks employees have free hats and gloves. Many of you are wondering why the cashier did not point out the gloves to the customer. Maybe the cashier thought my gloves were a Christmas tip. Here is a hot tip: customers expect great product and service. Customers should not have to bribe the staff with tips or gifts to get what they originally paid for.

Review their attitude: I went back twice immediately after the incident and on Sunday December 08, 2013 at 7:45 AM. I spoke to a shift leader who refused to provide her name or the name of the manager. She was a short petite brunette very young in age. She wore a smirk when I discussed the black ski gloves. The confirmatory smirk indicates prior knowledge. This information is provided to assist Starbucks corporate in identifying the individuals.

Review Starbucks' trust, integrity and lack of honesty: There are several problems with this transaction all revolving around trust and a lack of integrity. When the cashier allows the customer to walk away obviously leaving their property on the counter salivating at the free stuff this is a blatant lack of trust and integrity. When the so-called shift supervisor/leader refuses to identify herself or provide the contact information for the manager this once again demonstrates a complete lack of trust and integrity. Do I trust Starbucks? Starbucks employees that help themselves to customers property should never be allowed around any cash register.

"Free is good" is bad if it's the customer's property. My complaint is Starbucks' convenient absence of a lost and found for customers property speaks volumes about Starbucks' lack of integrity. I strongly recommend that if you insist on doing business with Starbucks you count your fingers after you shake hands.

By the way the Starbucks hot chocolate turned out to be mostly foam. Starbucks hot chocolate Is seriously overpriced at $1.50. I asked the young man if he enjoyed it and he apparently did not. I am not a coffee or food critic but small children tend to be very honest and sincere so this is a very honest and sincere review. Too young to know how to lie young children often favor the simple truth.

Curiously I posted this on Google reviews no fewer than three times on the morning of Sunday December 08, 2013. Apparently the censors at Google objected to the truth and censored this review. Advertising dollars from www.starbucks.com have a way of influencing the truth. I do not appreciate internet censorship by Google. Censorship is a very serious first amendment violation and interferes with the public's right to know the whole truth.

TORONTO, CALIFORNIA -- I am writing this review here as a warning to future customers walking into a Starbucks store managed by ** (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, **) based on the following incidents:

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

ATLANTA, GEORGIA -- I'm sitting here in my office on my lunch break drinking a bad-tasting cup of Starbucks coffee. It is bad tasting because it has no cream in it. Like the man in front of me, I bought a large cup of coffee at noon today in the Atlanta CNN Center Starbucks and went to the counter to add half-and-half. There was none. We told the staff. They simply said, "We're out of half-and-half," not "Let us look to see if there is any in the cooler," not "Sorry, but just a little while ago we sent someone out to get more," not "Sorry, but may we offer you a refund," just "We're out of half-and-half."

I generally don't operate on the squeaky-wheel principle, so I did not complain. I operate on this principle: "If you cannot treat customers better, I'll go elsewhere." If they had just warned me that upfront, I would not have bought any coffee in the first place. I suspect that the people selling the coffee were not coffee drinkers themselves. Otherwise, they might have been a little less cavalier about it.

MIDLAND, TEXAS -- The manager at this store is so rude, and the customers that go here are dumb. They love to get in line from the loop, and if God forbid you enter the parking lot from another entrance, you will get your ** chewed for cutting in line. So of course the logical thing to do is circle the loop, come around on the access road, and stop there so you can block traffic and get rear-ended.

Whatever you do don't attempt to use your brain and use another entrance or circle the parking lot. Unless you love getting chewed out like a small child for "cutting" by an idiot minimum wage employee who can barely speak English. I love Starbucks and go there all the time, but they just lost a loyal customer.

CLACKAMAS, OREGON -- The service at the Fred Meyer store at 16301 SE 82nd Dr store in Clackamas, Oregon location is so abysmal and toxic I have decided to not fo there anymore. The staff is angry and rude. Today they left the an ingredient out of my caramel white Mocha so it didn't taste right. I do not believe this is a mistake. Instead they cheated me in a petty act of retribution for reasons unknown to me.

They may have a personal problem with me, I don't know, I am a frequent customer but even if they don't like me that is no excuse for their unprofessional and childish behavior.

I am only guessing at the reasons for their rudeness but it is worse every time I come in. I am assuming it is personal but whether it is or not I doubt that I'm the only customer with a problem with them.

This is not a behavior typical of Starbucks and I've owned a small business so I know how important customer relations are.

This sort of staff problem always starts at the top with the store manager.

MIAMI, FLORIDA -- Starbucks at Macy's store in North Kendall Dr. in Dadeland mall Miami, Florida. Employee at a Starbucks in Macy's did not like that we wanted to buy a $2.45 and not a more expensive one. It felt like a personal attack to us because we didn't buy a more expensive coffee, she was mad and she didn't even know which coffee we were talking about like she didn't even want us to get that one. That when she told us the store was closing, but 1 hour later as we passed by it was still open so she lied.

So she told us to wait because she had to check if they had any, how can a Starbucks store run out of coffee? She gave us coffee in a rudely manner and she denied us from buying pastries because she said she did not have any when there were clearly on display, she denied us from buying a lemonade because they did not have lemonade apparently. Basically anything we wanted to buy she said she didn't have any.

