Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol has spent more than a year turning around Starbucks. A Reddit thread made him feel that the effort was worth it.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal released Monday, Niccol talked about his “Back to Starbucks” plan, which involved getting the brand back on track after several quarters of poor sales.
As part of his plan, he has tried to make Starbucks cafés warm and inviting third places, and made several changes to that effect. He introduced more seating and dine-in areas, offered free coffee and tea refills, and made baristas handwrite friendly notes on coffee cups.
Niccol told host Alan Murray, president of The WSJ Leadership Institute, that there was one moment when he felt that his plan was working.
He said that he was reading a Reddit thread about people going through the interview process for a role at Starbucks, who asked questions like, “What’s one of the questions I should be prepared for?”
Niccol saw that people had responded, “You better be prepared to talk about how you like customer service.”
“And so when I saw that in the Reddit thread, I was like, OK, we’re making progress on what the standard of service is that we want,” he said.
While Business Insider cannot confirm which exact thread Niccol was referring to, it saw that similar conversations had taken place on the r/Starbucks subreddit.
Starbucks had previously been criticized by employees and customers alike for feeling like a soulless conglomerate chain. Customers reported long wait times and subpar products, which were detracting from the brand’s reputation.
It’s now been more than a year into Niccol’s tenure. The chain reported a 1% increase in its global comparable sales for the fourth quarter of 2025, compared to the same period last year.
Its stock price is down about 6% since the start of the year.
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