MSE News: After a John Lewis loyalty card? Free tea & cake is no longer guaranteed

tomtontom

jenniewb wrote: »

that they will only half fill a cup because I have the voucher (told to me by a staff member- I didn't make that up!) but I do still get the vouchers if I am passing and have the time.

I think someone was winding you up. It would be blatantly obvious if you only received half a cup of coffee, plus the staff do not have the time to stop and check which drinks were free or paid for.

jenniewb

tomtontom wrote: »

I think someone was winding you up. It would be blatantly obvious if you only received half a cup of coffee, plus the staff do not have the time to stop and check which drinks were free or paid for.

It actually happened to me three times. When I asked (twice) if I could have more coffee ("is it possible to have the coffee filled to the top please?") I was told no, that this was the coffee if I had a voucher. As I had not taken the cake and only the coffee I tried arguing the case but the lady wouldn't budge and said it was what she had been instructed and then offered a bag of crisps or nuts/dried fruit instead. I just wanted a free latte.


Was served by a different coffee assistant each time. No big deal, saves on the fears of an expanding waistline I suppose!:rotfl:

Pincher

You are entitled to a regular sizes coffee, not large.
Maybe they ran out of regular cups, so they filled a large cup with the regular amount.




They can try to make some of the vouchers BUY-ONE-GET-ONE FREE. The money spending customers get sent free vouchers, the !!!!!!!!!!s get BOGOF vouchers. Use a distinguishing colour scheme, so the staff can tell the difference at a glance.

Herbalus

Can't say I'm surprised it's gone. I feel sorry for the poor dears in the queue who haven't got vouchers, as they feel royally miffed that they seem to be the only ones paying for their drinks.

MSE_Andrea wrote: »

Who's got one and just uses it for the monthly free tea and cake?

I do, but when I buy from John Lewis I scan the card, so I'm not sure what that makes me. I don't shop there much, but I don't shop a lot of money in general. I also have the JL Partnership CC.

jmm8997

I have seen a thread on MSE Forum from a John Lewis employee commenting on the challenges of a large number of visitors to the restaurant.
The queue at our local John Lewis have seemed much longer since the introduction of the vouchers.
We go to John Lewis about once a month as it is our favourite store at our local shopping centre.
I wonder whether the offer has been of financial benefit for John Lewis. We are often told how inexpensive coffee costs relative to the price charged in caf!s, and I guess it may be similar for cakes.
The other, more significant cost is staffing (relatively fixed due to opening hours?)
If the increased footfall has not resulted in increased sales, then I can understand scaling it back. It could be an even greater PR failure to withdraw it completely.

trynsave

The JL near me is quite small and very old inside. None of the departments carry a good range of products and it is really difficult to make impulse buys. It is the sort of shop that you might go to buy a wedding gift as even small kitchen items are expensive.
That said the coffee shop is nice and I have been going there monthly with 2 friends for the last six/seven months. Between us we have bought a few token items but not really contributing at all towards JL's profits. I suppose it is us that this move is directed towards which is fair enough.
In our defence we have been using the almost next door Waitrose carpark and have been in food shopping after our cake stop, something we wouldn't have done had we not been into JL and needed our carpark ticket stamped! We didn't even claim another free coffee in there so feel somewhat vindicated.
If we don't get any more vouchers we won't be going to make the special trip to JL or going into Waitrose afterwards.

wdah

I'll be sad to see it go. I got a card at the end of last year, but have only recently started using the vouchers (twice so far). I do a food shop in Waitrose most weeks and pop in John Lewis loads, but I only tend to buy bits and bobs around birthdays and Christmas.

Skie_2

I go there quite often so the monthly free hot chocolate and cake was always a nice bonus.

I'm disappointed in their loyalty scheme though, they absolutely hammer your inbox with junk until you set it to monthly only. If you don't want any emails then you can't be a member any more!

lean&mean

I'm a regular shopper in JL as my local branch is only about 2 miles away. I've welcomed the free tea and cake every month but I'm not surprised that JL is scaling it back as there has been little incentive to swipe the card until now if you've spent money in store. Often I've forgotten to get it out until it's time to pay and then checkout staff have told me it's too late. This happened again last week in Kingston after I'd spent £200 on towels and the assistant said the only way she could get the card swiped would be to cancel the sale and re-do it. Then her colleague told her that she couldn't do that. It should be called a 'test of loyalty card'.
Boots have got a much better approach - staff ask you early on in the transaction if you have a card and their till system doesn't require you to swipe the card at the start. If John Lewis is going to only offer tea and cake to 'regular shoppers' it's going to encourage me to cancel a transaction and do it over if the sales assistant hasn't swiped my card. Come on John Lewis, if you want to encourage shoppers to use their card so you get their shopping data, get your till systems and staff training sorted out!

jenniewb

Pincher wrote: »

You are entitled to a regular sizes coffee, not large.
Maybe they ran out of regular cups, so they filled a large cup with the regular amount
.

Maybe that was what happened- the large didn't seem like a large though- was definitely not as large as a Starbucks or Costa Coffee medium cup! Can't argue as it was free and it was nice to have, but I don't know who would order a small cup if they are only around 150mls (the large was around/less than 250mls (I guessed the amount each time as I was trying to work out the calories in the latte I'd ordered!)