(Yicai) June 21 -- Manner Coffee, a Chinese chain of affordable takeout coffee, is mired in online scandals as two separate incidents this week reveal tussles between overworked employees and clients, pointing to shortcomings in management.

Following a conflict at Shanghai's Weihai Road store on June 17, a worker threw coffee powder on a client, a video clip circulating online shows.

The chain of self-operated stores, known for high-quality Yunnan coffee and a high workload per employee, learned about the incident a couple of days later and will seriously handle the situation, the Shanghai-based company said to local media yesterday. The worker has been fired, it added.

Another clip from the same day was circulating on social media as an employee of a different outlet in Shanghai had a physical conflict with a client.

Manner Coffee is often criticized due to slow delivery. Another customer said to Yicai that the Weihai Road store "is possibly the slowest Manner Coffee store across Shanghai." "I ordered a cup of coffee around 9.40 a.m., and when arriving there at 10 a.m. I still had to wait for 10 minutes," the person said.

Work conditions are intense. Coming late for work or asking for a leave due to personal reasons will cause you to lose a bonus of CNY1,000 (USD138), an employee who once made 500 cups of coffee alone in eight hours said on social media. A store delivering about 500 cups of coffee per day generally has about three workers so things get quite intense during peak hours, the person added.

Manner Coffee's incidents show that issues exist in the services industry, so management and service quality need to be improved, industry professionals said, adding that companies should seek and rectify management loopholes to ensure stable and healthy development.

Founded in 2015, Manner Coffee received investments from Capital Today, H Capital, and Temasek and started accelerating its pace of store openings in 2018. The firm positions itself as an affordable maker of specialty coffee and each cup costs between CNY15 and CNY20 (USD2 to USD3). As of June 20, the chain had nearly 1,300 stores, per catering industry data provider Canyandata.Com.

Editor: Emmi Laine