Blathr Wayne Lorentz

What is Blathr?

Customer “service”

Sunday, October 16th, 2022 Alive 18,800 days

An e-mail from Starbucks

Today I had the misfortune of trying to use Starbucks customer service. I donʼt know which middle manager got a big bonus out of this scheme, but do hope that someday that person has to use the system he set up. Itʼs a masterpiece of outsourcing failure.

I placed an order on the Starbucks web site to send an e-gift card to someone. Immediately, I received an e-mail receipt. A few minutes later, I received an e-mail stating that “We were unable to process your eGift Card order from Starbucks.”

I placed the order again. Once again, the receipt came immediately. Then the same automated processing failure letter.

I tried once more, the next day, with a different payment card. Same story.

Finally, I decided to call the phone number. After all, customer service is available seven days a week. It turns out all that means is that the phone number is answered seven days a week. It doesnʼt mean anything can be done to fix the problem.

After being transferred three times, and reading the order number to three different people, I was finally informed that all the people who answer the phone are allowed to do is send an e-mail to another department letting them know that I'd like to place an order.

Eventually I received another e-mail from Starbucks “customer service:”

We were unable to reprocess your Gift Card order.
However, if you are still in need of a gift card we recommend replacing your order.

Good idea. As suggested, I “replaced” my order. I replaced my Starbucks gift card order with one for an Amazon.com gift card.

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