I was in Sevenoaks recently and nipped in to Costa for a lovely cup of coffee. At the checkout I was nicely offered the usual food upsell and was then asked if I had a Loyalty Card. I didn't, so was given a shiny new one which I put into my wallet.
Since then I have been to two Costa outlets, both in Motorway services. Imagine my surprise to see signs in both of these places "Sorry, we don't accept Costa Loyalty Cards here due to us being a franchise!
Now, call me old-fashioned but I thought it might have been quite important to honour the trust that a customer has in a brand by offering a similar experience in every branded outlet. Why destroy that brand loyalty by making some of their outlets different? And what does it say about the level of support that the franchisor is giving to the franchisee?
Arguably Starbucks is an even stronger brand than Costa so surely they wouldn't entertain this kind of approach? Well, at the weekend I was in the Midlands and happened to venture into a Starbucks on another motorway service station. I ordered my coffee and went to the till where there was a sign that said they were sorry that they were unable to accept Starbucks Loyalty Cards, due to them being a franchise! I couldn't believe it!
Whilst all this was happening, I received an email from one of our friends, Jurek Leon, who is a customer service guru in Australia. He was over here recently and was surprised to experience the same thing as me. He went a step further and took a photo of one of these signs, which you can see above, and commented that he has seen the same thing happening in Australia with other retail groups.
Jurek puts it quite nicely when he says:
"Smart franchisees realise that any losses they incur are more than made up for with the opportunity to make the businesses operating under their brand the preferred choice for their customers. So, if you are involved in franchising make sure this doesn’t happen in your group."
I couldn't agree more, Jurek!
