Seems lately everyone loves to hate on Tim Horton’s.
Actually, seems lately everyone loves to hate on everything. But that’s another post for another day.
To be fair, I can often join in complaining about Timmies – whether it’s slow service, constant price increases, baked goods not baked in-house, or the inevitability of receiving the wrong order – but I still go back most days as a way to start my day. Routines are kind of my thing.
So today, when I opened my Tim’s app to see what I had on offer, I was pleasantly surprised to see a little bonus of a Free 10-pack of Timbits in celebration of the Oilers’ come-from-behind (then go-ahead and almost blow it) victory in OT last night in Game 4 of the Stanley Cup playoffs. OK ‘free’ is not 100% ‘free’ when you have to spend $3 or more, but as I was buying drinks for my wife and I, it was free to me. And I’ll take free any day.
Now, you could look at this and still not be happy: Timbit prices have skyrocketed from $0.10 each to now $0.35 or $0.45 depending on the variety. Sugar is bad for you. Tim’s is crap, try McDonald’s instead. Tim’s is just faux Canadian, they suck. They are just trying to get you to spend more to have some garbage nobody needs. Yes, sure, you COULD go ahead and be negative, but why?
I’m just going to take this for the impact on me, and not any sinister corporate greed motive.
This offer – no matter what team of accounting nerds figured out that it would probably not lose money and draw more suckers into the store – is a gesture. A nice, tiny, insignificant-in-the-grand-scheme-of-things thing. But it goes a long way. It put a smile on my face and made me happy to buy my coffee and tea at Tim’s this morning. Mission accomplished.
Tim’s could have messed this up. They could have not done it at all. They could have restricted this to customers in Edmonton only. They could have looked at my purchase history (I have the app, they know everything about my habits) and figured they didn’t need to give me anything, cause I spend money there most every day. They could have made it a $5 or $10 purchase to get ‘free’ Timbits. They could have done hundreds of things to make this a bad deal.
But they didn’t.
They made it simple. They made it available to everyone with their app (sidenote: if you don’t have their app, and don’t mobile order, what are you waiting for?). They made a gesture. They made me feel valued for spending my money with them. They made me smile. They said thank you.
And today, that made me happy. Thanks Tim’s!