Next Door Rant ☀
Located right down the street from my home address is a fabulous coffee shop. There you may enjoy an excellent espresso. Or even, on some mornings, partake in tasty composition from an omelette/waffle bar. Or maybe a Mexican coke (with real sugar!) or a cold frothy alcoholic beverage.
A few months back a Next Coffee barista provided me with a rewards card, a mini-card keyring attachment so I could accrue points in their loyalty program for all the dollars plunked down on refreshing beverages. Soon after, I even blew a big chunk on breakfasts and drinks for an entire family gathering there at the local coffee shop, kicking off my reward point store with a big initial boost.
Some purchases later (or maybe a month or so), after ringing up a sale, a barista informs me that I need to “register” my card online. But she couldn’t tell me what the web address was, though I figured it wouldn’t be a herculean task to discover it.
OK, finding the web site was as simple as entering “next coffee” into my browser search bar. But the exercise of attempting to “register” was unsuccessful and greeted in turn with…
- Broken registration link / server error page presented
- Indeterminate browser hanging
- In a subsequent try on a different day, finally landed on a “profile” form — filled it out, but received no confirmation after submitting
- Attempted these steps in other browsers, and the same result was delivered
- Perceived the issue to be related to work, but was met with same outcome at home
- Twittered about my Next Coffee rewards card online registration failure and a nameless @nextcoffee “representative” responded, offering to personally assist next time I came into the shop — to which I replied, that’s great, but asked who shall I ask for at the counter and will I know who is this mysterious, faceless helper?
- Finally, one night at home, several weeks later, trying one final time to register, it appeared to work — and for the next few visits, the Next Coffee barista accepting my order did not need to instruct me to register my rewards card after swiping it in their POS machine.
- Until about a month ago, when after a card swipe, was informed that I needed to register my card online. Aargh!
- Upon last visit, again, the same message was delivered and the barista alerted me that I was not accruing any points for the purchases.
That brings us to today. Where I once again embark upon a quest to register my Next Coffee rewards card. As it’s still secured on my key ring and I’ve become cognizant that I’m avoiding the coffee shop on my street as subconsciously, I flee from the potential hassle of another incessant “you need to register your rewards card online” dialog episode. But, I settle on giving another go before I rip this card off my key ring, and while not overtly launching into boycott mode, would be generally disinclined from future Next Coffee Co. visits.
In my preferred browser, Google Chromium, the Activate your Next Coffee Co. Rewards Card link ends up with a one line page reading “This frame is blocked because it contains some insecure content.”. Loading the page in Safari gives me a better clue.
I go ahead and opt to engage in the risky business of connecting to a site with an invalid certificate. Well, maybe not that dangerous, as I’m not about to key in a credit card number.
Instead I am prompted to enter my rewards card number, a tiny 14 digit (at least to my fortysomething eyes) number located on the back of the card. And I am required to enter this number twice. #epicfail again.
A crude profile form is then displayed. I fill it out and press submit.
Voila.
Not sure what this summary is reflecting, but I fairly certain it does mean there’s a whole lot of coffee purchases I made that are not reflected in this report.
Next Coffee Co. has a snazzy Web 2.0+, professional looking, polished web presence. And active on all the social networking locales du jour (i.e., Facebook, Twitter, etc.…). But the loyalty program online setup is worse than even any of the 1990s Perl CGI style web “applications” I ever encountered.
- The supermarket “loyalty” cards do not require me to enter and re-enter a 14 digit number to “register” my card. Nor does Costco or any other retailer I’ve purchased from. Except maybe the Glendale Library, but that is to establish a gateway to procure resources from another providing party (i.e., O’Reilly Safari Bookshelves or Arizona Republic archives).
- Invalid certificate? That screams “amateur hour”. Might be OK for hobbyists and tinkerers, but not credible commercial entities.
/sigh, this might be the most inanely trivial piece I’ve ever posted…
