It’s been in the news that a woman in Florida recently ordered a 60-shot Frappuccino using her MyStarbucksRewards reward. Here’s a link to one such news story:
Why is a 60-shot Frappuccino a bad idea at Starbucks?
Is it because she used a Lucky Dozen MyStarbucksReward for her beverage? I say absolutely not. Starbucks operates on the same scale in billions of profit as a small oil company. The rewards program is a huge benefit to them, for many reasons. It creates customer loyalty, creates an urgency to return to stores when money is pre-loaded on cards, creates cash flow, improves speed of service by people not having to count out their change at the register, makes it more likely that customers won’t notice price increases when paying with a card, creates brand prestige, improves frequency of visits, reduces marketing expense for trial of new products, and more. No barista should toss and turn at night over the expense of one Lucky Dozen free beverage. Even if it’s a $50 beverage. You wouldn’t be alarmed to find out that Shell Oil can afford to give out free gas now and then, and so it’s not the actual cost of the beverage.
Note that the recent Starbucks “beverage size clarification” statement makes no reference to form of payment. Even if the customer wanted to pay cash, the same beverage size policy is in place.
Is it because it’s wasteful – a 60-shot Frappuccino may go down the drain? That’s not it either. For the same rationale as above, as a corporation that makes billions and billions in profit, this one drink won’t make a dent in anything they do. And most customers won’t want to order such an undrinkable drink – they few times this happens is just completely de minimis to the function of the rewards.
Is it the publicity? That’s not it either. These news article do an amazing job of driving awareness of MyStarbucksRewards – something that can only benefit Starbucks, and reduces their marketing expense for awareness of the rewards program.
What about legal liability? This is a real issue. The cost of lawsuits and lawyers is way bigger than a $50 beverage. Damn you lawyers. Food and beverage retailers may be subject to tort claims when they sell a product that can be harmful to the consumer. While I don’t know anyone who has consumed a 60-shot beverage, I can only imagine, that’s going to cause a tummy ache. I think there is a real concern about customers getting sick from these extreme beverages. One way to control what a customer consumes is simply to limit the size of the cup a drink can go into. People love to sue big corporations. State law will vary from place to place on the fine details of this area of tort law, but generally, a food and beverage retailer can be held to “strict liability” for their products. The concept is this: “One who sells any product in a defective condition unreasonably dangerous to the user or consumer or to his property is subject to liability for physical harm thereby caused to the ultimate user or consumer, or to his property.”
All of the above is just my opinion. I don’t have any special information why Starbucks has their beverage size policy. This is one of those articles where I fully expect people will disagree.However, I think you think about Starbucks like as if it were a Shell Oil or a bank or any other huge corporation, you’ll see that these isolated free beverages are trivial and it’s not the cost of the drink itself at issue. Lawsuits however, those are really expensive. If you choose to disagree in the comments, as always I will delete any comments that degenerate into name calling, baiting, or other general nastiness.
My only worry about all this is that when handsome workmen wearing work boots, and a hard hat under one arm, walk in at 7:00 AM with a 32-ounce thermos asking for brewed coffee in it, they’ll be told “no” they can’t do that. I think a big thermos of coffee is a favorite old standby for many in the working world, and it’s usually consumed throughout the day. I feel like the beverage size policy should have an exception for brewed coffee poured into a thermos.
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The biggest thing for me is that they are wasteful. Someone spent a year of their life taking care of that coffee and now it’s becoming a novelty plaything.
Want to be naughty and get a 6 shot toffee but white mocha with soy? Be my guest but keeping it reasonable also keeps it drinkable which will result in less waste.
I agree with Becca, I think it’s completely wasteful. I don’t care that the company can afford it, I think as residents of planet earth, we owe it to our planet to not purposefully throw stuff away like that.
Add me to the “this is wasteful” column and add a note that it is also unhealthy. I hope these lamebrains enjoy the rebellion their bodies will provide.
I am willing to bet that these customers are not only PITAs at Starbucks but at any other store that has reward programs and coupons. These entitled weenies make me glad I am no longer in retail.
Melody for your example of the thermos I don’t see why they can’t sell two cups if coffee and the customer can pour it into the thermos themselves.
Besides trying to see they can top the next customer in a new drink, I see absolutely no value in this. I would rather use my rewards in a more meaningful way and appreciate getting them.
