- I love focusing on the core drinks we already have rather than making some new blended concoction that we have to push on people to make our quota goal.
- I love promoting iced coffee
- I love that our pastries are getting makeovers with less artificial ingredients, and smaller packaging (which means less waste!!!)
What I dislike:
- The promotion with iced coffee is called "iced coffee with milk," this sounds familiar to a promo we had in summer 2006, called "cafe con leche" which was a failure in my store at least.
- The promotion does not focus on how you can sweeten your coffee with any flavored syrup you would like at no extra cost.
Why do I think this promo failed three years ago? Well first off not everyone understood that cafe con leche means coffee with milk. But that was easily explainable. The part that got tricky was the standard amount that starbucks wanted us to add for milk is not the exact amount everyone wants.
Yes I know this can be figured out by legendary service, asking them if they want their coffee lighter or darker. But really? its a pain in the ass.
Circa 2006 I was working in a busy drive thru (as a barista... oh the simple days):
Now on drive thru we automatically add milk and sugar/artificial substitutes to your liking but most of our customers that came through the drive thru were regulars and knew exactly how to specify their order.
like "I want a iced coffee dark with just a few drops of soy and 1/2 a splenda"
sure no problem!
The problem occurred when on drive thru and in with the in store customers we would add milk to the beverage as a standard unless otherwise specified and people had a hissy fit because it was too much milk or too much coffee or not sweet enough!
This is why we have the condiment bar, because you get to customize your delicious terraza iced coffee to YOUR liking. I do not know exactly what light and sweet means to you. but to me it means about 1.5x the standard. How am I supposed to know at the other starbucks they know light and sweet means 25 pumps of classic milk filled to the second line and just an ounce of coffee if you dont tell me so!
I have no problem with customizing your beverage for you. Really I dont mind adding the splenda the raw sugar the milk etc etc... I just need to know what you are thinking. I am not a mind reader. And if what you receive is not what you wanted when you didnt specify it dont flip out on me, I simply go by standards unless told otherwise.
When you have a problem and you address it to me calmly we can work together and figure it out. But if you have a hissy fit that usually cant happen.
I really hope this promotion works out better this roll out.
For my sanity and yours.
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