An Irish Diary

Reversing the Bonus Onus – An Irishman’s Diary about a new kind of customer loyalty card

Members of the Frank McNally loyalty club might also qualify for other special benefits, such as me sharing details of my medical history, or boring them with holiday pictures. But they’d need a lot of points for that.

Frank McNally's face
Frank McNally
Sat Jan 21 2017 - 00:01

I’m thinking of introducing a personal loyalty card scheme, the aim of which would be to reward cafes, shops, and other businesses I visit regularly.

It would replace all the existing schemes into which they continuously try to recruit me, and which I rarely use.

Henceforth, when offered yet another loyalty card, I could turn the tables and say: “Here, take one of mine instead.”

Scanner

Of course this would mean having to carry a stamp everywhere, and possibly a scanner. In cafes, presumably, the deal would be that if staff collected 10 of my stamps, I would reward the tip-jar with the price of a coffee.

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This in turn would replace the existing haphazard tipping system.

Members of the Frank McNally loyalty club might also qualify for other special benefits, such as me sharing details of my medical history, or boring them with holiday pictures. But they’d need a lot of points for that.

Card

I wouldn’t expect any special service in return. It would be impressive enough if they remembered me and were able to retrieve my card on a second or subsequent visit, which is more than I can usually do with theirs.

But if they did acquire the habit, it would help clarify the whole murky business of why, when, and how much I’m expected to leave in tips, which is a small but constant source of anxiety.

The problem is encapsulated by a barber shop I occasionally visit, and have done for years.

It’s not the main one I use, but it’s often handy. And every time I go there, they give me a loyalty card, which promises “every sixth haircut free”.

That’s a good deal, you might think. But the problem is that I now have about 20 of these cards at home, all with one stamp each.

I could probably amalgamate them, but I never do, because somehow, getting a haircut seems too personal a thing ever to ask a stranger to do for nothing.

Still, I tend to keep the cards, because claiming the complimentary cut seems like something I should steel myself for, and maybe will, eventually. In the meantime, here’s the rub. Like many people, I also feel the need to tip hairdressers, usually about 15 per cent. So instead of a freebie, every sixth haircut, I’m effectively paying for an extra one, in instalments.

My personal loyalty card would streamline that arrangement. But staff turnover in the salon is high, I’ve noticed.

Whether any of my card holders would be there long enough to claim the bonus is doubtful.

Why then do I tip them? As with restaurants, it may be fear. If the same person serves you the next time, you wouldn’t want him or her remembering you as a tightwad.

There’s a necessary element of trust with anyone who has private access to your soup, or who cuts your hair. In the latter case, my unspoken hope always is that, whatever they do, it doesn’t make me look stupid, or at least no more stupid than I looked before I came in.

I’d like to think there’s a barbershop equivalent of the Hippocratic oath. Failing that, the tip I leave today is protection money for the next time.

Guilt

But really, the main reason any of us tip is guilt. We think it’s expected, maybe even needed, and if we can afford it, we feel bad about not paying, although we also feel bad about paying and not knowing if it was necessary.

Tips appear, in short, to be a self-assessed tax on discretionary income, offering no benefits. Only when service providers start returning my completed loyalty cards might I be persuaded otherwise.

How my scheme would work with supermarkets, I’m not sure. After all, they don’t expect tips and their loyalty cards tend to be of the more sophisticated, data-mining kind, harvesting information for target-marketing or to sell to third parties.

Supermarket

Reversing this relationship would be pointless (in every sense). The only thing I want to know about my supermarket’s habits are, say, where they’re hiding the milk since the redesign, and why the hell couldn’t they have left the place as it was.

For that I can just ask a shop assistant, although mind you, that is increasingly difficult in an era when the unexpected item in the bagging area is a human being. Maybe my loyalty cards would encourage supermarkets to retain humanoid staff. For every 100 points they collect, reversing their own model, I would contribute a cent to the wage bill.

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