Among the behemoth fast food and coffee chains of the world, loyalty programs have become a vicious battleground where massive corporate investments are made to keep customers returning, driving engagement, and ultimately increasing revenue. But not all loyalty programs are created equal. Some are brilliantly designed, tapping into psychological triggers that make customers feel valued and rewarded for their loyalty. Others, however, fall flat, offering a superficial experience that leaves customers disengaged and even unimpressed.
The Dunkin’ Rewards loyalty program sits somewhere in the middle. At a glance, it seems to have all the right components: a sleek app, a points system, and recently added badges. Yet, when we dig deeper into how these components function and work together, we find a program that—despite its technical polish—fails to deliver the engaging, fulfilling experience a modern loyalty program should. In this review, we’ll critically examine the strengths and shortcomings of the Dunkin’ Rewards program, comparing it to successful examples and providing a detailed analysis of where it goes wrong and what could be done to fix it.
User Experience: A Strong Foundation with Room for Growth
Dunkin’s app is, without a doubt, a technical success. It’s easy to use, visually appealing, and free from bugs or usability problems—something I cannot say for some of its competitors, like the McDonald’s app, which I find clumsy, glitchy and slow. Dunkin’s app makes it easy for users to do the most important things, such as locate restaurants, place orders, redeem points, and stay updated on promotions.
However, a successful loyalty program needs to go beyond usability. It must create a compelling reason for customers to open the app frequently—not just when they need to place an order. Starbucks, for instance, excels here by offering its users dynamic challenges, personalized rewards, and a sense of discovery that keeps them engaged. Dunkin’, on the other hand, misses these opportunities to build deeper, more meaningful interactions with its customers. Without layers of interactivity that evolve over time, the Dunkin’ experience feels static. The experience doesn’t change whether you’ve been a Dunkin’ Rewards user for a week or a year, and this lack of evolution diminishes long-term engagement potential.
The Flawed Points System: Unbalanced and Demotivating
At the heart of any loyalty program is the points system, which should be designed to reward loyal customers fairly while incentivizing them to save for high-value items. Dunkin’s points system, however, is starkly imbalanced. To illustrate this, let’s break down the key issue: a customer can redeem 150 points for Hash Browns, a $1.50 item, effectively giving them a value of 100 points per dollar. Meanwhile, a $4 iced coffee costs 500 points, and a $5 breakfast sandwich is 800 points—making these items far worse value for the points they cost.
To be fair, even the renowned Starbucks Rewards program demands a baffling degree of calculus to optimize your “Star” power and maximize redemption value. But Starbucks loyalists who are willing to put in the effort can still usually come out ahead. In fact, the Starbucks program functions much like a game. Customers are constantly making interesting choices about how to spend their stars—whether to redeem them immediately for a small item or save them for a larger, more desirable reward. These choices have clear consequences, as customers can optimize their points to get the best value and avoid wasting stars before they expire. There’s a dominant strategy that savvy users can follow to maximize their economic utility, giving the program a sense of strategy and mastery. Additionally, the looming expiration of points introduces an element of time pressure, forcing customers to engage and make decisions before their stars lose value. This system perfectly aligns with my “3 Pillars of Engagement“: interesting choices, real consequences, and time pressure—combining to create a rewarding experience that feels like winning when done right.
Dunkin’, however, just flatly disincentivizes saving. The most economically rational behavior for Dunkin’ customers is to redeem their points for Hash Browns every time, as this gives them the best return on their investment. Why save 800 points for a breakfast sandwich when you can get several smaller items for a much better value? This broken points economy undermines one of the core purposes of a loyalty program: to encourage higher spending by making premium rewards feel worth the effort. This imbalance doesn’t just fail to inspire customers to save points for something they truly want; it actively pushes them to spend points in the least satisfying way possible.
One additional way Dunkin’ could improve its system would be by expanding reward options beyond food and drink to include physical merchandise. Offering branded Dunkin’ items like tumblers, clothing, or even tech accessories such as iPhone cases would provide customers with more meaningful, long-term rewards to aim for. Again, Starbucks already excels in this department, offering branded tumblers and mugs in its rewards catalog, giving customers an option to redeem points for items they can physically keep and use daily. These physical rewards not only provide customers with a tangible benefit but also deepen their emotional connection to the brand. By introducing merchandise as a redemption option, Dunkin’ could tap into customers’ desire for more diverse, aspirational rewards, ultimately making the points system more attractive and encouraging greater loyalty. Instead of feeling limited to redeeming points for lower-value food items, customers would have a reason to save for higher-priced, desirable items that give them a sense of pride and exclusivity.
