Josh Gavronsky started Brewsky Coffee just after COVID with a single coffee tuk-tuk. It's since grown into a grab-and-go specialty coffee business running out of a container and four trailers, with a fifth on the way. They’ve never had to worry about making great coffee. Instead, the hardest part was knowing who was actually coming back for it.

For years, that loyalty lived in a box of paper stamp cards that told Josh nothing. This is how he turned Brewsky's regulars into something he could actually see, reward, and grow, without turning it into more admin.

Brewsky’s fourth stage of growth: knowing their customers

Josh describes Brewsky's growth in stages: survival first, then getting the experience right, then quality control. For a long time, that was the whole job. But as the business spread across more sites, something started slipping through the cracks: the daily faces his baristas knew by name became harder to hold onto.

"Our Stage 4 is knowing our customers. And that's where loyalty is coming in," Josh says.

A thriving coffee business is built on frequency and familiarity rather than one-off visits. Brewsky's regulars are the business: the ones who buy 30 coffees a month, the ones whose order is ready before they've even parked the car. All of that lived in the heads of the baristas behind the counter, not in the business itself.

"In general, we didn't know who our best customers were," Josh says. He could spot his best customers by face, or by who gave the most feedback, but there was no way to see how big his pool of regulars was across the entire business or for each store.

That meant the stamp card system they were using to manage their relationships with the people coming back was carried entirely by the team and was never really held by the business.

The reality of a paper stamp card

"We could never ever tie the loyalty properly to the cup. It was always a bit of a manual process." - Josh Gavronsky, Brewsky Coffee

Before Josh swapped out stamp cards for a digital loyalty progrmme, Brewsky ran loyalty the way many independent coffee shops do. Customers would collect ten stamps on a paper card to earn one free coffee. It worked in the sense that people kept the card in their wallets. But behind the counter, it was a different story.

Nothing tied a stamp back to an actual cup, sale, or customer. As a result, balancing it meant doing everything by hand. 

"We could never ever tie the loyalty properly to the cup, even though we had a custom checkout on loyalty. It was always a bit of a manual process," Josh says. A driver drove around collecting cards from each site, who ran mini audits against their Yoco sales report. Reconciling it all ate into a week that Josh needed for the actual business.

Plenty of customers opted out entirely, knowing they’d likely lose the card and would have to start again from scratch. Not to mention that a card found on the floor could be redeemed by whoever picked it up.

The system meant to reward the most loyal customers was, in practice, easy to lose and impossible to track.

Choosing built-in over bolt-on

Josh is an early adopter who runs almost every Yoco feature, so when he started looking at loyalty, he weighed the options carefully and came close to signing with a separate loyalty app before changing his mind.

He held off on the advice that Yoco Loyalty was coming, because he recognised the power of loyalty built into the payment itself, not bolted onto the side of it.

The decision came down to a few things. A separate system meant a second device on the counter. That’s one more thing to charge, insure, and look after. It also meant asking customers to download a third-party app for a R15 coffee, which is a lot to ask, and a fresh reason for them to simply not bother. He’d also have to spend precious time training staff on a second workflow that sat entirely outside the payment itself.

"For us, it's critical that we look at something that's integrated directly," Josh says. "On the counter we would have to have a card scanner to redeem the loyalty... versus the simplicity of this process. For us, the key is the simplicity."

So Brewsky waited. "We didn't opt for that, we just stuck it out," he says. "We stuck to our belief in the product."

A loyalty programme going live in a day

When Yoco Loyalty was ready, Josh didn't wait for a rollout plan.  He activated it immediately at Yoco Next, before the launch event announcing it had even finished.

"I signed up then and there while he was talking," he says.

"For us, the key is the simplicity." - Josh Gavronsky, Brewsky Coffee

He tested the whole flow himself first: he bought a few items on a spare Yoco Counter, redeemed a reward, and made sure it actually worked the way he needed it to before asking anyone else to use it. Then he printed a simple step-by-step table talker so staff and customers could both follow along. 

