Consumers Pick Starbucks as Top Restaurant Loyalty App, Survey Finds

Starbucks coffee, known around the world for its Frappuccinos and coffee, is known to payments enthusiasts as an innovator in the mobile payments space. So it comes as no surprise that a new study from The Manifest has found that the Starbucks mobile app is the most popular restaurant loyalty reward app among American consumers. Forty-eight percent of smartphone users who regularly use restaurant loyalty apps use the Starbucks app, the report said, outperforming second-place Domino’s by 14 percent.

Pre-loading money and earning those gold stars – experts say those essential components of the Starbucks app has propelled it to the top spot, according to the report. The report cites the app’s mobile payments component – the need to pre-load money to order ahead rather than linking a bankcard – as a main reason for the apps popularity in use.

“You’ve already pre-spent the money,” Chris Hobbs, an mobile app and software development executive, said in the report. “I think that’s what makes it so sticky.”

Rewards are a major component of the success as well, the report said. Almost three quarters of app users use apps to collect points towards rewards.

The good coffee probably doesn’t hurt, either.