Badges: A Missed Opportunity for True Engagement
When Dunkin’ introduced badges last month, it likely aimed to add a gamified element to the loyalty program, rewarding customers for repeat visits and offering a sense of achievement. Unfortunately, the execution of this feature falls flat. The badges are entirely visit-based, meaning that they reward nothing but the number of times a customer visits the store. And with high thresholds like 500 visits in a calendar year, they are unattainable for most casual customers.
Compare this to apps like Duolingo, where badges are awarded not just for repetitive behaviors but for skill mastery, streaks of continuous engagement, and achievements that are spread across a variety of activities. Each badge feels like an earned milestone, rewarding users for both their consistency and their progress. Duolingo’s system is dynamic, evolving with the user’s learning journey and offering immediate feedback.
Dunkin’s badges, on the other hand, are static and one-dimensional. They don’t evolve based on the user’s behavior, and they don’t offer any real reward or benefit. Furthermore, they are limited to tracking achievements in the current calendar year, which discourages users who join late from engaging with the badge system at all. If you join in November, you have virtually no reasonable chance of achieving the 500-visit badge before the year resets. This arbitrary limitation is guaranteed to not only frustrate users but also leave the badges devoid of any aspirational value. A well-designed badge system should not just track repetitive behaviors but should encourage exploration, variety, and mastery. And unlike collectible digital goods that create an ongoing sense of scarcity and fun frustration (or “funstration”), Dunkin’s badges provide no intrinsic or extrinsic motivation.
Indeed, many users on Reddit have already expressed their dissatisfaction with the badges, highlighting that they do not add value to the experience. As one user put it: “I saw this and said unless I’m getting something from collecting it what’s the point? Like a trophy showing how much money I’ve given away.”
The Gamification Trap: Points and Badges Alone Aren’t Enough
Gamification, when done right, can be a powerful tool for engagement. But points and badges alone do not constitute good gamification. In fact, over-reliance on these elements can lead to what I call “badge fatigue,” where users become disengaged because the rewards they’re working towards feel trivial and disconnected from meaningful experiences.
Pokémon GO is an excellent case study for examining how a gamified experience can combine multiple layers of engagement. Players are rewarded not just with points and badges, but with opportunities to explore, compete, and collect rare items. The game offers time-limited events, scarcity of resources, and social competition—all of which keep users engaged beyond the superficial elements. Dunkin’ however relies heavily on the simple notion that points and badges alone can create loyalty, but this misses the mark. There’s no sense of competition, scarcity, or mastery. The badges and points don’t make users feel like they’ve achieved anything significant. Worse still, the system doesn’t adapt to users’ behaviors or preferences. Users are not incentivized to interact with the brand in diverse ways; they’re simply rewarded for showing up.
What Dunkin’ could do is introduce time-sensitive challenges—limited-time rewards, exclusive offers for achieving specific goals, or even rewards for engaging with promotions on social media. These kinds of interactive, multi-layered experiences would transform the loyalty program from a transactional system into an engaging one.
Conclusion
Dunkin’ Rewards has all the technical elements in place, but it fails to create an emotionally engaging experience for its users. The points system is unbalanced, discouraging customers from saving up for high-value items. The badges are superficial and fail to tap into the intrinsic motivations that drive meaningful engagement. And the lack of deeper gamified elements leaves the program feeling static and transactional.
To transform Dunkin’ Rewards into a truly compelling loyalty program, Dunkin’ needs to rethink how it engages customers. A balanced points system that encourages saving for higher-value rewards, along with a dynamic badge system that rewards exploration and mastery, is essential for fostering long-term customer loyalty. Gamification elements should go beyond basic points and badges, offering interactive experiences that focus on meaningful and impactful choices to heighten engagement. Introducing rare, exclusive merchandise or digital rewards would provide customers with more than just points—giving them valuable, tangible rewards that strengthen their connection to the brand. Additionally, incorporating milestone events and time-limited challenges could bring excitement and urgency to the program, motivating customers to engage more frequently and with greater purpose. These enhancements would transform Dunkin’ Rewards from a purely transactional system into one that builds loyalty through interactive, aspirational experiences.
Editor’s Note:
Steve is founder and CEO of PUG Interactive, a company that is redefining Gamification for brands, retailers and the loyalty industry. Steve is unique in that he is a video game designer who unlocked how to apply proven gameplay designs and technologies to solve business problems such as community loyalty, engagement, insights, and user activation for big brands. Over the years he has worked for Disney, Electronic Arts, and Vivendi.
Steve is a CLMP™ and instructor for the Loyalty Academy™ and we have published several of his articles surveying the topic of gamification in The Wise Marketer. He is also our principal thought partner for the Wise Marketer Strategy Brief on the topic of Deep Engagement and Gamification.
