Up to 3,000 free cups or tea or coffee are being enjoyed every week by shoppers at the Waitrose, in High Street, Marlborough, who are holders of supermarket’s ‘My Waitrose’ loyalty card.
Any card holders can be served a free beverage in its café every day – each one worth just over £2 a time – along with other benefits, all part of a loyalty promotion not based on any points system.
“More of what you love” is the motto on the individually signed My Waitrose cards, that also offer the value of a free newspaper when you shop every day, as well as an opportunity to win back the value of all your shopping in the previous month.
“It’s our positive way to focus on how we can reward our customers through the loyalty,” Adam Smith (pictured), the store’s 28-year-old customer services manager, who joined the Marlborough branch with new manager Ian Smith in May, told Marlborough News Online.
And he revealed that the anniversary this month of the introduction of the ‘My Waitrose’ card has had a major impact in boosting trade.
“In terms of numbers, 53 per cent of our sales now come from customers who hold the ‘My Waitrose’ card, which shows how much we like to reward customers who shop with us on a regular basis – and how much they are enjoying it too.
“The number of people taking advantage of the scheme varies from week to week, but those having a free cuppa is around 2,000 to 3,000 a week. That alone give them good reason to shop at Waitrose.”
The impact of the loyalty card promotion, which does not rely on gaining points each time you go through the check-out, comes appropriately when Waitrose faces competition from the newly-opened Morrisons convenience store, on the opposite side of the High Street.
“The biggest thing for us is the free cup of tea or coffee in the cafe every day,” said Adam, who has been with for Waitrose for six years, apart from time out working in London during last year’s Olympics.
“Any one card owner can use it every day throughout the week, and that has been very successful in bringing in more and more people to Waitrose. A free cuppa is now the main benefit we give away every day.”
But customers can also enjoy the cost of the Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph, Guardian and Observer deducted from their bill, if they spend a minimum of £5. Free copies of Waitrose’s in-house publications and its monthly magazine Waitrose Kitchens are another feature of the loyalty promotion.
“And on top of that every Waitrose branch in every locality has a draw customers can enter into and have the chance to win back what you spent in shopping at Waitrose for the whole of the previous month,” added Adam.
The focus of it is how we can reward our customers through their loyalty, says Ian Smith. Unlike other schemes based on points, our works that we like to give away items free every day. So the biggest thing for us is our free cup of tea of coffee in the restaurant, one per card owner per day throughout the week, and that has been very successful for us by bringing many more people.
You can just take your card into the coffee shop every day and be served. And that is the main benefit we give away for free. We also give away our inhouse publications like Waitrose Kitchens, our monthly magazine.
And the third thing is that you can enter into a draw, every branch in every locality having its own winner and you can win what you spent in shopping at Waitrose the previous month.
And since the beginning of July, we have added The Guardian and The Observer to the newspapers we give away, the Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph, if you spend £5 the value of the newspaper taken off you’re the cost of their shopping.
This being the anniversary month of the scheme it is a good way saying ‘My Waitrose’ works for me.
In terms of numbers, 53 per cent of our sales comes from customers who hold the ‘My Waitrose’ card, which proves that we like to reward customers who shop with us regularly and that they are enjoying it too.
We are able to give them a free cuppa or some benefit off there and then, which means that, as with other loyalty schemes, they don’t have to spend a lot of money in order to generate points.
We value a cup of coffee at around just over £2 every day. The number of people taking advantage varies from week to week, but it is around 2,000 to 3,000. So that gives them one of the reasons to come to Waitrose to shop.
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