Caution: You are now entering--THE REWARD ZONE

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Wow, IP, your company's loyalty program is really pathetic, isn't it?

That's how I would describe it.

I snagged one of the brochures describing the program, and one of the mice-typewritten conditions of participating in the program is "You authorize (IP's wonderful employer) and/or our marketing partners to use (your personal information) to send you marketing communication and special offers either by mail or e-mail."

Translation: "When you sign up your name goes on our mailing list, which we'll sell to any two-bit company we call a 'marketing partner', and therefore you will receive more junk mail than you can stand, and your inbox will become filled with offers for work-at-home schemes or boner pills"

And yet, somehow, this program has absolutely taken off in my store. We blew away all the other stores in our district for applications--we had about 300 more apps than the store with the next highest number. I guess it's because people around here are cheap, the only shopping options are us and Wally World, and there are many people who absolutely will not be caught dead in Wally World.

Starting today we all had to wear stupid little ribbons attached to our nametags reading "Ask me about (crappy loyalty program)." Good thing nobody asked me about it, because I would've been a little too honest. (So you want to find out how to quickly and easily add more aggravation to your life? You do! Okay then.....)

[DGoddessChardonnay]

I work for the 'beef people', so I'm asking for the reward card probably no less than a hundred times a day. While most of my customers have them already, and it's not hard to get them to sign up for one, I frankly can't see the point in all these 'customer reward card' gimmicks.

Let's see, anyone can get a card.

Store prices are ridiculously high if you don't have one, but again, most people do.

Why not just hack the prices on the shelf and do away with the card altogether?

First time I recall seeing a CRC (Customer Reward Card) I think was right after I was transferred to Cone (around 1999.) I think WD had started the card down around their HQ in Florida at that time and we had a customer from out of state wanting to use theirs - unfortunately the registers weren't set up

I think it was a couple of years later (around 2001 or 2002) when WD decided to offer the card here in NC. Same folks who asked why we didn't have a card were also the same ones who didn't want one.

[Imogene]

Vaguely related, where I work now, when we do a return/trade-in/sign you up for the magazine and card/just about anything that involves 'paperwork', we have to get: Your email, your name (first/Last), your address, your Date of Birth, and your gender.

Seriously.

People are constantly asking me why they need to give so much info for a $2 trade?

"Texas pawn laws."

[TexasAndroid]

Yesterday I was at BB picking up 300 (fantastic movie, love it).
This isn't like the magazines people, its a real deal program that works if you frequent BB (those triple points coupons also help a lot).

Part of the problem is that the program used to have a yearly charge. A number of years ago I was in it, until they raised the yearly charge and cut the bonus rates at about the same time. At which point I dropped the program like a hot potato. And in the years since then I have promptly declined offers to rejoin the program each and every time I visited BBuy.

And now here's this thread, and I find out that they have eliminated the program cost entirely. Not sure how I could have known, but still. I will likely rejoin next time I visit BBuy. But the point of all this is that the customer from the original post could very easily be in the same position, operating on old knowledge of how the program *used* to work.

[Estil]

So how come they always seem to be for a different brand of what I bought? I buy Hershey Kissables, I get a coupon for M&Ms. I buy Dole canned fruit, I get a coupon for Del Monte. Ovaltine? Coupon for Nestle Quik...

My store does that too (though my last pack has gotten better). For example, the only soda I ever buy is 12 packs of Diet Pepsi cans. Yet they constantly send me coupons off 2 liters of COKE products. That'd be about as stupid as finding out I'm a registered Republican and send me two free tickets to the local Democratic convention. Basically when stores do that, it tells the customers that they don't care about the customer's preferences (and our print out coupons often do the same).

[Dreamstalker]

I have filled out a loyalty card in the name of my cat just to see if they did sell the info to anyone. I was amused when my little hairball got a free Mach 3 razor in the mail.

One of these days I have to try that...

[skeptic53]

A few years ago, I was telling one of my Net friends about a music club I was a part of and how I got 5 - 10 CDs for peanuts because of a sale it was having. The introductory offer was 10 for a penny. So the guy subscribed several times, but in the name of a different character he handled in the Ewrestling federation we were in. I don't know if his scam actually worked, but it would have been awesome if it did.

The old Columbia Record Club scam!! Now that takes me back... they didn't have computerized databases so they couldn't tell that several memberships were going to the same address. You'd get your 10 records for a penny, then cancel, then re-apply under a different name, L-R-R.

If you hate having to carry cards or clutter your keychain, most programs allow the checker to input your member number. In the case of Safeway, it's the phone number you gave. I gave a fake phone number. I don't think they are doing the gas discount thing in our area. So, I get the sale price on goods, Safeway gets data on a non-existent name & phone number, and I don't have to carry any store cards. I have them for all the local groceries but use the same fake number for all of them. You can even use this number at the SCO's rather than scanning the card.

[JuniorMintz]

I have filled out a loyalty card in the name of my cat just to see if they did sell the info to anyone. I was amused when my little hairball got a free Mach 3 razor in the mail.

Since it hasn't been asked yet...


Did you end up shaving your pussy?



Sorry. I'll STFU now...