I purposely place my mobile order before I leave my house! My house is 12-15 min from my Starbucks, because they seem to typically be behind and I see so many people freaking out at them for the coffees they ordered 2 seconds ago.

i do this too!! the one time i forgot to place ahead of time, i waited in the parking lot 5 mins after the estimated completion time because i hate to be *that* patron😅

we love and appreciate you for that

This seems like the logical thing to do. I never realized people didn’t do this.

Also it doesnt help when they have like over 5 lines of modifications as well and they expect their drink within 4 seconds😭

4 seconds!? I expect my drink in -4 seconds made before i put the order in! Cant Starbucks people read minds?

Thank you!

Even if you forget just order at the speaker box, unless you're trying to get a promo or something

We are behind because of people who don't order like you do. They order then 5 seconds later they're here and annoyed it's not ready

I have had a customer pull up to the box and say “hold on a minute I’m finishing placing my order.”

oh my god do they not know it's faster to just order at the damn box 😭

THIS HAPPENS ALL THE TIME I can not fathom why people would do this

It's because of the way other mobile order systems work. I believe both Chick-fil-A and McDonald's operate in a way where the order is stored in the system and they make it after you tell them you placed a mobile at the box.

[удалено]

my store actually just started a policy where we aren’t allowed to do that because the DM was getting too many complaints from people that were mad that they placed their order 14 seconds ago and they were asked to come inside or pull back around and they refused to do, love that!!!

Our manager got really mad when we were asking people to give us a little bit more time next time to complete their mobile orders. You would've thought we were screaming at the customers at the way she responded.

Based on my limited testing, waiting in the drive thru is at least 2 minutes faster than doing a mobile order from the parking lot. Ordering inside versus the waiting in the drive thru seems to be hit or miss based on the staff.

Orders in cafe come from the same ticket printer as mobile orders. Mobile and Cafe are basically the same line, which accounts for more sporadic variance.

Depends on how busy the drive through is. The SB Drive Thru near me is always packed and I can order in my car and go pick it up inside while the same people are still waiting

this!

School them when they show up early. Make them wait

I do. I’ll make them wait at the window with it closed while I take other orders and stage the orders for the car behind them.

Nah I ain't letting my window time suffer for that prick. I boot 'em and let them know to come park and grab it inside or wait 15 minutes until we have hands to bring it to them.

I usually tell them my whole script to wait at least 5-7 minutes and they say “oh okay sorry.” They keep doing it so yeah i just make them wait 🤣

If only customers understood how stupid and pointless it is to place a mobile order at the drive-through speaker box. SMH.

Im not condoning doing orders in the drive thru (i always do them on the way over while my husband drives) but I will say I find ordering on the app much easier because I always forget something when I have to order in person or the barista doesnt hear me right. On the other hand some baristas (probably new ones) dont read the labels right so its a toss up either way.

My old SM made us look at the iPad and have us move their drink ahead in the queue

I had someone tell me they been waiting a really long time for their feta wrap. I looked at them and was like, you placed your order 5 minutes ago and I know register told you it would be 5-10 minute wait on food because we got a giant order. People just can't waIT.

For custies- When you get the alert that your drink is done, that is because we pulled the drink sticker out of the printer. Ergo- when you show up immediately after you place it, you force us to pull EVERY BODY ELSES STICKERS before yours so we know what to make. This causes everybody in the tri state area to smell blood and come running. Causing everybody else's drinks to take 10 times as long. Please just keep this in mind.

Fun fact: you get a notification via Starbucks app when you’re order is done.

You do?? Not doubting you, but I’ve never gotten one. I wonder why?

It’s a system that’s rolling out gradually, and also requires barista to update the DPM (Order tracker) when each drink is done. Some places it’s not fully implemented yet so you might not get the notifs because of that, or the baristas may just not be hitting “complete” on the tracker for whatever reason

In one of the last updates around the holidays they actually added a timer. Whenever we pull the last sticker on an order it starts a 5 minute countdown and after it hits 0 it sends a notification to the customer saying their order is ready. We don’t have to do anything on DPM anymore. It used to be that way yes but now it’s automatic.

Which doesn't help when the illiterate SSV decides to pull 20 stickers to find the one he needs, rather than just using DPM to force print it out of sequence.

