To get my child to join me at the dog park in the mornings, I had resorted to bribing him with a stop at Starbucks. With my "mom" hat on, it proved to be an effective enticement. As a frequent customer and loyalty practitioner, I cannot help but question why it was so much work (on my part) to reap my deserved recognition and rewards.

We've all talked about how Starbucks has changed us. We now talk in terms of grande, venti, frappuccinio. But now, as a "loyal" customer, Starbucks is changing my behavior further.

When it comes to loyalty strategy and program design, I've always lived by KIS (keep it simple): Ensure your program is where your customer is; surprise and delight; and don't make your customer jump through hoops to participate, earn, and redeem. Well, I've learned that Starbucks has, again, flown in the face of the traditional best practice. The question is, will it work in loyalty?