After Manner employees collapsed, Luckin workers couldn't sit still

After the three Manner incidents fermented, the memories of many Luckin employees were evoked. The pressure they were under was not only from customers, but also from quality control. Is this really how competition among service industry brands should be?

After the three Manner incidents fermented, the memories of many Luckin employees were also awakened by this horror, not from customers, but from quality control.

Because Luckin’s quality control audit scores are crucial to the store’s performance; and in order to be well prepared for the inspections, employees set up intelligence networks, transformed themselves into acrobats, sealed all items… but they could still be caught by the other party on the floor, aprons, triple pools, etc.

The strict quality control inspections make Luckin Coffee employees both love and fear the product. However, assessments such as production timeliness and store labor efficiency also make the employees suffer. They all complain that they have become slaves and NPCs making coffee.

Manner and Luckin Coffee employees are under tremendous pressure, which seems to be due to the internal competition in the coffee industry. In order to ensure revenue and profit growth, brands can only sacrifice the interests of employees in exchange for cost reduction.

However, competition among service industry brands is ultimately a competition among people. Is blindly exploiting employees really the way to win?

1. I am afraid that you will not come, but I am also afraid that you will mess around

Manner has been at the center of controversy because of conflicts between store employees and customers in three consecutive stores, all caused by the speed of serving food: one wanted it faster, and the other also wanted it faster.

After the incident fermented, workers at Luckin Coffee, Cudi and other coffee shops expressed physical discomfort and recalled the fear of being dominated by urging orders; but for many Luckin Coffee employees, the most terrifying thing may not be the urging orders, but the quality control in-store audits.

In the eyes of some Luckin employees, waiting for the quality control to come to the store for an audit is like a girl waiting for her period: afraid that it won’t come, but also afraid that it will be messy. After all, the quality control score determines both victory and defeat, and life and death.

The clerk Kumi told Pang Ge: "A score below 80 is not up to standard. Store managers and full-time employees will basically be demoted or fired, but the standards in different branches are different. We only meet the standard with a score of 92. Others will be given a warning, demoted, or have their performance deducted."

At the same time, Kumi also said: "If there are serious problems in the store, such as insects on the surface of food, the score will be deducted directly from 80 points, so as long as there is a little problem, the employee may be fired directly."

In order to cope with the sudden visit of quality control, the nervous Luckin employees not only established an intelligence exchange network to share the real-time location and inspection focus of quality control, but also made deployments in advance for possible inspections.

For example, some shop assistants transform themselves into acrobats and go into various corners of the store to clean. Not only do they demonstrate their flexibility through their actions, they may also inadvertently cosplay a crime scene.

On the other hand, in order to prevent the materials from falling dust and being deducted points, some stores have sealed the ice machines, syrups, etc. with plastic wrap. Some netizens said: "Sealing everything is going crazy."

However, even if the store is well prepared, the clerk may still be frightened by a customer with the same name as the quality control officer during business operations, and instantly have a stress response and start to self-check for high risks.

Why do many Luckin employees turn pale when talking about quality control? In addition to the heavy penalties, it seems to be due to the strict and meticulous inspections.

For example, shop assistant A Fei said: "When the quality control came, the store was overwhelmed with orders. I was in a hurry to add ice cubes and accidentally splashed a drop of milk on the water machine next to me. I was about to wipe it off with a rag, but the quality control said wait, wait until he finished taking the photo before wiping it off."

Other netizens said: "There was a chip on the store floor, but the quality control inspection recorded that it had not been repaired." "Some quality control even deducted points for thread ends on aprons." "Dirt on the triplex pool will be deducted points, but how can a triplex pool in operation be free of dirt?"

In addition, excessive tension during quality control inspections can also cause blunders. Employee A Wei told Brother Pan: "During a quality control audit at a store, a bottle of orange juice was not defrosted in the first-in-first-out system, so they just hid it in a backpack in the employee area. After the quality control inspection, when they were about to write a report, they opened the backpack and found a bottle of orange juice. When they took the temperature, they found that the temperature exceeded the standard.

2. NPC who makes coffee

The meticulous quality control audits have made Luckin's employees miserable. One employee said: "I don't think the current quality control is for food safety, it's just for the sake of deducting points." "Some of Luckin's food safety regulations are simply taking off pants to fart."

