The stamp card

There is a paper card in my wallet with seven stamps on it. Ten stamps and the coffee is free. The card is bent, the ink is crooked, and I know exactly where I stand without opening anything.

Every small coffee operation I have sat with eventually wants to replace that card, and the reasons are always good ones. Paper cannot be measured. It gets lost. It can be forged with any rubber stamp from the stationery shop. An app would tell you who the regulars are, what they drink, and when they stopped coming.

So the app gets built, at the price a developer costs, and then the barista has to ask a person holding a hot cup in one hand and a phone in the other to download something, at the till, in front of a queue.

Redemption falls. Every time I have watched this, redemption falls.

Not because the customer stopped wanting a free coffee. Because the paper card was doing three jobs the app cannot do. It sat next to the bank cards and reminded its owner of the shop every time they paid for anything else. It could be handed over and stamped in two seconds while the conversation carried on. And it showed progress on a surface the customer could see without deciding to look.

The app measured more and was used less. That trade never gets priced when the decision is made, because the measuring was not for the customer. It was for the operator, who wanted to know things the card was never going to tell him.

The smallest version of a loyalty programme is the one the customer can hold. If the card in the wallet is working, the honest upgrade is a better stamp, not a login.