Starbucks Hit With Tech Glitches, Disrupting Orders and Frustrating Customers

Online and to-go orders are a vital part of Starbucks’s business. Around 75% of Starbucks’s U.S. company store sales were placed through mobile ordering, on a delivery app or at drive-through windows in the three months ended April 3, the chain told investors last month.

Since returning to Starbucks in April, interim Chief Executive

Howard Schultz

has highlighted how much the company’s business has shifted toward to-go orders, in contrast to past years when customers would linger over coffee at tables. He has said that the company’s operations need to evolve to accommodate higher numbers of on-the-go customers, and has said changes will be made. The chain has around 9,000 company-owned stores in the U.S.

“The equipment in our stores and the layout of the stores have not been designed for the way customers are using our stores today,” Mr. Schultz said last month, speaking to investors. Mr. Schultz led Starbucks for decades and is now on his third stint running the company.

U.S. customers on Tuesday who placed online orders with Starbucks received confirmations that their local cafe had received the request, but baristas didn’t always immediately receive the orders, the messages from the company to store employees show.

“Our technologists are working super hard on getting this fixed,” the company wrote.

Anastasia Griffin, a Starbucks customer from East Brunswick, N.J., said it took more than an hour to get a Trenta Pink Drink and Impossible Breakfast Sandwich when she ordered it through the app from her local store earlier this week.

“I was just annoyed because it was such a tiny order,” Ms. Griffin said.

A Starbucks spokeswoman said that the chain this week experienced temporary outages in its mobile-order and inventory systems in its app, as well as its payment systems. The problems stemmed from unexpected interruptions in internal systems and with third-party vendor services, she said. The company worked quickly to resolve each outage, she said.

“A visit to Starbucks is an important part of our customer’s day, we apologize to our customers and partners for the inconvenience,” she said.

Starbucks said the issue with mobile ordering occurred across stores nationally Tuesday, and varied by market in how long it affected operations. The company updated the app to let customers know they couldn’t order ahead, and encouraged them to visit stores in person, a spokeswoman said. The issue was resolved later that day, she said.

Starbucks told workers Wednesday that it was separately having problems with its credit-card processing machines, and it was working to restore services. The company had an outage with its payment vendor for a short window and it was resolved, the spokeswoman said.

On Thursday, some Starbucks stores weren’t properly accounting for unavailable items online when customers placed their orders, according to a separate message the company sent to employees that day. The company said it was working to fix the issue as soon as possible and apologized.

Starbucks’s technical problems this week drew complaints from customers—and the chain’s own staff.

“Need Starbucks mobile ordering to start working again because I don’t even know how to order without the app,” a customer wrote on Twitter earlier this week.

One store manager requested on an internal message board that Starbucks shut down the mobile-order function for the day, given the problems, and asked company leaders why there had been so many technology issues lately.

“Hope we figure out the root cause soon, my partners are getting quite frustrated,” the store leader wrote, using the company’s term for employees.

Write to Heather Haddon at heather.haddon@wsj.com

Online and to-go orders are a vital part of Starbucks’s business. Around 75% of Starbucks’s U.S. company store sales were placed through mobile ordering, on a delivery app or at drive-through windows in the three months ended April 3, the chain told investors last month.

Since returning to Starbucks in April, interim Chief Executive

Howard Schultz

has highlighted how much the company’s business has shifted toward to-go orders, in contrast to past years when customers would linger over coffee at tables. He has said that the company’s operations need to evolve to accommodate higher numbers of on-the-go customers, and has said changes will be made. The chain has around 9,000 company-owned stores in the U.S.

“The equipment in our stores and the layout of the stores have not been designed for the way customers are using our stores today,” Mr. Schultz said last month, speaking to investors. Mr. Schultz led Starbucks for decades and is now on his third stint running the company.

U.S. customers on Tuesday who placed online orders with Starbucks received confirmations that their local cafe had received the request, but baristas didn’t always immediately receive the orders, the messages from the company to store employees show.

“Our technologists are working super hard on getting this fixed,” the company wrote.

Anastasia Griffin, a Starbucks customer from East Brunswick, N.J., said it took more than an hour to get a Trenta Pink Drink and Impossible Breakfast Sandwich when she ordered it through the app from her local store earlier this week.

“I was just annoyed because it was such a tiny order,” Ms. Griffin said.

A Starbucks spokeswoman said that the chain this week experienced temporary outages in its mobile-order and inventory systems in its app, as well as its payment systems. The problems stemmed from unexpected interruptions in internal systems and with third-party vendor services, she said. The company worked quickly to resolve each outage, she said.

“A visit to Starbucks is an important part of our customer’s day, we apologize to our customers and partners for the inconvenience,” she said.

Starbucks said the issue with mobile ordering occurred across stores nationally Tuesday, and varied by market in how long it affected operations. The company updated the app to let customers know they couldn’t order ahead, and encouraged them to visit stores in person, a spokeswoman said. The issue was resolved later that day, she said.

Starbucks told workers Wednesday that it was separately having problems with its credit-card processing machines, and it was working to restore services. The company had an outage with its payment vendor for a short window and it was resolved, the spokeswoman said.

On Thursday, some Starbucks stores weren’t properly accounting for unavailable items online when customers placed their orders, according to a separate message the company sent to employees that day. The company said it was working to fix the issue as soon as possible and apologized.

Starbucks’s technical problems this week drew complaints from customers—and the chain’s own staff.

“Need Starbucks mobile ordering to start working again because I don’t even know how to order without the app,” a customer wrote on Twitter earlier this week.

One store manager requested on an internal message board that Starbucks shut down the mobile-order function for the day, given the problems, and asked company leaders why there had been so many technology issues lately.

“Hope we figure out the root cause soon, my partners are getting quite frustrated,” the store leader wrote, using the company’s term for employees.

Write to Heather Haddon at heather.haddon@wsj.com