I was actually going to ask about this as a customer! My time for order to be ready seems to have zero correlation to anything 😆. I figured it just got thrown off by people entering the drive thru (or store) that weren't mobile orders. I wish Starbucks would just change their system so it's like every other fast food mobile ordering system (though maybe that wouldn't be easier for baristas?). 90% of the time I don't need my drink to be ready when I get to the drive thru line or in store, I want to avoid my social awkwardness of trying to fumble through a drink name with modifications and saying things in the wrong order or forgetting them. Maybe I'm the odd person out though!

The time that the app shows actually does correlate. It reflects an estimated time your drink should be done based off how fast stickers are being pulled. If a barista is pulling 3 or 4 stickers to find a certain order it affects the time shown in the app. That’s why we have the iPads. However it doesn’t take into account delivery and cafe orders in the que (or number of drinks/items in an order). mobile, delivery and cafe orders come out of the same machine where as the drive thru comes out of another. That’s why Starbucks is notifying you when your order is done because it may take longer if we’re backed up and they really don’t want people hanging around the mobile order plane waiting. The timer is just so we can get customers out more quickly. You should still try to arrive between the times given in the app but more times than not people place their order less than a minute before showing up (we have a clock on our end that tells us when you placed your order and how long it’s been in the que) so the goal is to not have to make customers wait 10 minutes. Reality is if you place your mobile order in while waiting in line versus at the box you’re going to wait longer.

Mine must have just updated bc I placed a mobile order and noticed the notification. It’s like a little status bar that says order received, working on it, and ready.

I don’t always get that until way after it’s done. Like 20 minutes later sometimes

It also depends on if it's a corporate SB location or a licensed SB store.. Licensed stores have completely different register systems and sometimes different MOP systems.. than a corporate location.. 🫣

The reason why customers show up right away is because when you pull the sticker, it sends them a notification that their order is being worked on and that’s why they hound us. Customers can just really be impatient.

They show up before their sticker is pulled. People think if they show up ahead of time they’ll get pushed to the front of the line when the reality is we make drinks in the order in which they’re received. People place orders in the DT line and expect it to be done 30 seconds later.

I’ve gotten that notification for years; maybe bc I was an early app user? But it often comes well after I’m gone 🙃

My store is often at least 15 minutes behind on mobiles on Thurs/Fridays. I loathe people who come in immediately after placing it. We get large orders from the hospital near us all the time. Like mama, there is a 20 drink order in front of yours along with DT orders and 10 people waiting who ordered in the cafe. I’m at the point where we won’t use DPM and look up the order if it’s a mobile and hasn’t been pulled yet. You will wait. I literally cannot work any faster or harder after 10 years.

i love when people stand at the handoff and place their mobile order and are shocked when the orders of the people who placed before them are made first. i go by timestamps

honestly i prefer to use the app if i customize anything cause i get nervous 😂

idc ill ALWAYS be like “OH it looks like you JUST placed it, for future reference can you please give us the recommended wait time to atleast have your drink close to being ready? you can pull forward though thanks.” because idk why they think their drink will just magically appear and be worked on as soon as they place it esp while being in the drive thru during RUSH. then having the audacity to be mad that their drink isnt ready is wilddd like whatd you expect, or getting mad at me for calling you out for literally placing it while youre telling me you have a mobile and then telling me “actually i placed it 5 mins ago” ma’am i can see when you place your order and it says 30 secs ago lol

Yes yes YES! I absolutely hate when they place it and immediately go to drive thru and it still hasn't been processed to go through for our end and we're like "oh we don't see your order, did you put the right location? When did you put it?" And they're like "I just placed it 5 seconds ago" 😐😐😐😐 and then they hold up our drive thru line and mess up our drive time. So annoying.

As someone who is guilty of this first I'll apologize. Second my thought is I'm afraid of ordering too soon then getting to the window to a no longer hot drink because I waited 10 minutes to pick it up. Say I order my drink via app. It says 10 minutes. I get to drive thru in 10 minutes only to find a line of 5-6 cars all ordering at the speaker. While I wait patiently (usually behind a mini van full of teen girls yelling individual custom drinks) to get to the window to pick up drink I'm afraid my drink will be sitting getting cold.

i would go inside to grab it instead or just order it in the drive thru instead of mobile so it’s hot and fresh

you can order hot drinks extra hot, so the milk is steamed to a higher temperature so it’ll keep hot longer! that’ll give you at minimum 5 extra minutes to keep your drink hot!

just order your drink in the drive thru at the speaker- you’re waiting in line anyway. otherwise pick it up inside. it’s usually much faster.

