Customer service is the pinnacle of any business. The interaction that staff has with customers can make or break a company. In the case of a deaf man ordering coffee at a coffee shop, this barista went above and beyond to make his experience the same as everyone else’s.
It’s fairly easy to have your Starbucks order messed up, and even easier when you’re deaf, but when Ibby Piracha walked into his local Starbucks, he received more than just his usual coffee. The barista working the counter slipped him a note with his cup that said “I’ve been learning ASL just so you can have the same experience as everyone else.”
Krystal Payne, a 24 year-old Pennsylvania native had only recently started working at her local Starbucks when she ran into Ibby, but it wasn’t at the cafe. She recognized him as a Starbucks regular while she was off the clock at a restaurant where she saw Ibby struggling to place his pizza order. She didn’t really see something like this happen at Starbucks, because he normally held out his phone with his order typed onto the screen, but it got her thinking.
After seeing the language barrier at the restaurant, she wanted to do something to make Ibby feel included. Payne knew some basic words in American Sign Language, but she took to the internet after she got home to come up with a few more so that she could sign to and understand what Ibby had ordered without the use of his phone. After she mastered a few phrases, she was happy that she could now at least ask the gentlman what he would like to drink in a way that he understands. The next time Ibby came in she slipped him the note.
“As I read through it, it shocked me.” said Ibby about receiving the note. He posted a photo of the note to social media with the caption “Oh I gotta love this place.”, and the post went viral. The next day when Krystal found out she was shocked. Something so seemingly insignificant had touched the world. There were some that would say that’s it’s silly and a waste of time for Krystal to spend extra hours learning another language just to serve one customer, but to that one customer it meant the world. Ibby even held on to the note and keeps it framed in his home, “It was something that was very inspirational so I wanted to keep it in a frame.”
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