WASHINGTON, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA -- The lemon cake was served in a sealed plastic bag like a Twinkie. The consistency was gooey so I checked the date. It was almost TWO MONTHS OLD which made me wonder what types of preservative like formaldehyde they had used to keep it “fresh”. I felt sick when I left the Starbucks and gave the dated bag to an employee who made no attempt to do anything. This is the last time I am ordering food in Starbucks as it is apparent it is not one of those health-conscious places I prefer to frequent. Ugh, no different than a 7-11 gas station!

JAMESTOWN, NEW YORK -- I just recently ended a 10+ years long daily Starbucks habit. Yes, I visited a Starbucks everyday on average for over 10 years, spending on average $175/month. And I'm done with Starbucks - haven't been there in a month. I have no issues with their products, and I know many of their counter people get hammered with orders non-stop, so I'm ok with the occasional wrong order even though I've seen first hand that many wrong orders result from laziness and disinterest. And I'm ok with their 500% markup. I'm even ok with the impersonal way most Starbucks employees attempt to be personable with me when I come in and order something.

My main gripe originates from Starbucks corporate policy. Over the years, I started noticing more and more incidences of Starbucks running out of stock (snacks, drink ingredients, bananas, sandwiches) and certain seemingly in-demand items just not being in the stores ("Sorry, we're out of that."). And it's not just one store or a few stores. I've gone to Starbucks all over the country and it's the same story - everywhere. I even complained twice (to corporate) in the past few years and saw nothing change. Most people complain about Starbucks exorbitant prices, but I see a much larger problem that as a consumer, I can't accept.

I recently left Starbucks after 3 years of employment. Starbucks used to be a great company to work for, but now with the changes, it's not so great. It's modern day slavery. If you feel like you're waiting for your drink longer, and when you get it, it's not correct, well, you're probably not crazy! That's exactly what's happening.

We are instructed to be more "task-focused" and less "customer-focused". What that means is, the stores are now short-staffed to save money, but with the changes such as the breakfast sandwiches and the new (less tasty) frappuccino recipe (to compete with McDonalds' new frappe) the employees are put in a position to work faster and harder.

We also have follow QASA standards (QASA is the Starbucks 'more elite' version of the health department) and their standards of cleanliness are understandable. However, the time in which we are expected to tend to them are unrealistic. For example, before we hand a drink out, we have to wash the milk pitcher and wipe the steam wands. If we open a carton of soy milk or lemonade, we have to write the QASA standard expiration date immediately. We are instructed to tend to those things before tending to the customers' needs. Back to being short-staffed: yes, there usually is one person on the bar making drinks and we have to rely on the person at the register to properly mark the cup as well - the customer knowing how to properly order their drink. This "simple" process becomes complicated when products and samples are being pushed on the customer who is ordering.

So many times, the person on bar gets the incorrect cup marking due to the initial distractions at the register. That combined with a large volume of drinks with no help (as the people available to help are now making sandwiches) and abusive customers complaining that we're stupid and we made their drink wrong, well, it's no wonder many of you aren't getting the service you deserve. On top of this, we lost our personal days, the health benefits are more expensive and we get less for our money, we get MINIMAL breaks - yet we're on our feet all day AND working much harder.

We don't get commissions or bonuses for sales, we don't get sick days when we call out sick, it's hard to get the shift covered due to company-wide understaffing and partners simply not wanting to work anymore - so many times, we work when we are sick. Upper management is permitted to be condescending to store employees - essentially, we're spoken to like we're retarded first graders. We contribute a great deal to the success of the company, yet we don't get respect and we don't get acknowledgement. So yes, general morale is WAAAAAAAAY down and it does make a difference.

So, the next time you get your drink and it's been made incorrectly, please don't blame the person making your drinks. We're stressed enough from the unrealistic changes being made in the company. Instead, observe what is going on at the register. Are you being distracted to try the "new" exciting, life-changing, drink or pastry? Are you being asked to try Via (for the millionth time) or a Starbucks version of the egg McMuffin? Is the person on bar alone and flooded with drinks? Are there abusive customers, QASA standards being tended to and no help with any of it?

If you notice any of this, complain to the manager then complain to corporate. They need to hear these things. Whatever you do, please don't abuse your barista. Have some respect. Remember that your barista isn't "stuck" at Starbucks because it's the best they can do. They are there because they are in college, or are working towards their career goals and need a job that allows time flexibility and part-time benefits. They're not stupid, and if you piss them off, they have the power to give you sugar-free syrup, decaf shots, expired shots (espresso that sits longer than 19 seconds - they literally taste like poo), breve (that's half and half) when you ask for soy.

They have the power to, in turn, ruin your day by giving you a lousy drink. So open your eyes and see that these employees truly are doing the best they can and are very worn out by Howard Shutlz' (that's the ONE man who owns all Starbucks - they're NOT a franchise) desperate decisions on how to run such a large company with no regulations on how to treat the employees. Use your power of Customer Voice to complain to someone who CAN make things better or stop going to Starbucks all together and make sure you let corporate know why.

You deserve a positive experience and it begins with happy employees. You can help make that change. 1-800-starbuc or 1-800-23-latte You can also fill out the survey when it's given to you. Please be honest about your experience, those surveys are seen by corporate.