However, some netizens refuted: "If there is no formalism of quality control, the food safety awareness of Luckin employees may not even be half of what it is now." "It seems that Luckin is really hygienic, so I will feel at ease drinking it."

In addition to the fear of quality control audits, some of Luckin's other regulations also made many store employees complain: "I feel like a black slave."

For example, regarding the assessment of the timeliness of production, a store clerk said: "Most of the orders in the Northeast in winter are hot. How slow is the speed of the machine dripping coffee liquid and steam? Have you ever calculated how slow the machine drips coffee liquid and steam? Those who make the rules have done it yourself?"

On the other hand, in order to improve timeliness, some store clerks scan the codes of unfinished drinks in advance, and then apologize and explain to the customers and riders when they come to pick up the food, so as to avoid receiving bad reviews.

The timeliness of production seems to be related to the number of people in the store in addition to the employees' hand speed. Luckin's current control over labor efficiency makes many employees feel like they have taken Xuanmai and can never stop working.

For example, a Luckin employee said: "The shift duration is related to the number of orders. If the number of orders is low, the total working hours will be less, and if the working hours are less, there will be fewer people on shift. Now, in order to meet the labor efficiency standards, we can only let fewer people work."

At the same time, employee Xiaomi told Brother Pan: "Quality control scoring, as well as assessments such as labor efficiency and loss management, will affect the income of store employees. Once I went to another store for half a day to provide support, and I earned more than I did in my own store in a whole day."

The clerk Juzi also told Brother Pan: "The order volume of our store is quite large. Since it is a branch in a school, we will collect orders in a certain period of time. So there is one person in line before 10 o'clock and three people in line after 12 o'clock. One morning, I was on duty alone and made 82 drinks in one hour."

For Luckin Coffee employees, opening the shop early alone can be very stressful; closing the shop alone can be even more painful.

For example, one netizen said: "I am most afraid of closing the store by myself. I have to take photos and record videos, and wash small utensils and coffee machines. Although the store closes at 6 o'clock, I can only leave at 8 o'clock. It's like working overtime for the company."

3. Is coffee a good business?

Why do workers in Luckin Coffee stores call themselves slaves? The most fundamental reason seems to be the internal competition in the coffee industry, which has forced it to reduce costs.

Since 2023, Luckin Coffee launched the "9.9" discount, and many people who were living on hard-earned money have since achieved coffee freedom. After that, Kudi Coffee quickly followed suit and launched similar discount activities, which together brought down the price of coffee.

This low-price strategy has promoted Luckin's development. The financial report shows that in 2022, 2023 and the first quarter of 2024, Luckin achieved revenue of 13.293 billion yuan, 24.903 billion yuan and 6.278 billion yuan, respectively, a year-on-year increase of 66.89%, 87.34% and 41.5%, respectively.

On the other hand, in terms of the number of stores: as of the end of 2022, Luckin Coffee had a total of 8,214 stores, and added 8,034 stores in 2023, almost doubling the number at the end of 2022; by the first quarter of 2024, Luckin Coffee had added another 2,342 stores, bringing the total number of stores to 18,590.

However, Luckin's growth in operating income and number of stores did not help it win, but instead put it under greater pressure.

The financial report shows that in the first quarter of 2024, Luckin's total operating expenses reached 6.343 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 68.8%; among them, raw material costs increased by 67.8%, rent and labor expenses increased by 105.6%, and depreciation and amortization expenses increased by 139.2%, all of which were higher than its revenue growth rate.

In order to reduce costs and increase revenue, Luckin Coffee seems to be actively seeking changes. For example, in terms of cost reduction measures, Luckin Coffee reduced the number of optional products with a "9.9 yuan" discount to 8 at the beginning of 2024.

From the perspective of increasing revenue, Luckin Coffee did not stick to the coffee market, but launched new products such as black coconut water and prune iron, which gave people who are used to drinking coffee a little shock.

Nowadays, competition in the coffee industry is intensifying. Data from Zhaimen Canyan shows that as of June 10, 2024, 87,630 new coffee stores were opened in the industry in the past year, of which 50,328 were net increases, and 37,302 stores were closed in one year, accounting for about 40% of the total number of new stores opened.

It can be seen that although the coffee industry is growing rapidly, the elimination rate is also alarmingly high. Will those companies that treat employees as tools and only think about exploiting them as much as possible be the final winners?

Author: Brother Pang; Source public account: IQ Tax Research Center (ID: 1089356)