Video Interview featuring loyalty experts: Benjamin Lipsey, Head of Flying Blue Air France - KLM // Kristi Gole, Head of Strategy, Global Hotel Alliance // Andrea Pinna, Global SVP Loyalty Strategy, Radisson Hotel Group // Peter Kisbye, CEO, Loyal Solutions, Denmark // Chuck Ehredt, CEO Currency Alliance, Spain // Ani Elmaoglu, CEO, Ketchup, Turkey
GLO
Kristi Gole, Head of Startegy, Global Hotel Alliance: : I think in the loyalty space, the big opportunity is that for the past couple of years, people have not been loyal. They’ve been trying out new brands, and they’ve been very open-minded and trying new things. That’s been advantageous for small organisations like us because they’re trying us and very often, they like our hotels and they like our programme. I think the opportunity is that now that people are travelling again, I do think they will start showing loyalty again and picking one programme over others. But we still have kind of the land grab, we still have I think a few months; maybe Q1 where we can still secure new customers and then lock them in. I feel like they haven’t closed yet to pick a programme. I think they’re still trying everyone and dating everyone, and we still have the opportunity to court them and to get them in. I think that that’s exciting because maybe mid-year next year that might not be the case. They might have already solidified and picked a programme and by then hopefully, they picked us. I also think that maybe they will be picking something different than they used to maybe if they’re not travelling for business, maybe the programmes they pick now are more based on leisure or based on their own personal preference. Whereas we used to have a lot of business travellers where the organisation picked the programme. And they were loyal to the programme because they had to be as they had a lot of points from business travel. I feel now that leisure travel is so dominant, people are making decisions based on different criteria. And I think where people fall, it’s going to be very different than it used to be but also, it’s exciting because that means you’re going to end up with people who are excited about you and want to be in your programme and then you’re going to have a lot more engagement.
Ben Lipsey, Head of Flying Blue, Air France – KLM: I think there are quite a few opportunities on the horizon. The focus on emotional loyalty is going to be further developed and card-linking going to be a focus, given the lack of co-branded credit cards in Europe compared to the US. And we are venturing into that space as well. Also, we are approaching the end of most of the COVID measures whereby people had their accounts extended or miles extended and their elite status extended. There’s an opportunity to attract members who were unhappy with the previous programme and have them come join Flying Blue. This for us is a big area of focus, not just in France and the Netherlands but in other countries as well.
Andrea Pinna, Global VP Loyalty Strategy, Radisson Hotels: We see a real opportunity with the ramp-up of business travel. For example, we are working to have the best proposal for professional bookers and planners through Radisson Rewards. It allows them to earn and redeem points when they book for others as well as their personal travel. In 2023 we have an ambitious plan to grow the Radisson Reward programme and make it at the heart of the Radisson Hotel Group. Increasing awareness of the programme will be key for us as well as delivering the promise to all our members.
Ani Emanoglu, Ketchup Loyalty (Turkey): Actually, economic crisis always nurtures loyalty as brands look to address the challenges to retain their existing customers by focusing on purchase behaviours and becoming responsive to customer needs.
Chuck Ehredt, CEO Currency Alliance (Spain): Probably the lowest-hanging fruit is related to artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence allows you to uncover really insightful information about your customers and build richer profiles. But of course, artificial intelligence doesn’t work unless you have a good set of data. I think companies have spent most of the last five years trying to get their data into single silos so that all the data is aggregated and therefore the algorithms associated with artificial intelligence have a richer set of data in order to run their analysis. A lot of the data consolidation I think is largely done and artificial intelligence has improved quite a lot in the last two years. I actually think in the very short term, we’re going to see a lot more customer profiling at smaller sizes of customer segments, and that will drive personalisation. Producing much more tailored content for individuals such as tailored offers or more dynamic pricing on the earning side as well as the redemption side. So I think the lowest hanging fruit for 2023 and what we’re going to see the most of is probably improved personalisation.
Peter Kisbye, CEO Loyal Solutions (Denmark): For companies such as ours, there is a tonne of opportunities because we have a technology that’s at the top of the market. I think for the leaders in our industry, on the technology front, there’s a tonne of opportunity because there are a lot of programmes that have been running for a long time where they simply need to upgrade their technology now. This is a personal opinion, but the day of the paper voucher and the barcodes is over. So there’s an opportunity in upgrading existing system technology, and there are still opportunities in some areas where people really don’t have a loyalty proposition. So that’s sort of the opportunity for us as a company and for our industry. I think that for example, things like card-linking are making technology better and easier. It’s also involving people like Visa and MasterCard and AmEx. So as an industry, I think that there are almost endless opportunities. It’s a really, really big market.
