Barista to focus on customer acquisition with 'Bean-o-holic'

In a bid to attract more customers and retain the current ones, coffee retail chain Barista Lavazza will launch a loyalty programme mid next week, a top company executive has said.

Barista is the first coffee retailer in the country to start a loyalty programme, 'Bean-o-holic, even as the modern retailers in FMCG and apparel space and quick service restaurants (QSR) already use such cards to boost their sales.

"We are launching the Bean-o-holic initiative by mid next week. The cards, like any other loyalty card programme, are aimed at customer acquisition and retaining them," Barista CEO Sanjay Coutinho told PTI here.

The company, a part of Italian coffee major Lavazza, will initially launch the scheme in Delhi-NCR region and rollout the service on a pan-India level by April, he said.

Barista runs around 200 outlets, a sizeable chunk of which are in the Delhi-NCR region. However, the company has no plans to add new outlets this year, Coutinho said.

Loyalty programmes, though a new concept in India, have started picking up in the last few years with the growth of modern retail where customer retention is a challenge.

Barista is focusing on the same to both attract new customers and boost sales, he said.

For Barista, the initiative assumes significance as the Indian market is witnessing a stiff competition with firms such as Tata's entering the market with global coffee major Starbucks that runs 16,000 outlets across 50 countries.

There are also major players such as Cafe Coffee Day that runs 1,040 outlets the country. In the premium segment is Costa Coffee, which is also ramping up its network.