Starbucks was bustling for a Saturday evening when I was working out of there this last weekend.  I left to get something down the street and subsequently decided to go back to work at a coffee shop, but found myself ultimately only 2 doors down from Starbucks at Peet’s which looked like a ghost town:

I chose to go into Peet’s cause there was so much room to sit but I hadn’t thought about what could be the difference between the two venues since they both had WiFi (and arguably comparable coffee).  One thing quickly became apparent: the ease of access to the free wireless.

Peet’s basically makes you ask for a WiFi passcode and it lasts for about one hour.  Starbucks doesn’t ask you for any special passcode and it doesn’t knock you off.

As a customer who frequents coffee shops and oftentimes work out of them during frequent business trips, I would say I’m the ideal customer of a coffee chain since I’ll gravitate and spend with a brand I love.  I also would now know to choose Starbucks over Peet’s (assuming distances to be comparable) because of how much easier it is to get plugged in and situated.

With its recent launch of Starbucks Digital Network, Starbucks has shown it cares about the overall customer experience — both online and offline components. Starbucks sees it as a way to retain customers and has worked out deals that could help not only enhance customers’ online experiences but possibly monetize them as well.  They give access to premium digital content for free and may over time even charge for distribution to their audience. As their free content access grows, you almost want to spend more time at Starbucks.  Things are becoming freer there.

Peet’s on the other hand has simply seen WiFi access as a feature no different than providing a cup of water for free if asked.  I’m sure it seemed like a good way to generate table turnover and minimize the opportunity cost of that occupied seat but the overall experience of going to Peet’s is a lot different as a result.  It makes me less likely to go there overall so whatever increase in revenue from higher turnover ability may be muted by lower customer retention or acquisition.

This is the difference between free and freer.  In business, free is just about giving away something to get people to buy more other things while they are there — it values interactions as transactional.  Freer is about delighting customers with free by making it easier to enjoy the experience and more desirable to return to spend more time, which should mean spending even more money — it makes interactions a lot more about loyalty and reciprocation.