So Pret a Manger is to offer customers up to five coffees a day for a £20 monthly subscription…

The chain is hoping the price is low enough to win back some of the business they’ve lost, as city centres remain relatively deserted and many office workers continue to work from home.

Pret boss Pano Christou told the BBC’s Today programme: “There’s no doubt that workers will come into the office less often than beforehand.”

They’re calling the subscription ‘YourPret Barista’ and aiming to persuade customers to see Pret as the default choice for breakfast & lunch, in the same way as other subscription services like Netflix.

Yes. It’s quite an attractive offer for a reasonable price.

But we think Pret are missing a huge opportunity to disrupt the coffee & sandwich marketplace.

Clearly, they’re betting on people buying a sandwich or a cake when they come in for their coffee subscription fix. Which is not being radical enough to make sure they gain loyalty from customers

It would be so much more radical to offer 3 levels of subscription, that cover the other items customers want in the mornings and the afternoons.

Let’s call the subscriptions breakfast, lunch & brunch:

• for ‘breakfast’ subscription you can have any drink, breakfast cake or sandwich
• for ‘lunch’ subscription you can have any drink, sandwich, and cake
• and for ‘brunch’ subscription you get the above 2 combined.

Pret must remember that they are buying customer loyalty, so they must provide customers the right level of reward (savings) in return for their subscription.

As an example, our print technology solutions provide a 60% saving against a family or business, buying their own printer, buying replacement cartridges & getting it repaired or replaced if it breaks.

Pret must work out how much each of these subscriptions will cost, against normal selling prices, and then work out how much reward to give customers to stop them going to Costa or Starbucks.

Another thing that Pret need to consider is a fixed priced guarantee. Customers won’t be happy if Pret increase prices for existing subscription members. Customers need certainty.

We’ve learnt this. All our office technology solutions come with a lifetime fixed price guarantee.

Pret have a great opportunity to shake up the coffee & sandwich industry and gain a huge haul of new loyal customers.

But. In our opinion. They’re only achieve this if they are radical with the subscriptions on offer and go to a place their competition will be too scared to venture.

…go on Pret it must be worth a bet!