Starbucks Baristas Say Store Service Is Terrible

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Sep 5, 9:45AM EDT

Starbucks Baristas Say Store Service Is Terrible — © Page Light Studios / iStock Editorial via Getty Images

The Strategic Organizing Center and Starbucks Workers United released a new study that says that 90% of Starbucks Corp. (NASDAQ: SBUX | SBUX Price Prediction) stores are understaffed and customers face long wait times. Starbucks Workers United and Starbucks management have not always gotten along. BerlinRosen, the PR firm that released the study, has a mixed reputation.

The survey is an indictment of new CEO Brian Niccol and his “Back to Starbucks” plan, a set of programs to get faltering same-store sales back on track. Strategic Organizing Center Research Director Joan Moriarty remarked on the study’s release, “The results of our survey demonstrate how Brian Niccol’s plan for Starbucks isn’t coming close to getting the company back on track for its workers and customers.”

The study’s results were based on four sections. First, the Back to Starbucks program has not yielded any results. Second, there has been understaffing at the vast majority of locations, causing long customer wait times. Third, low staffing has put an “unrealistic” burden on frontline staff. Finally, worker schedules are described as “uneven and mismanaged.”

The survey’s value, according to its authors, is that it shows that CEO Niccol has done nothing to curb six quarters of falling sales. And his new plans will not work in the future. Changes to store operations and barista uniforms were part of the criticisms.

If the survey results are true, even directionally, they will cause a Wall Street backlash. Many investors hoped that “turnaround expert” Niccol had the credentials to fix the company’s declining reputation and a series of unsuccessful past strategies. Same-store sales fell again in Starbucks’s most recently released quarterly earnings report.

The credit investors gave Niccol did not last long. Starbucks stock is down 5% this year, compared to an advance of 11% in the S&P 500.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.