What the 1 Dian Dian Case Says About Coffee Culture and Membership Perks
The milk tea chain 1 Dian Dian built its "Supreme Dian Men Ren" tier on promises that include birthday gifts and priority order preparation, but some members say those benefits did not arrive. A customer in Nanjing reported twice waiting about twenty minutes for pickup, the same as ordinary orders, and staff seemed unaware of the priority rule until asked directly.
The complaint is not isolated. Loyal users have posted similar order records on social platforms, saying their drinks did not come faster after upgrading. Chain beverage brands increasingly tier members by cumulative spending, a habit that has shaped modern specialty coffee culture as well. Whether brands can actually deliver tiered perks at the store level remains the open question.
The chain milk tea brand 1 Dian Dian introduced the "Supreme Dian Men Ren" membership system, promising high-tier members exclusive benefits such as birthday gifts and priority order preparation. However, recently some consumers have complained that despite being supreme members, they have repeatedly failed to enjoy priority preparation service, with wait times no different from ordinary orders. On social platforms, many loyal users have also reported similar frustrations, questioning whether the brand's promised membership privileges are merely empty promises. This article will review the sequence of events, the brand's rules, and the actual implementation at stores, and explore the difficulties of delivering membership benefits.
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In recent years, many chain beverage brands have tiered their membership levels based on cumulative spending, offering discounts or exclusive services to high-tier users as a way to enhance customer loyalty. Take the milk tea brand 1 Dian Dian as an example: its "Supreme Dian Men Ren" membership system includes multiple benefits such as birthday privileges and priority order preparation.
However, a customer recently sent a complaint email to 1 Dian Dian because the brand failed to fulfill the "priority preparation" service it promised to members.
This "Supreme Dian Men Ren" wrote in the email that this month, on two occasions when placing orders at a 1 Dian Dian store in Nanjing, they did not experience the member priority preparation treatment officially advertised. According to the order screenshots provided, it took about twenty minutes after ordering to receive the pickup notification. The customer said that store employees seemed completely unaware of the "priority preparation" rule and merely produced orders in sequence mechanically; only after the customer proactively asked did the staff begin making the drink.
The poor experience left this consumer both dissatisfied and confused, questioning why the brand's promised priority preparation repeatedly failed to materialize.
Interestingly, on social platforms, loyal users encountering similar problems are not uncommon. Some have posted their order records, saying they originally thought that after upgrading to "Supreme Dian Men Ren" they would get their drinks faster, but in reality the pickup time was not noticeably shortened by the higher membership tier.
According to a post published on 1 Dian Dian's official WeChat account, since last December the brand has refined its membership tiers and corresponding benefits, including the "priority order preparation right" exclusive to "Supreme Dian Men Ren." The official membership agreement states that users who upgrade to "Supreme Dian Men Ren" will have their orders prioritized for preparation by the store after ordering through the mini-program or showing their membership code to the store, thereby shortening the wait time for pickup.
1 Dian Dian employees also confirmed that when a store receives an order from a supreme member, a prompt pops up in the system backend reminding staff to prioritize orders beginning with "V." But in actual operations, if the store is flooded with orders, staff may be too busy making drinks to notice the system pop-up and fail to pick out and prepare the supreme member's drink first.
In addition, as a few customers have reported, some employees do not understand the benefits and privileges corresponding to different membership tiers, nor are they aware that orders received by the store differ in priority. Therefore, if customers do not remind them, they simply prepare orders in the order they were placed.
In response, many members who failed to enjoy this benefit believe that although the brand began offering the special "priority preparation" service last year to improve customers' in-store experience and intended to shorten customers' waiting time, it did not properly communicate the rules to ensure store employees understood and followed them, rendering this privilege effectively useless.
In their view, since 1 Dian Dian made the corresponding promise to customers, it should unify production rules and ensure the service truly benefits consumers, rather than issuing an empty check that leaves members able to get their drinks faster only by repeatedly reminding staff at the counter.
Image source: Xiaohongshu
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The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.
