Starbucks are you GREEN? OR are you capitalizing on your SLIPPAGE?

Starbuck's latest mailer.

I have to admit, I have a latte problem- I just don’t feel comfortable at my desk in the morning unless I have a latte in hand.  I’m not brand loyal to coffee, but I do enjoy a good cup IF I don’t have to go out of my way.  A few weeks ago I got a $55. Parking ticket as I talked to a baby at my local coffee shop (World Grounds, Oakland) and I didn’t want that to happen again so my local Oakland shop loses so I can drive where the parking is free…Starbucks!

Knowing that I planned to go to Starbucks at least 4x a week, I signed up for their ‘Gold Card’.  Unlike their other membership card (the one I paid $25. for and liked better!!), Starbucks changed to the ‘Gold Card’ – personalized with your name- for loyal consumers like me!  The Gold Card allows me to get free soy milk, free coffee refills, a free drink on my birthday and a free drink after I’ve collected 15 stars.  Makes me happy, I think.

I’m not enamored by the ‘buy 15, get one free’ offer.  Fifteen is a LOT of lattes, but it’s Starbucks so it’s expected that the reward threshold would be high.  What really bothers me and the sole reason I’m even writing this blog post is this:  when you qualify for your FREE drink from your 15 ‘buy’s, you get a postcard in the mail.  The postcard explains that you must have this printed postcard in hand at Starbucks to get the free drink!!  AND there is an expiration date on the postcard so you must use it quick!

HUH??  Why is this?  Starbucks knows who I am, they know my name in every store, and they know what I drink everyday.  I have their App telling me my ‘Gold Card’ balance in real time, my drink recipe, locations of the closest Starbucks based on my GPS, so why do I need a printed card to redeem my free ‘reward’ drink or my free ‘birthday’ drink?  Why doesn’t Starbucks Reward program electronically add my ‘free reward’ onto my ‘Gold Card’ to make it simple and easy to redeem?  My little local Coffee shop gives you a card with a bar code that they scan to register your purchases to offer free beverages too.  They don’t send you a postcard.  They scan and then tell you your eligible.  So, why doesn’t the largest coffee company in the world offer the same customer convenience as the small mom and pop shop?  Slippage, people, slippage. 

Slippage is when retailers offer consumers something for free during a promotion but the consumer doesn’t redeem.  This is the ultimate little coup.  The company offers you benefits to purchase but if you don’t redeem the reward, the company doesn't have to pay out!  They win double!!  They got you to take advantage of their offer (purchase) but when you fail to use their ‘postcard’ to redeem, they won again.  Pretty smart, eh?

But, so what if Starbucks wins twice.  Its not the end of my world and will not alter my life, however, its not their ridiculous offer of one free latte after 15 latte purchases (that offer is almost laughable, certainly gratuitous), what really frustrates me is that Starbucks would rather print and send out thousands of these postcards just to gain slippage then go the easy, direct, most green method of reward transfer and the method I’m sure a majority of their customers prefer, electronic transfer.  I’m not happy that Starbucks prefers to cut down trees and expend energy just so they don’t have to redeem their lowly consumer offer so I took a further look at their policies. 

I visited the Starbucks website and viewed their ‘responsibility page’ where they tout their ‘goals and progress’, http://www.starbucks.com/responsibility/learn-more/goals-and-progress.  On this site they claim commitment to doing business responsibly for forty years.  They even have a scorecard you can download.  They have all kinds of community involvement projects, environment stewardship and ethical sourcing.  What they don’t have and what they don’t claim, is they don’t activate minor actions that could immediately make a difference.  Things like electronic rewards instead of postcards, compostable cups, (been to NYC at 5:30?  Seen all those bags of trash?  How many bags of trash a day is Starbucks generating everyday on this planet??!!), recycling bins in all stores, to name a few.  These things seem so easy to do and if Starbucks were committed, as they claim they are, they would be doing EVERYTHING they can to be environmentally friendly.

Big changes can come from lots of small efforts.  Starbucks, stop wasting the postcards and start providing your rewards electronically.  Then, maybe, just maybe, Howard Schultz’s Great Great Great Grandchildren will have trees too!