- South Africa's coffee shop chains have loyalty programmes designed to keep you going back.
- Most offer thin rewards, and use your data for marketing purposes.
- Those that reward you with points usually offer between 2% and 5% of your purchase back.
- This means you'll need to buy between 18 and 50 Americano coffees before you get one free.
- But two chain coffee shops offer much better value with a buy ten, get one free programme.
- And there's still one clear winner in the coffee shop loyalty programme race.
- Here's how Vida e Caffè, Mugg & Bean, Seattle, Kauai, Starbucks, and Bootlegger loyalty programmes compare in 2022.
- For more stories go to www.BusinessInsider.co.za.
Most coffee shop chain stores in South Africa offer customers an app-based loyalty programme. They market these primarily as ways to thank you for being loyal to the brand, but in reality, most offer relatively unimpressive rewards.
Most also demand a lot of personal details, presumably for marketing purposes. Depending on the app, you might need to part with information like your full name, phone number, email address, gender, and birthday before you can even register.
Coffee shop loyalty schemes that offer points and cash-back are the least impressive. Although at a glance, they may sound generous, earning between 2% and 5% back on a R30 cup of coffee makes any tangible reward a long way out of reach.
According to loyalty programme consultants Truth, of the ten most popular loyalty programmes in the restaurant sector in South Africa, four belong to coffee shops. The top five most-used are Kauai, Seattle, and Mugg & Bean.
Aside from a few exceptions, most competing coffee stores seem to have bought the same loyalty app programme from Yoyo. They've disguised this with their own branding, but all require similar registration details and have strong data-mining angles.
For most, the only way to register with the loyalty programmes is to receive a one time pin via your phone number, and several require you to accept their terms and conditions, which include consent to being subject to marketing initiatives like SMS and email campaigns.
And quite how much each of these brands is willing to pay you for your loyalty and personal information differs quite significantly.
The stores that require you to register on their apps and offer cashback rewards are typically the lowest paying options. The weakest of these rewards are Mugg & Bean and Kauai, who give just 2% back, while Vida e Caffè and Starbucks offer slightly better deals.
Until recently, only Seattle Coffee Co offered a simple buy 10, get one free deal, but since Business Insider's last evaluation of the programmes in 2021, Bootlegger Coffee Company has joined them by adopting this approach.
Even so, Bootlegger requires you to register on their app and provide some personal information, which Seattle does not.
The simplicity of Seattle's programme, which doesn't require you to share any personal details, means it's still the most appealing coffee shop loyalty programme in South Africa.
Vida e Caffè
Vida e Caffè migrated its loyalty programme from physical card to its mobile app some time ago, a move now familiar in this sector.
Vida e Caffè says they only "collect as much information as we need to provide the services on the app to you", but to register, you'll still need to part with most of your contact details and some other information seemingly unrelated to achieving a coffee-related award. You'll also need to insert your credit card details and pay via the app to earn points.
To sign up for the loyalty programme, you must agree to their terms and conditions, which have a hard opt-in clause for receiving marketing messages on page three of the fine print. This means you'll likely get marketing emails and SMSs whether you like it or not, and the only way to opt out appears to be to delete your profile.
With that admin out the way, it's relatively generous as far as cash back rewards go. For every purchase made using the app, members receive 5% back in points that they can use to make a partial or complete payment towards an order. Loyalty points reflect immediately and will expire after three years.
Spend to earn a small Americano (R28): R560, or buy 20, get one free.
Starbucks
After initially stumbling in South Africa, Starbucks has opened many more stores across the country, and they've also launched a points-based loyalty programme that is suitably confusing.
Starbucks has a loyalty app that allows you to pay for orders and receive rewards. Registration for the programme is via a native app, and members can opt out of Starbucks marketing emails.
Rewards members earn one "Star" for every R2 spent on qualifying items via the Starbucks app or after swiping the card, which reflect within 24 hours. Members then receive a "free reward" for every 250 stars collected.
There are also two benefit levels within the programme, Green and Gold, which have different occasional rewards on offer.
Green level members must earn at least one star per year, and rewards include one complimentary beverage or food item. Gold members must earn 750 stars in a year to retain this status, and rewards include those of the Green level, plus others like birthday rewards, free upgrades to Origin Espresso, and free refills on brewed coffee.
Spend to earn a small Americano (R29): R500, or buy 18, get one free.
Kauai
Kauai also uses the same base app for its loyalty programme as most other coffee shops in South Africa. It requires you to share details, including your phone number and birthday. And although you can opt out of marketing communications, you do have to accept the terms and conditions, one of which is that you agree to receive marketing communications.
Kauai has opted for a complex tier-based loyalty programme which includes Green, Gold, and Black. Members can climb the ladder by earning points, Kauai awards one point for every rand spent in the app.
There's little to pick between the levels in real-time rewards. However, each tier provides increasingly more valuable secondary benefits on your birthday - a free smoothie, wrap, or small smoothie and meal, depending on your level.
In terms of tangible rewards, all tiers offer 2% cash back, in the form of points, for each purchase.
Spend to earn small Americano (R23): R1,150, or buy 50, get one free.
Seattle Coffee Co
Seattle Coffee Co's reward programme has the highest usage level of all dedicated coffee shops in South Africa, according to Truth.
The loyalty programme runs entirely off a ten-digit number of your choice, though Seattle says most use their cellphone number. Members enter this on a dedicated keypad when signing up, earning, and claiming, but Seattle is at pains to assure members that their number is kept private, baristas can't see it on their point of sale systems, and it's not used for marketing purposes.
Seattle's loyalty programme bears little resemblance to most of its competitors, and more to classic reward programmes.
There is no cash back option or points that members have to redeem. Instead, after ten individual beverage purchases, members can claim one complimentary beverage of their choice, regardless of size or additions.
Members also don't have to claim the drinks immediately and can bank them until they wish to cash them in for freebies.
Unlike other points- and app-based reward programmes, there's no way to remotely check how close you are to earning a reward, and members can't claim points against items other than beverages.
With every 11th beverage free, members could conceivably buy the cheapest qualifying item on the menu, typically around R22, ten times, and then claim the freebie for the most expensive, which is more than double that price.
Spend to earn small Americano: R220 (based on the cheapest beverage on the menu), or buy 10, get one free.
Mugg & Bean
Mugg & Bean's "Generosity" reward programme is the most widely used in the sector, but it too appears to be built on the back of an app and system used by many other competitors in the market.
Mugg & Bean requires users to register via the app and provide personal and contact details that the group can use for marketing purposes, both internally and via third party suppliers.
Once registered, members receive points, also called "beans", with every qualifying purchase. Members must be active on the app for specified times each year or forfeit all points.
Mugg & Bean does not immediately clarify how much cash back members will earn with each purchase, but its terms and conditions reveal that they offer 2% back for each purchase. This is redeemable against items on the menu.
Spend to earn small Americano: R1,700, or buy 50, get one free.
Bootlegger Coffee Company
Burgeoning coffee shop chain Bootlegger has had several iterations of reward programmes over the years. They started with a traditional buy ten, get one free approach, which they later scrapped for a less generous points-based system. Since Business Insider compared coffee chain reward programmes in 2021, the chain has reverted to its original model and now has a similar offering to Seattle's.
Although Bootlegger still uses a familiar-looking app for its rewards and requires a lot of personal information, their new approach bears little resemblance to the percentage-back models favoured by Vida e Caffè, Kauai, and Mugg & Bean. Instead, you now get free coffee for any ten ordered, representing significantly better value.
Spend to earn small Americano: R230 (based on the cheapest beverage on the menu), or buy 10, get one free.
