It Really Pays To Be a Good Customer

I joke around a lot about the fact that my friend Lynn lives on green tea lattes and movie theatre popcorn. It’s not every green tea latte though. Specifically it is Starbucks. This has been such a long term habit that we had a birthday party for her five years ago where everyone came with a Starbuck’s cup with Lynn spelled a different way.

Lynn doesn’t care how you spell her name as long as you make her drink to her exacting order. She is well known by legions of baristas throughout the Starbucks universe. I swear that knowing the Lynn green tea latte recipe is a requirement for passing the Starbucks employee training exam.

Today I went to visit her and check in on her healing broken wing. Her husband Logan was home with her, but working on a serious deadline for work. After I had been there an hour I noticed that there were no Starbucks cups on her bedside table. Concerned about her lack of calcium to help her grow a new arm bone I asked where her Starbucks was. “They have been closed due to the snow for the last two days,” Lynn said in a slightly desperate voice.

I jumped into action and said I would go that moment and remedy the situation. Logan, in a thankful pose thrust his well worn Starbucks gold card in my hand and told me to go to the drive through Starbucks. (It is usually Logan who picks Lynn’s drinks up, but they still know it is for Lynn.)

Off to Starbucks I flew. I ordered at the speaker and pulled around to meet Mike. He recognized the very particular order as Lynn’s and asked if it were so. When I told him that is was but that she was home recovering from an arm operation he went into a complete tizzy. “You should have told me this was for Lynn before I rang it up. It would have been on the house.” Then he got a glint in his eye and said, wait a minute. I had no other choice since he had not given me the drinks yet. He came back to the window with a little bag of treats. “Please tell her to get well soon, we miss her.” And he handed me her two Green tea lattes.

I delivered the healing elixir along with the gift from Mike to Lynn. I apologized to Logan that I had missed the opportunity to get the drinks for free because I did not announce in advance they were for Lynn. What I did note is that if you are so brand loyal and get the majority of your sustenance from one place, and are always nice to everyone who works there, as Lynn most certainly is, they will take care of you in a time of need.

I know this advice is lost on most of us because we will vary what and where we eat, but it is nice to know that the highest form of brand loyalty is rewarded. Also if you know Lynn’s secret and complicated order you might be able to get it for free if you tell the barista it is for Lynn, but that does you no good unless you want to drink it.