Why does coffee handling at Sisyphe frustrate baristas and customers?

Sisyphe Bookstore's coffee areas are under scrutiny after a customer said staff pitched recharge cards three times during a single visit. Employees report that failing to meet card sales targets brings surveillance screenshots, overtime, or meetings. The company-wide sales mandate has turned a simple coffee stop into a repeated pitch, souring the experience for regulars and staff alike.

Customers come to Sisyphe for a quiet space to read and work over coffee, yet repeated card pitches interrupt that. Longtime regulars say they understand occasional KPI-driven card offers, but the frequency has grown. Some now say the harder the push, the less inclined they are to recharge, which puts baristas in an awkward spot.

Recently, a post about a Sisyphe Books coffee shop forcing employees to push recharge cards has sparked heated discussion on social media. The customer who posted said that while spending money in the store, she was pitched recharge cards by staff three times, which greatly diminished her experience. However, after learning that the clerk was repeatedly pushing the cards under pressure from the company, this regular customer shifted to sympathizing with the worker and said bluntly that the brand should not make things so hard for its employees. Many Sisyphe staff also helplessly said that if they do not push sales as required, they will be reported with surveillance screenshots or even forced to work overtime and attend meetings. This conflict caused by sales pitches is trapping both customers and employees in a difficult situation.

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Recently, a post titled "Sisyphe, please spare your baristas and staff" has attracted the attention of many netizens on social media.

The poster is a regular customer of Sisyphe Books. Not long ago, when she took her child to the coffee area in the store, a clerk came up to her three separate times to pitch recharge cards. This experience made her feel disturbed, and her consumption experience was greatly diminished. But when she learned that the clerk's sales pitch was actually a mandatory company rule, this regular customer could not help but feel deep sympathy for the worker, and said bluntly that the brand should "stop making things so hard for your own employees."

From the consumer's standpoint, most people walk into Sisyphe Books for a quiet and comfortable environment where they can drink coffee while reading or working. But when a clerk suddenly comes to the table with a recharge sign and pitches again and again, it is inevitably irritating and greatly damages their impression of the store.

In addition, some regular customers mentioned that in the past, because Sisyphe employees had KPI assessments, everyone could understand occasional card-pushing, and sometimes they would recharge appropriately according to their own needs. But now the pitches are becoming more and more frequent, not only affecting customers spending in the store, but also possibly triggering resistance, making people think, "The more they push, the less I want to recharge."

Faced with consumer feedback, Sisyphe employees also feel helpless, admitting that some familiar customers have gradually reduced how often they visit because they do not want to be disturbed by sales pitches. They said that at present, in order to improve store profitability, headquarters forcibly requires employees to pitch recharge cards to customers in the store. Therefore, regardless of whether customers need to recharge or will refuse, as soon as they see customers coming to order or pay, they must repeat the pitch three times.

Many clerks admit that they do not like this kind of sales task and can understand customers' annoyance and dissatisfaction. But they revealed that if they do not pitch to customers multiple times as the company requires, management personnel checking surveillance may catch their "lazy moments," and then "directly post surveillance screenshots in a group chat with hundreds of people," or "if you do not push the cards, you have to work overtime at night and be pulled into a little dark room for a meeting."

Because of this, the baristas who are suffering greatly, upon seeing regular customers speak up for them, thanked the customers one after another for speaking out, and explained the company's unreasonable system to other passersby who did not know the truth. At the same time, some people in the comments section begged onlookers to complain about the frequent sales pitches in the store, and others left messages guiding netizens willing to help on how to report it to customer service.

In their view, if users all gave feedback through customer service channels about their disgust and resentment toward store employees' repeated sales pitches, company management might notice, due to the surge in complaints, how unreasonable the current operating policy is and how much it affects the mood of normal paying customers. Perhaps it could improve the in-store environment and also reduce the work pressure on workers.

Image source: Xiaohongshu

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The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.