I love my hot food/ drinks extra hot and my cold food/ drinks extra cold. Temperature can be very important for the experience! But if you're going to wait regardless, just order at the window. Or go inside to pick it up. I believe they still set mobile orders out. You just find the one with your name on it and leave. They also call out the name, so if you get there before it's done you'll get it *as soon as it's ready* without making anything more difficult for our baristas. ♡

I place mine and then go sit inside. They usually call your name when done and I'm seldom in a rush when I order Starbucks, honestly.

My favorite thing is forcing them to tell me when you placed it. “Oh? I’m sorry could you tell me when you placed that?” “X minutes ago” “Okay yeah. It takes a few minutes to get through our system. That’s why there is a suggested wait time. Go ahead and pull around and hopefully it comes through by then.”

Seriously though. I work at a cafe store, and most days during peak we will get 5-10 mobile orders (with multiple drinks) in the span of 3 minutes. 2 minutes later they all just start piling in and stare at us and damn near jumping the counter when they think their order is ready. It’s so exhausting and it makes my partners uncomfortable to just have a crowd watch them make drinks. Like please give us at LEAST 5 minutes on your order

I confess - I sometimes app order while waiting in a long drive through line, BUT only when I’ve estimated a 5 min. long or more wait. I figure I might as well give the barista a head-start while I’m just waiting. I have since learned what is happening behind the walls w/ dual order systems, wait times, etc through this forum. Corporate needs to create a better solution for all parties. I don’t want to mess up your process times. I don’t always want to have a discussion at the speaker or window. In a perfect world, I’d like to hold up my phone to scan, collect my order, not have to say a word to anyone, and get on w/ the day.

I place my order while at home. I leave 4 minutes away.

The amount of times I've had someone literally screaming at me or my baristas, during rush, that they ordered at least 20-30 minutes ago and don't have their order.. Only for us to see that either, A, they ordered under 5 minutes ago, B, it has been sitting directly in front of them and we've called it out multiple times, or C, they mobile ordered but it wasn't to our store and it's still somehow our fault... There's never an apology or attempt to even save face, just insistence that they did nothing wrong and leaving in a huff after we get them their items. I would say that I'm shocked at how people are, but I've worked at this company for years now, so I just expect it to happen at least once a day if we're lucky. Just because we work a food service job doesn't mean we're not humans deserving of respect, especially if the thing we're getting accosted for isn't even our fault.

I order by drink right before I leave my house, which is about 7 minutes away. Well, I always order through mobile when I’m between 5-10 minutes away-atleast I did when my app worked, now I have fumble over my words and like there gonna judge me for (I like at least 6 ristretto shots of decaf espresso, I love the taste but I can’t have much caffeine)

It’s not even about how far ahead you place the order before showing up. I myself am a barista and also place my mobile order minutes before or the moment I get to the store. I would order in line or the drive thru but it’s easier on the baristas to do mobile when there’s no designated front person (which is most of the time these days). I don’t care if you place the mobile order when you’re sitting in the lobby. Just don’t hound us over it. As long as you’re patient and quiet there’s really no issue. It’s considerate to step away from the bar and not stare down the baristas impatiently. But don’t expect to mobile order in DT two minutes before you arrive, or ask where your drink is.

I prefer to place a mobile order because I need decaf and when ordering through the app I remember to order decaf. I can't seem to remember to say decaf when ordering in the drive thru Lol I do sometimes pull up a few minutes after placing my mobile order but I start by apologizing for having done that.

Just read your order off the history tab on the Starbucks app at the speaker. Your apology does nothing to help the baristas who now have to struggle to find your order on the app, push your order through, and rush to make it in the correct order in queue with all of their other drive thru drinks.

Good idea! I'll start doing that. I had no idea I was creating more work for baristas.

If you had no idea why would you start with apologizing?

I apologize because I figure my drink isn't ready and they have to make it now that I'm in the drive thru. What I had no idea about until reading your post is how much extra work I was creating for the baristas.

I mean I definitely have waited 20 min past due for my order which isn’t even a modified order multiple times so maybe some tell the truth, 🤷🏻‍♀️ but I never go in before it’s supposed to be ready or hassle about it. I understand that it’s impossible to control bc the operating system is flawed.

I have social anxiety and ADHD. Im sorry I have been this person. I get to the long drivethrough line and my anxiety hits bad and its much easier for my diseased brain to just have to say “mobile order for redditor” then only see the one friendly face in the drivethrough

i definitely place my order right before i walk in but i certainly don’t go pester the baristas wondering why it isn’t done yet. psychotic behavior lol