@DadCooks – I actually laughed out loud at the words ‘entitled weenies’. Thank you for making me giggle this morning 🙂
@Melody – as far as I can recall, there is a standard in the beverage manual when it comes to thermos’ for brewed coffee. I believe it was that you charge customers for the as many coffees as would fit in the thermos. Given this new policy, we may have to actually hand it out in 2 separate cups now, but how we charge it remains the same. And someone could still get 60 shots of espresso, but they’d have to purchase it, and receive it as 3 Venti 20 shot espressos. As someone said above, I really can’t control what a customers does with a beverage when it leaves my hand.
Great post – I agree with *everything* you wrote 🙂
As to waste: Is this wasteful? Absolutely. I have to 100% agree that pouring a 60-shot beverage down the drain is wasteful.
However to say that this is somehow different than the current gluttony of American culture is a bit of a double standard. I look around me all the time and see women with absurd clothing shopping habits, Americans who drive their cars two blocks rather than walking it, a culture wholly resistant to taking the stairs and using re-usable cups, and much more. There is no doubt in my mind that the American culture is gluttonous, and what we have here is merely one small piece of evidence in a larger diseased picture that we all partake in. Frankly, in my dreams, more people would move closer to their work and walk to work, or at least not have long commutes as solo occupant drivers – the consumption of gas and accumulative effect on our planet is significant. Gluttony. Gluttony. Gluttony. We’re all guilty in some way, if we look hard enough.
As a shift supervisor and barista, I would not tell someone “no” when they bring in a cup larger than what we offer. I will simply measure out the maximum amount of ounces (24 hot/24-31 cold) and pour ONLY that much in there.
It really is not a big issue at my store, so I don’t feel that I will encounter this problem very often.
However, I would have LOVED to say NO to that woman and her 60 shot frappuccino. How rude. All those poor people whose drink order was taken After hers while her 60 shots are being pulled.
The fact of the matter is, regardless of how much liquid her drink made, she can only receive ONE cup. She can’t get all that extra in seperate cups. Her free beverage is just that… ONE free beverage. (a non-drinkable one at that).
As a S.S, I see it as wasteful, and I also want to know how long did it take to make this drink????? How many other customers had to wait for their drinks while this one was made?
Some clarification on the beverage policy, and how it is handled in store.
In regards to the thermos example. Policy has been to charge for multiple beverages which will most closely match the customer’s personal cup beverage size without overcharging. For example a Venti (20 oz) hot cup & a Tall (12 oz) hot cup combined would equal a 32 oz hot beverage. If a customer had a 32 oz cup or thermos & wanted that much coffee they would be charged for a Venti & a Tall (cup discounts applied to both), or two Grandes (16oz) — whichever would be cheapest given prices at the time & in that area. They would be charged the same if it were a 33 oz or 34 oz cup. At 36 oz they would charge for a Venti & a Grande, and so forth.
This example is how Starbucks beverage policy formerly applied to ALL beverages (but I believe is still written in our resource manual) prior to the release of the Beverage Policy Clarification that was released to the public several months ago, and the Action Item Alert that was posted at the same time to Starbucks Portal for all Starbucks Partners to read & learn from. This was of course in response to the previous “most expensive drink” news story.
As this clarification on the beverage policy was passed along to baristas the language was very generally written to place limits on all personal cups to reflect cup sizes used by Starbucks, i.e. 20oz limits on hot beverages, 26oz limits on frappuccinos & iced espresso beverages, and 30oz limits on iced tea, iced coffee, refresher & fizzio beverages. However, when implemented it was stressed above all else that these limits be applied to beverages purchased using a free beverage coupon, particularly from My Starbucks Rewards.
In practice there are exceptions to this rule. Here is where we come back to the thermos example, and we use another Starbucks policy as a sort of road sign to help guide us. Starbucks refill policy states that you may receive a refill on your beverage provided you have not left store property in between your orders at the counter. Formerly customers could switch between refillable beverages of the same size provided their original beverage was a refillable one. Recently a change was announced that allowed customers to switch to a refillable beverage regardless of the original drink order. Purchasing a Grande Latte, for example, means that you could now request a refill at the counter for a Grande Passion Iced Tea. Refillable beverages include hot coffee, iced coffee, hot tea, and iced tea (excluding tea lemonades). If a customer walks in with a personal cup that is above standard size, and they request a latte or frappuccino we are supposed to abide Starbucks policy and only produce for their cup a 20 oz Latte/26 oz Iced Latte, or a 26 oz Frappuccino. However, if they request one of the refillable beverages, such as a hot coffee per the original example, baristas should be receptive to the request & fill the cup while charging according to the guidelines mentioned earlier. At my store I’ve worked with the partners to ensure they follow this general pattern.
