Six Starbucks Drive-Thru Etiquette Tips

January 04, 2008 by
Valerie Verona  
Valerie Verona
Valerie Verona
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Drive Thru  |  Frappuccino  |  Decaf  |  Two Weeks Notice  |  Cool Health Tips
I worked for Starbucks Coffee Company for two years. Of those two years I spent approximately one year at a Drive-Thru Starbucks. It was working in that environment for so long that eventually led me to finally stick it to the man and hand in my two weeks notice.

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.

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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.
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Posted on 11/04/2008 at 5:11:00 PM

Oh, and by the way, dont forget that most of the folks in the drive thru are in a hurry, and it takes a while to make a drink, please don't order a mess of drinks and expect them immediatly, each time there is a big order, it holds things up for the guy behind you. Just come on in if you are buying drinks for the office, it will probably take less time and you will piss off less people. Sbux doesnt' have a mess of drinks in shoots ready to go. they are each hand crafted to your specs.----- do the math, if you are like 4 cars back, just walk in and take your chances. The only time I can see prefering to stay in your car would be 1. If you had a car full of little kids that would just be a nightmare getting them into the restraunt 2. had something broken (like your leg) 3. were not dressed for public 4. Had enough time to wait in line and needed the time to put on your make-up, talk on the cell phone, or read the paper.
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Posted on 02/01/2008 at 2:02:14 PM

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
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Posted on 01/31/2008 at 10:01:57 AM

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.
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Posted on 01/31/2008 at 6:01:45 AM

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.
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Posted on 01/30/2008 at 3:01:26 PM

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.
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Posted on 01/28/2008 at 3:01:28 PM

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.
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Posted on 01/28/2008 at 8:01:19 AM

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. :)
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Posted on 01/27/2008 at 4:01:27 PM

If i ask you to repeat yourself when you ordering thru drive thru. Its because 1. we dont speak the same English.2. you mumble.3. your order does not make sense. SO DONT THINK FOR A SECOND ITS BECAUSE YOU DIDNT NOT SPEAK LOUDLY ENOUGH AND THE YELL IT BACK AT ME. Do not yell in my ****** ear. IF it is raining shut your wipers off, are you that blind that you dont realize your getting me soaked. Oh and you dont need a damn sleeve if your able to hold the coffee or touch it to your lips without burning them. I mean sleevs arent that cool loser. If you want cream or sugar. Tell us when you order,...." we are not mind readers ;) " And the rudeness.... get over yourself. Your just a dumb coffee addict with very yellow teeth. Oh and your like 400 pounds and too lazy to get out and come inside. and you are ordering a drink with 600 cals and a 400 cal pastry.
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Posted on 01/26/2008 at 7:01:51 PM

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.
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Posted on 01/26/2008 at 1:01:58 PM

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