Starbucks recently sent an email to all members of their soon to be discontinued Starbucks Gold program explaining the new My Starbucks Rewards program we’ll be switched to on January 6th. From the email:
Every time you use your new Gold Level Starbucks Card, you earn a Star. And every 15 Stars, we’ll send you a coupon for a free drink.
Send out a coupon by mail? That seems inefficient and worse, wasteful. Even if we’re talking email the coupon would still have to be printed. Allowing the cashier to notify the customer that their next drink is free when 14 drinks are reached seems a much better solution. Even the old school method of punching out visits on a single membership card would be preferable.
For a company that at least attempts to give the appearance of trying to be decent this seems like a step in the wrong direction.