Starbucks baristas and die-hard customers are demanding changes from CEO Brian Niccol, who has just managed to reassure investors that coffee is still popular in the US, Reuters reports.

Baristas have been complaining for years understaffingpoor pay and benefits, and their inability to deny entry to troublesome customers.

Shop patrons consistently want good coffee.

It is recalled that on Tuesday, after Starbucks reported down 6% in their fourth-quarter US store sales and carried forward their profit forecast into the next financial year, Niccol said baristas must be supported to provide “great service” to customers.

“To succeed, we need to strengthen staff in our stores, reduce crowding and simplify things for our baristas“, the CEO said in a statement.

Baristas are called upon to “tame” customers

Liv Ryan, a barista and union worker at a Starbucks in Long Island, New York, said Niccol should put “an end to staff coming and going».

He said baristas have long balked at Starbucks’ lack of guidance on how to deal with grumpy customers.

“I have been told countless times that part of our job is simply to deal with rude customersRyan said. “But there is no clear dividing line between rude and unfriendly. Even then I shouldn’t tolerate someone being rude to me at my job».

Several other baristas who are part or who aim to be part of the new union Starbucks Workers Unitedwant to see Starbucks complete the contract negotiation process with workers. “Tall i’m looking for is a collective bargaining agreement until the end of the yearsaid Parker Davis, a union worker at a Starbucks in San Antonio.

Niccol said in the video that he will reveal more details about the company’s earnings forecast on Oct. 30, after Starbucks reports results for the fourth quarter and full year.

“We suspect there are many ways he (Niccol) will attack the workers, such as by increasing the working hours in the shopssaid William Blair analyst Sharon Zackfia.

Customer complaints

As for the coffee itself, it’s over-roasted, according to a Starbucks patron who went by the name Winter.

Winter, who has visited more from 19,000 locations of Starbucks around the world in an effort to visit every corporate-owned location, said he still enjoys the atmosphere at Starbucks — at least when there’s no morning rush — but these days he hasn’t found the coffee he wants.

He liked it in 1997he says, but Starbucks has since made its menu much more complex with specialty coffee orders. “And getting a fancy drink doesn’t mean I’m enjoying it anymore».