What reasons do we as partners have to discriminate between a frappuccino & a cup of coffee?
A good starting point to answer this is quality assurance. Starbucks recipes are structured in a way to balance flavor, consistency, temperature, and a myriad of other concerns when crafting the perfect beverage. Starbucks recipes, however, are not always proportional in their ingredients based on size. A good example of this is how a hot Tall Latte (12 oz) has one espresso shot & would receive three pumps of syrup if added, but a hot Grande Latte (16 oz) and a hot Venti Latte (20 oz) both have two shots of espresso & would receive four pumps & five pumps of syrup respectively if added. Crafting beverages beyond standard sizes creates guess work which can be inconsistent from one barista to the next, similarly to problems encountered when ordering a “secret menu” item. These inconsistencies can be frustrating for customers, and the guesswork by baristas may result in beverages that simply don’t taste all that fantastic.
Another good example is of course Tort cases as mentioned by Melody. I won’t bother adding to the matter as she covered it rather thoroughly.
As far as using Free Drink Rewards or Coupons for personal cups larger than standard size, here is where we enter a very practical matter that I must disagree with Melody on. Yes, Starbucks earns billions of dollars every year. Yes, the company as a whole can afford to lose sixty dollars. However, the store giving that sixty dollar beverage away for free might not be able to afford do so. Starbucks stores operate on a razor thin profit margin. It costs a lot to operate a Starbucks location; property lease, utilities, inventory, labor, equipment maintenance, etc… A lot of stores get by with only a few percentage points in profit. When you have thousands of stores the overall cash flow from those stores, no matter how small the profit margin is, it still adds up to quite a bit. Again, why is it impractical for a store to be giving away a sixty dollar beverage. The budget of a Starbucks location is largely governed by how much money that location generates. How much money a store made weeks prior& at the same time last year not only dictates what the company expects that store to make in the weeks ahead, but also how much they are allowed to spend on labor & other expenditures. A sixty dollar loss is one less day of work for one barista. During the previous “most expensive drink” news story, the very next day I discovered that at locations where my friends & family worked there were eight attempts made to use Rewards to receive free beverages in personal cups rivaling the size of that in the news. Those are just the few I knew about personally amidst a select number of stores in the very large Orange County area here in California. I can only imagine how many other instances like this occurred throughout the company as the Beverage Clarification was made by Starbucks that day. I work with baristas that work multiple jobs & can barely afford to make rent, keep their car running, or pay for their education even with assistance. When a store loses money it is almost always the labor budget that gets hit first. When a store expends ingredients from their inventory, and time from their scheduled labor to make a drink with several dozen espresso shots (it would take about 5 minutes just to pull 60 espresso shots from one machine btw), it impacts that store & it’s partners more than you may think. Not all stores are the same. There are stores that can afford to lose that kind of income, but not on a consistent basis. I’m not advocating penny pinching, or nickel & diming customers, but I do hope people understand that the markup you pay for your beverage is to help keep that store staffed so that your wait is short, to keep the inventory full so we never have to tell you we can’t make a particular beverage, and to keep that location open so as not to inconvenience you by making you go further out of your way to the next nearest store.
As for questions of wastefulness. If the customer pays for it, yes, I’d still find it disagreeable if the majority went to waste, but it’s not my place to judge. If it’s a free beverage & it goes to waste — I have to be honest, it feels offensive.
As for the baristas at the Starbucks location that made the most recent “most expensive drink,” I’m disappointed that they did not follow company policy especially when it was stressed quite extensively several months ago. If they are newer employees I can understand the mistake. The article I read last night said that they were “excited” to make the drink and that the customer also notified the media in advance. I’d hope they didn’t violate policy & risk disciplinary measures for the sake of a name drop in the news. While I haven’t seen video, or heard it mentioned I’d also be dissapointed if they allowed the process to be filmed in the store as that is another policy no-no.
Apologies for the run-on sentences and grammar snafus. 🙂 I hope I may have helped clarify any questions anyone may have had.
I am sure the publicity from these “most expensive Starbucks drink ever made” incidents is not what Starbucks management wants or needs right now. I only hope it does not impact the Rewards Program in a negative way for those of us who just want a normal Starbucks drink made by our friendly hard working barista.
Evan – very well said!!! I worked for Starbucks for 6 years. I think this whole “most expensive drink” thing is absolutely ridiculous. The drink that is ordered on MSR free beverage should fit into any of our standard cups.
>>Recently a change was announced that allowed customers to switch to a refillable beverage regardless of the original drink order.
