Do Starbucks employees know about the discount for Foursquare "mayors"?

Starbucks Gossip reader Michael Sauers writes: "Just went to the O St Starbucks in Lincoln, Nebraska, of which I'm the Foursquare mayor to get my $1 off a Frappuccino. I got the discount but the staff knew nothing about it. I'm wondering if others are having the same response." || Your STARBUCKS GOSSIP webmaster is also the Foursquare "mayor" at a few Starbucks stores (and one Peet's store), and the manager of the downtown Evanston store (Jose) knows about the discount. (He told me about it just minutes after I learned of the deal via Foursquare.)
> The mayor of Starbucks... or just your average coffee addict

Comments

[l]

our starbucks store posted something about it on their facebook http://www.facebook.com/pages/Salinas-CA/SBUX-Coffee-Creekbridge-Salinas/111663577234

[Steve]

One thing funny about this promotion is that I'm the mayor of the starbucks that I work at and have been signing in there for almost 4 months which means it will be hard for people to over take me as mayor. So if there are other starbucks partners out there who are the mayors of there respective stores then the promotion is sort of meaningless right? I think they should have just let people check into the store to get the discount. It would be both a win for starbucks and foursquare.

[shawnw]

Yep, same happened to me. Employee didn't know about it, had to get the manager (he was going to give me a discount, he got the manager to ask how to ring it up,) manager knew about it. The whole thing was pretty funny. "I never thought we'd actually see that here!" I'm in Terre Haute, IN, so I'm not surprised he was surprised.

[Ericbeasley]

Thats why you shouldn't check-in where you work. Pretty sure it's an unwritten Foursquare rule or something.

[Marcus]

i used to be young and hip......@27 i am over it...i am not even going to look up what foursquare is ....i saw it in some context i now forget and go that it is an iphone app/ social networking thing and so i have a very vague idea of what it is, but i actually don't want to know more...i guess i'm getting old!

[.]

People don't know about it because it's really, really dumb.

[Waltie]

This has been on the portal for a while. However, even having read it, I don't really know what it means. I've never heard of Foursquare.

[Coffee Solider]

Well, we've now received 2 action items about it so it should be posted at your POS so your baristas know what to do should someone come in with the app on their phone....Does anyone know if there is more then one mayor or is it only the person who visits the most? I have never actually seen anyone with the FourSquare app but looked it up online to see it.

[Joey coffee]

No one knows about it because there's so much going on right now. Not the biggest priority on my list.

[...]

foursquare is like a combination of twitter and yelp - wherever you go, you "check in" and you can offer tips or get info about wherever you are. there are various deals that stores can offer - only the mayor, anyone who checks in more than x times per week/month, or a certain offer for every x number of check ins. not many people know about it yet, but i can see this blowing up a la twitter.

[SM Since 2000]

"...so it should be posted at your POS so your baristas should know what to do."

Of course it is. It's clearly posted on/around my POS. It's on the 19th page down of all the notes, reminders, action items, and discount codes taped around the screen.

They're hybrid organized by priority, and the number of customers each note affects.

[I.Heart.Spirit]

@Coffee Soldier

If you read either of the 2 action items you mentioned, you would know only one person can be the mayor at a given time.

[Corvex Corvidae]

Know? Yes. Care? Nope. My store? I'd be shocked if we get even one 'mayor'.

[Darth Discontinued.]

Ahh I thought the discount only applies every other Wednesday in Late fall during Leap Years where Pluto orbits inside of Neptune. Are people reading the action item for this where the can only be rang in binary? Make sure you type in 00110101 and not 00110011.

I understand it all now that we only have less than twelve promotions and it is communicated so clearly.

[Herman M.]

And this means absolutely squat outside of major, technology friendly cities. 1 million in our metropolitan area, and it took me precisely 3 check ins each to become mayor at: thee popular local bars, four restaurants, a grocery store, and five Starbucks. The "game" is a whole lot less fun when no one else is playing with it. Or if you are over 30 and really don't care to advertise where you are 24/7

[Melody]

@Herman M. - That's surprising. There is so much check-in competition to get to be the mayor of any Seattle Starbucks that it will never happen for me. I actually know the customer who is the mayor of the Columbia Center Starbucks. He happened to stand ahead of me in line yesterday, and then I suddenly realized he doesn't drink Frappuccinos. He gets a black tea lemonade. He turned to me and said, 'too bad you can't give away the dollar off to someone else'. It's sort of a minimalistic promotion on the part of Starbucks. A nice gesture, but probably many mayors aren't even Frappuccino drinkers.

[STARBUCKS GOSSIP WEBMASTER]

This mayor is a brewed coffee drinker, so the "perk" is useless to me.

[Jack]

Wow I think some people spend so much time "social networking" that they may not have an actual social life. These things can get pretty dumb.

[Javatyger]

Managers at the stores up in Canada seem to be oblivious to the promotion...but according to an official Foursquare tweeter, the promo only applies to US stores.

Memo to Foursquare and Starbucks: if the promo doesn't apply to Canadian stores, DON'T TAG THEM WITH THE PROMOTIONAL OFFER!

[mariecellwebb]

You can be the 'mayor' of Home Depot too, its not just a Starbucks thing. However, I know almost nothing about it except I could care less, but I did pick up on the fact that it's not a company specific thing. I also come from a decade of working at starbucks. Nowadays if someone were REALLY able to tell me the difference between the daily offering board mislabeled as KOMODO DRAGON and the GOLD COAST we were really brewing I would give them a free french press...

[Herman M.]

Melody:
Like I said, large, tech friendly cities. We are not so tech obsessed here in the Deep South, and in particular here. Heck, if I pull up a "recent tweets" list for a 25km radius, it can easily take me back 10-12 hours for just 50 tweets.

In bigger, techier cities: The whole west coast, the Atlantic seaboard, Chicago, this promotion will work well as people already do the foursquare (and presumably the Gowalla) thing. But it's not going to suddenly make anyone start using it outside those already dense areas. There I can see it providing a little extra traffic from those diehards who want to tweet they are now the mayor of xxxx starbucks. Here? Not so much.

Around here, most of the traffic for things like Foursquare, Yelp!, and the like come from tourists. I should feel bad about it, but one of the mayorships I took with minimal checkins was from someone the barteender told me was a tourist who came in every night during her stay.

[Mark]

This is a great way to let potential burglers or other scam artists to know when you are NOT home, what your habits are, etc. Talk about scary.

[jenn]

"Talk about scary."

Talk about paranoid.

"Wow I think some people spend so much time "social networking" that they may not have an actual social life."

You simply 'checkin' when you're at starbucks. It takes 2 seconds. In other words, less time than it took you to sit on your computer and write your response. Guess you don't have a real social life sitting at home telling other people they don't have a social life, eh?

[MadSkilzBarista]

I usually have to go to work and tell them about promotions that I have read about on Starbucks gossip. Its never been mentioned at work.

[Chip Furgison]

I usually have to go to work and tell them about promotions that I have read about on Starbucks gossip. Its never been mentioned at work.

[Rae Whitlock]

Just got the discount at the store in Worthington, OH, but the partners knew nothing about it before I told them (and showed them on my mobile device).

[geewhy]

I didn't get the discount at my mayorship store. The staff didn't know about the promo. Bummed :( My story:

http://www.pulpconnection.net/2010/05/foursquare-starbucks-no-mayor-respect/

[mrso]

I clued my staff in on this promo as soon as we got the memo ourselves, sadly, not one person has taken us up on the offer. I think more of our customers prefer Gowalla (created in Austin, and we're in Houston) over FourSquare.