EmCan Launch - biggest challenges & advice to companies looking to launch loyalty programs • EmCan approach to building partnerships and an ecosystem • On expanding the program outside of the UAE • What differentiates EmCan in MENA • Vision for EmCan in the next 3-5 years • If you had 1 million points, How would you spend 1 million EmCan points • What loyalty feature or service would you invent if you had a magic wand • Advice to your younger self.
GLO
00:00 GLO: What were your biggest challenges in launching the program? What would be your advice to companies who are looking to launch programs now?
01:29 GLO: What is your approach to building partnerships and an ecosystem?
02:44 GLO: On expanding the program outside of the UAE.
04:22 GLO: What differentiates EmCan? What makes you stand out in the Middle East?
06:10 GLO: What is your vision for EmCan in the next 3-5 years? How would you like to see the program develop?
08:03 GLO: If you had 1 million points, how would you spend them?
08:48 GLO: If you had a magic wand what loyalty feature or service would you invent or add?
09:26 GLO: If you could give one piece of advice to your younger self starting out in the industry – what would it be?
Read the interview:
00:00 GLO: What were your biggest challenges in launching the program? What would be your advice to companies who are looking to launch programs now?
Mr. Ali Bin Zayed: I always tell my team at Emcan – “If it is not challenging, it’s not worth it”. Given our network of more than 123 stations, there are some that are a bit older and some a bit new. After GAP analysis the first thing we noticed that some stations have a bit older system than the others but working together as a team with our IT department, we managed to overcome that from the beginning.
My main advice to anyone starting any program is to firstly do a GAP analysis. Make sure you have a strong IT architecture for the application and make sure that it’s connected or integrated with other APIs in a very correct way to avoid such mishaps, red flags that might come from coding, to avoid making it harder for you to launch it.
01:29 GLO: What is your approach to building partnerships and an ecosystem?
Mr. Ali Bin Zayed: We do have a strong vision for EmCan and we target with our management to be a number one within our market. And luckily we are number one in terms of downloads, usage and rating. We thank our customers for that. EmCan will not only cover the Emarat ecosystem, but it’ll go above and beyond.
The goal is to lead in the mobility sector. A customer for us is whoever is on the road – whatever services you potentially need on the road will be will part of EmCan and enhance the experience for the customer. Our aspiration for the upcoming years is to onboard more partners, strengthen our digital capacity and ensure we have a strong personalisation and close-to-perfect offering that caters to our customers.
02:44 GLO: On expanding the program outside of the UAE.
Mr. Ali Bin Zayed: Going outside the internal ecosystem for us means that we target whoever is on the road – whatever sector that a customer might face – from utility partners, telecommunication partners, and possibly an airline partner. As you are always on the road, we would like you to be always thinking of going to Emarat station to continue your route. And not just on the ground – it can be in the sky. The main approach is that we want to choose a strong partner that has a powerful program, an easy program that can integrate with us. We don’t want to make it hard for the customer. We put ourselves in the customer’s shoes. How can I make it as simple as possible? Is it going to take him a second? Let’s do it. However hard it is the team will find a way to make it happen.
We do see growth of income outside of the UAE. We do have a vision of expanding in our region. Given the similarity in our culture and traditions as well as the fact that we do have the same set of standards when it comes to fueling and nonfuel as well.
04:22 GLO: What differentiates EmCan? What makes you stand out in the Middle East?
Mr. Ali Bin Zayed: What makes us different, I would say, is the seamlessness: you earn points just in a second. This is what positions us differently from our peers. The seamlessness of the app: everything is simple. It’s more categorised to what you want: If you want to go to the closest station that serves a specific restaurant, it is just a click of a button that’s going to take you there. Also, on the app we do have the latest fuel prices.
What we take pride in outside of our application are our ambassadors who will welcome you when you come to our service stations – the people that represent us. We are very lucky to have them as part of the program. Our main goal is that they are welcoming, they are supportive, and they’re always there for you. If you have any issues, any concerns, they will support you -whether it’s in the forecourt, or in the convenience store. I think this is what separates us – the experience and the service. Adding on to that we have 24/7 customer support on email and WhatsApp. I think in our region this works the best.
Our customer support platform is with Salesforce with everything is transparent for us. We have an SLA of 30 minutes making sure that the customer will not wait for us and that we cater to his needs immediately.
06:10 GLO: What is your vision for EmCan in the next 3-5 years? How would you like to see the program develop?
Mr. Ali Bin Zayed: I would like to see it as the “go-to App”, an app that you open daily – whether you want groceries, whether you want to fly, or whether you want to pay for your fines, and you will get rewarded immediately.
It will cater to all generations, but we are focusing more on Gen Z. The app will hopefully have in the future autonomous plate recognition, which we are working on – customer will pay without lifting a finger, so you just pass by fuel and leave, and you get the points. On top of that, you get entered into an immediate raffle – you might win a million without you knowing that you are participating. We see the app also part being part of Metaverse, having NFTs, having specific services that might appear in the future groceries, drone deliveries – it can be a hub for the customers as well.
We are actually very impressed with the performance – we’re almost 2 months old and we have already hit all of our targets and exceeded 145,000 sign-ups in such a short time given our small initial market share. We are very happy with the customer feedback, customer responses, and also with our generosity in the application.
08:03 GLO: If you had 1 million points, how would you spend them?
Mr. Ali Bin Zayed: 1 million points is equivalent to $10,000. The first thing I would do is to get my wife a gift, from Emarat – send flowers. Honestly, I would use it for my daily breakfast, my daily cup of coffee. I’ll have a good budget to spend for whole year for free coffee. Who says ‘No’ to free things? I would actually use it for fueling, for washing my car. So it will make my life easier and I get a lot of free stuff.
08:48 GLO: If you had a magic wand what loyalty feature or service would you invent or add?
Mr. Ali Bin Zayed: I’m very ambitious- I would move Emcan to be a super app, with loyalty partners who can give you travel points across all the airlines, get you free data from the telecommunication providers, pay for your Uber or Careem, and pay for your groceries. So, we will be the bank of loyalty.
09:26 GLO: If you could give one piece of advice to your younger self starting out in the industry – what would it be?
Mr. Ali Bin Zayed: Stay ambitious and passionate. Challenge everything. Whatever the decision is from the beginning – challenge it and make it even better. I would put more features from the beginning and challenge myself without worrying about the risk. I would take risks of course, after proper studying, but I would tend just to do it and make it happen.
Source: GLO / Emarat
