Once a week or so, I’ll get an email or comment from a Starbucks barista about the Starbucks Challenge. This granola-hater aside (see comments), most of these baristas say they like the challenge, but that they wanna clarify some issues.

Take Alexander Horre, for example, a barista and Univ. of San Francisco student who emailed me late October. He clarified that, yes, baristas should offer customers a French-pressed cup of fair trade coffee upon request — and added that this policy goes for ANY blend, pretty much, unless the store’s running low on it.

If anything, Alexander sounded psyched about the challenge. “I like your campaign,” he wrote, adding that if a customer requests fair trade when the store’s already about to rebrew a brewer, “we at times will use the entire bag for brew! My store does it all the time.”

But here’s the kicker: Alexander says “this policy is only as good as the Store Manager, or Supervisor on duty.”

Of course, there are corporate checks in place. He noted that stores get secret shopped, as well as graded on the customer comments. He says at his store, monthly comment-reviews get posted. “Legendary Service always,” Alexander writes. “If it doesn’t happen, request a mission review card and send it to Starbucks. They see them, and will put the foot down on that store.”

Hmmm… I have no doubt that Alexander himself is an uber-motivated barista, and that his store works hard to provide “legendary service.” But what about Sharon’s report? Sharon sent in a complaint comment card and heard nothing. And what about the mechanized, form responses to my email compaints to Starbucks’ headquarters about problems going on in the specific stores around me?

Even after getting two LA-based district managers’ email addresses from Cindy of Starbucks, I’ve yet to hear back regarding my complaints about the stores’ fair-trade-unfriendliness. And that’s just for the managers to whom I sent personal, empassioned emails (Hello Christine! Hello Brenda!) . Cindy also says she’s been following up with the stores that failed the challenge, to make sure that things improve in the future. Have I heard from any of them? No.

I asked Cindy of Starbucks on Monday if there were any corporate procedures or guarantees in place that mandated — or at least asked — managers to get back to consumers regarding complaints. She didn’t know, but said she’d back to me about it.

I hope she does.

Filed in: starbuckschallenge coffee csr fair-trade fairtrade starbucks losangeles california

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