No need for a rollout team, no new hardware, no project plan. Brewsky’s loyalty programme was live within a day.

"People love speed, that's what I've learned in the past few years," he says.

Moving an entire existing customer base from paper to digital, without losing anyone and without slowing the morning rush, took more than switching a feature on. To get around that, Josh built a short playbook:

He named a date and told people early
Staff mentioned the change for weeks before it happened, so customers were expecting it rather than reacting to it. "[We started] telling customers from the 1st of July that we're moving to a digital system," he told us.

• He used the dead time customers already had
  A table talker at the counter answered the "how does this work" question before anyone had to ask, so staff weren't repeating themselves all day. It was a natural flow for customers to read it while their coffee was being prepared. 
  
  

• He used the screen customers already look at
  The card machine screensaver updates with whatever Brewsky wants customers to notice next. This was a channel they already owned. "People notice the screen saver, especially when they're about to pay or when they're waiting there for their coffee. So it is a great tool," he says.
  
  

• He briefed the team simply
  A short circular went out explaining what was changing and why, keeping the new routine down to a couple of steps so there was little room for confusion.
  
  

• He protected the customers who'd already earned something
  Anyone holding a near-full stamp card wasn't punished for the switch. "Whoever came with eight stamps and up, we moved them over straight away," he says, even as customers were still turning up weeks later asking to redeem old cards.
  
  

• He widened what actually earns a reward
  The old stamp card only rewarded drinks. Now customers earn across the whole basket. This adds more value to their programme, and encourages more people to sign up.

The result? Brewsky became the independent business with the highest adoption rate across Yoco’s base, with more than 669 customers on the programme built up in weeks, not months. On top of that, none of his loyal customers got left behind in the process.

What loyalty actually means at Brewsky

"Coffee is about community, and that community conscience." - Josh Gavronsky, Brewsky Coffee

For Josh, none of this was really about a points balance. At its core, it was about being able to make a community that already existed visible to the business.

"We did it because we believe in our people. And if people are coming every day and they're buying 30 coffees a month, you know, they're part of our conversation, part of our story," he says.

He's also clear that the technology doesn't replace the relationship his baristas have built; rather, it gives them another way to deepen it. "Every day you go to the shop, your cappuccino is ready, he sees your car parking, you don't even have to ask for your order," he says. Being remembered is what turns a customer into a regular in the first place, and a loyalty programme simply gives the team one more way to make that happen.

It’s tied to something bigger than the transaction, too. Brewsky is part of the school run, the birthday party, and the small daily moments in its customers' lives. Josh sees Yoco Loyalty as deepening that, not reducing it to a purchase. 

And for businesses who know the cost of retaining customers versus chasing new ones, it's fundamentally a retention play. "We want to retain those customers. So it's all about retention, really," he says.

Brewsky was built on community, one regular and one daily coffee at a time. Yoco Loyalty gave Josh a way to see and reward his regulars, without it taking away from his time. Time that he could then spend deepening his connection to his regulars. Time he can use to get back to the reason he started.

How Brewsky uses Yoco Loyalty

Loyalty that’s built-in, not bolted on
Yoco Loyalty runs on the same Yoco machine you already have. There’s no second device to charge, insure, or lose, and no second system to reconcile against sales at month-end.

No card and no new admin
Customers join with their phone number. Nothing to download, nothing to carry, nothing to lose.

Rewards on the whole basket
Customers now earn across everything Brewsky sells, not just the drinks menu. The result: regulars are not only motivated to return, but they also have a reason to add more to their orders.

Two steps for staff
Take a number, redeem with Yoco Loyalty. The workflow is simple enough that staff need no separate training.

Time back for the business
"[Yoco Loyalty helped me] save two hours a week to focus on working with my staff and team to better our offering," Josh says.

Ready to reward your regulars? 

If you're on the Yoco Plus Plan, switch on Yoco Loyalty in the Manage tab. It runs on the machine you already use, on the same account with the same payouts.

New to Loyalty? Follow the step-by-step setup guide in the Yoco app or go to yoco.com to get started.