Listening(not).now

Pune, Maharashtra, India, 4 April 2025, 1030:

I go to Starbucks every week day. At least twice a week, I go to more than one outlet depending on where I have a meeting. At least once a month, I go to Mumbai, where again I have meetings usually at a Starbucks. Off and on, I also visit Starbuck outlets in Gurgaon and Bangalore, not to mention airports and malls. On an average I have 3 cups of coffee, which means 15 interactions with Starbucks staff (partners as they call them) a week, which means at least 60 interactions a month. Over the past 12 months, that’s 720 interactions.

This is how the interactions go. (I just had one). Name changed for privacy reasons.

“Good morning, welcome to Starbucks!”

“Good morning Saurabh. I will have a cappuccino, tall, with an extra shot. No customisations. I’ll pay by UPI.”

Tapping ensues on the screen.

“Capuccino. Which size sir?”

More tapping.

“Tall, extra shot. No customisations. UPI payment.”

“Tall Capuccino extra shot. Do you want any customisations, we have different types of milk?”

“No. UPI payment.”

“Tall capuccino, extra shot. Do you have a Starbucks card?”

“No. UPI payment.”

“Tall capuccino, extra shot, UPI payment. Anything else sir?”

This is routine at Starbucks outlets I have been to. They don’t listen. Or they can’t handle 5 pieces of information at one time. I wonder what the trainers and managers do when they visit (I see them quite regularly, sitting at a table looking over reports or interviewing new staff or doing other important stuff). It would reduce wait time considerably if they trained staff to listen and gave them coaching feedback on the job after observation of customer interactions. If there is 1 customer the time factor does not seem to matter. But you should see what happens when there are 3, 4 ... 7 customers waiting to be served.

In my opinion, this is a core training need in customer-facing roles (counter staff, retail, sales, design, among others) and one that is generally ignored.