I’ve done it! Yep, after three years – well, actually, it must be longer than three years now I come to think of it – I have managed to gather nine stamps on my Caffe Nero loyalty card AND find a Caffe Nero to go and get my free coffee in. Wahey. This would have been easier if the nearest branch wasn’t in England, and if I ever actually went out for coffee anywhere anyway, but I feel absurdly pleased that I – who can lose anything – have managed not only to hang on to such an easily mislaid little card but also remembered to get it out and use it nine times in a row.
Well, actually, make that eight. Because I do remember an incident at Euston on one of my trips when, hot and bothered and laden with stuff, I nipped into the branch there for a frappe-wotsit (normally I’m a strict ‘just a coffee’ sort of customer but it was stinking hot) and managed to pick up the flimsy plastic cup it came in, squeeze too hard, shoot ice-cold coffee all over myself, the counter and the floor and then somehow fail to find a hole to open up in the earth to hide in afterwards. The girl behind the counter, bless her, not only made me another one but stamped my card twice in sympathy. It’s service like that, not buy-nine-and-get-the-tenth-one-free schemes that really build loyalty at the end of the day.
That said, I’ve already got my second card and my first stamp so in a year or seven, I may be in line for my next free coffee.
I can hardly wait.
And the reason why the do the not buy-nine-and-get-the-tenth-one-free schemes is the free advertising they get on top of the brand loyalty it can build
I’d do better at free advertising if I could reliably remember its name – I had to look it up, all I have in my head is that I’ve got a loyalty card for ‘the blue one’.
We have the same problem with airlines. One trip to Japan would theoretically get us a bazillion loyalty points, but we never get them because they will have elapsed by the time we can afford to fly to Japan again, and we’ll probably go with a different airline next time anyway because we go for the cheapest, well the cheapest which doesn’t still use biplanes anyway.
I hear you about brand loyalty. I will not patronise the Taco Villa, but cleave loyally to Poco Taco. I will Big Mac on occasion, but I don’t Burger King. Papa John’s may make better pizza, but I persist in ordering from Domino’s. While I’d Whattaburger any day of the week, I will desert them for chicken fingers, because the Dairy Queen has better “dunkin’” gravy.