Are you a member of "My Starbucks Rewards" program? You should be!

I have been a member of Starbucks' "My Starbucks Rewards" program for about a year now. Every time I mention the loyalty program to people, all I get is a blank stare.

I'm a huge fan of Starbuck's loyalty program. It's simple and they reward me very well for my patronage to their stores.

The piece that still boggles my mind is that it doesn't seem like Starbucks promotes the program very well and that not too many people are part of the program. 

• First...every time I tell someone about it they've never heard about it. 
• Second...when was the last time you saw a sign at a register telling you about it (for me I can't remember seeing it since they removed the annual fee).
• Third...I've never heard a Baristas ask someone if they're interested in joining.  
• Fourth...no Barista has ever mentioned to me how many points I have or thanking me for being a part of their "My Starbucks Rewards" program.

I'm very curious to know Starbuck's strategy for their loyalty program. They have such a loyal customer base that I'm thinking they haven't had to offer or market such a program heavily. I guess it's a good thing they haven't had to.  I feel the programs like this aren't focused on highly enough during the 'Easy' times, and it's during the tough times that loyalty programs really pay off.

Is your company investing in a loyalty program? Would your company benefit from knowing who your most loyal customers are and incenting them to remain loyal?

Please leave comments with your thoughts.

P.S. Every time I tell someone about it (as I often rave about it as the best loyalty program I'm a member of), I try to get them to participate and I know that I have gotten at least a handful of people to signup.

What is the business driver behind Starbucks' logo change?

Recently there have been multiple occurrences of people mentioning the Starbucks logo change to me.

First...was my wife who mentioned in to me. Usually when she mentions something marketing related it must have hit some mainstream channel for her to be aware and comment on it to me.

Second...was a blog post about this change (can't remember which blog, or I would give them credit). From this blog I clicked over to watch the Schultz video discussing why Starbucks felt it was time to update the logo (see here).

After watching the video by Howard Schultz, I was again reminded about my struggles with Corporate Brand teams who have the tough job of aligning the Brand with the look and feel of designs.  I think branding is very important but am confused by how the change of the Starbucks logo has much positive impact on the Starbucks business.

To me...it seems like Starbucks may have felt they needed to change something and removing the name from their logo would move them forward into a new league.

Like many other companies who have updated their logos recently, it looks to me like Starbucks has received a lot of negative feedback about this change.  I'm thinking most people, me included, feel that there isn't really a need for this change, there are very few people who want to see changes with the brands they love.

Am I missing something?  Is there an obvious up side to this change that I am missing?

Big things are happening at Starbucks

I have been thinking about writing about Starbuck's "My Starbucks Rewards" program for a long time but never got around to writing it...now is the time. With the many new changes at Starbucks, I'm going to put together a series of posts on this topic (please check back soon or subscribe to this blog or follow me on Twitter).

Here is a list of posts I'm working on, and hope to have out in the next week or two:

• How come no one I know is a member of the "My Starbucks Rewards" program?
• Are you a member of "My Starbucks Rewards" program? You should be! (Posted 1/31/11)
• History of the "My Starbucks Rewards" program
• Does Starbucks even need a loyalty program?
• Starbucks' iPhone app integration into their Loyalty Program
• Starbucks launches 3 new products/features (iPhone Payments, super big Trenta, new logo)
• What is the business driver behind Starbucks' logo change? - Posted 1/29/11
• Replacing the Card with the App
• Taking the App to the next stage, my predictions of the future

Thank you for checking in, more to come shortly

Great Clips CRM WOWs Me Again

In September, I wrote here about how I noticed Great Clips using CRM to improve my haircut experience. Last week the stylist used the CRM tool again to better profile me and understand my hair.

She used the knowledge of when my last haircut was, to:
- get a feel for how short to cut the top, based on previous razor number an time since last haircut,
- to know if my receipt coupon would still be valid (more on this in a separate post)

This stylist was using Great Clips' CRM tool to her advantage and to help me, the customer. I want to thank Great Clips for providing this tool to make it easy for their stylists to know my preferences.