While I'm occasionally offered refills at no charge at my local independent coffee shop, I'm never offered free drinks at either that establishment or my local Starbucks Corporation (NADSAQ:SBUX) outlet. (And I'm nice, really I am!) Yet many customers, if a recent thread at Starbucks Gossip is any indication, are. One (must be extremely nice) customer writes in to say that she's comped as much as 2/3 of her drinks.The post started quite a discussion about free beverages, with one angry district manager writing in to claim that this was theft, and if he were their boss, he'd fire the whole lot of 'em. Some other equally angry and righteous commenters agreed, but the general consensus was that occasional free beverages were good for business -- "Surprise and Delight" 'em, the concept goes, and they'll keep coming back and spending their money in your store. And putting lots of extra bills in your tip jar!
Sure, if a customer is getting most of her drinks free, and putting the $2 in the tip jar instead of the till, that equation is pretty straightforward: sorry guys, that's just a tiny bit of bad ethics there. But a once-a-week freebie for great customers or even (as one barista mentioned) confused out-of-towners? I'm thinking that it will serve to increase business and customer goodwill.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
12-08-2006 @ 8:14AM
Jim Catron said...
There is "no free" coffee. Everything should be intentional. "Complimentary" coffee in limited quanity may be a loss-leader or simply a way to let people think that they are getting something for nothing. There must be careful follow up on what you do if you want to stay in business. Good customer relations means that you think about staying in business in the future to be of service to your customers.
12-09-2006 @ 3:43PM
Mark said...
Starbucks is without question one of the most poorly run businesses in America.
Anybody who has ever visited one of their locations has seen most of us pouring "excess" coffee out as we load sugar etc into the cup. It's got to be 1-2% waste.
And forcing drip coffee customers to stand in line behind those that need the foo-foo drinks in the morning is unacceptable.
They should have enough business savvy to open another register and get the coffee drinkers out of the way. Why? Two reasons: expedience and business loss. Many a time I've had to leave my local Starbucks because I can't stand in line for 15 minutes waiting to get to the register.
And more often than that I've watched others walk to the door, look at the line and drive away.
I've never had a barista give me a free coffee. Once in a blue moon I'm given a free refill.
12-10-2006 @ 3:02PM
ERnie D. said...
Make your own coffee at home. Use twice as much
coffee and it will taste very similiar to Starbucks.
What the heck, give youself a free cup.