Evan – I think you’ll find that was not a recent change to the refill policy. If you search Melody’s past blog entries, you will see it’s been this way for a while, it just seems many, many baristas were ignoring the ‘regardless of original beverage purchased’ part of the policy. I believe the policy was ‘updated’ to make it more clear.
The refill policy has been in place for a long time. No one has ever taken the time to make sure their baristas were familiar with it. As for the not filling the 32 oz coffee-it was standard to charge for a venti and a tall (20 + 12) or whatever combination equalled the size of the container.
And as we are seeing from this post and the comments so far it all boils down to training and company policies that foresee problems.
I am sorry Starbucks, but as a customer since 1979, who pays attention and is trained in training and observation, Starbucks, you are not spending enough time on training and routine retraining. Starbucks, you also do not realize that training needs to extend to your customers. Starbucks, you do a disservice to you employees by not equipping your employees with the tools to really shine in their jobs. Training used to be measured in weeks, now it is barely a few days and refresher, what’s that (?).
Sorry folks, witnessed a bad experience at a Starbucks today so I’ll end my rant now (I don’t blame the new barista, I blame whoever was supposed to train her, stop throwing the newbie to the sharks, I’m tired of drying tears).
First, have to agree with DadC…about the ‘training’. It’s become, in many Sbux, really really bad. Not nearly enough time and attention spent on a new partner.
Secondly, I really didn’t pay much attention to that goofy “most expensive” 60 shot Sbux reward. Just sounded crazy but I guess it did get a lot of attention, always good for the company.
Lastly, as far as waste: it always kind of kills me a bit when I see all that
‘extra’ frappuccino poured down the drain. I realize apparently there are many variables why the amount might not end up exactly what was ordered but in that case…….just give it away. to anyone. in an extra cup to the person who ordered or offer it up.
@Denise @DadCooks – True, new partners get thrown to the wolves pretty fast.
And you know that expression “any publicity is good publicity” – The older I get, the more I think it’s true. Ordering a 60 shot Frappuccino really is a publicity stunt move but sure does bring a lot of publicity to Starbucks.
Well, as a Starbucks employee, I can tell you my store isn’t happy about a story like this. It’s not Good publicity, and stores are being better informed on how to handle situations where customers order ridiculous drinks like this. It puts us in a bad position because we have to disappoint a customer (or Many customers). Also, people trying to pull stunts like this will eventually ruin the MSR program for people who don’t abuse the rewards system.
I found out about this from the Miami Herald, which also posted the customer’s receipt. http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/07/18/4243266/coffee-craze-pembroke-pines-woman.html
Given that the drink was rung at 11:02 PM (most stores in the area are closed by then) and the fact that the young woman was given a full fledged photo op while inside the store, it seems that the store partners were more than willing to indulge in this young lady’s MSR frankenstein drink. This wasn’t someone holding up the drive through line with her massive iced tea carafe hanging out the window for fill up. For goodness sakes, her jar had a push button dispenser at the bottom like the lemonade jug at the hometown buffet.
I think this store messed up big time in allowing this to happen. If I was the district manager of this location I’d be embarrassed. I agree with Melody’s point that ONE $60 drink is less than a rounding error in Starbucks ledger, but I think it makes a complete laughingstock of the MSR program that people would get local and national headlines for ordering a “FREE” $60 drink. “FREE.” If she wanted to pay for it, then by all means. But I would have drawn the line at FREE.
It reminds me of that annoying customer who wants 1 pump of mocha but doesn’t want to pay for it. No, make that 1.5 pumps. How much can I get Starbucks to give me for nothing, and if they agree to give me an inch, well, heck, I’ll take a yard. Or, in this case, a one and a half gallons of Frap.
Forgetting the “waste” factor, I have two concerns about the “record setting” Starbucks order.
First, the card holder didn’t do anything to “set the record” other than knowing what the previous high dollar order was, and then ask the barista for enough items to exceed that dollar amount. It’s not as if the card holder had to prepare the drink herself; the Starbucks barista did that. And it’s not as if she had to drink the order; all she had to do was stage a photo opportunity in which she held the spout of the beverage container to her lips.
Second, no reward beverage should be served in a container that’s not a Starbucks standard-size container. That doesn’t seem unreasonable considering you’re getting the beverage at no cost.
Internally, Starbucks has really cracked down on enforcing their beverage policy since that last insane drink.
just to add… In the report I saw, it wasn’t actually a free reward for a gold card member. She supposedly used a recovery certificate which aggravates me even more.