0:00 - Introduction • 1:29 - Key milestones • 3:32 - Importance of loyalty • 6:14 - Key trends, opportunities and challenges • 13:17 - One prediction for the loyalty ecosystem in 2024 • 14:40 - Allianz products and solutions to improve CX and customer loyalty for partners • 18:29 - On digital innovation • 19:17 - On partnerships
GLO
0:00 – Introduction
1:29 – Key milestones
3:32 – Importance of loyalty
6:14 – Key trends, opportunities and challenges
13:17 – One prediction for the loyalty ecosystem in 2024
14:40 – Allianz products and solutions to improve CX and customer loyalty for partners
18. 29 – On digital innovation
19:17 – On partnerships
Read the full transcript below.
0:00
GLO: Dear Joe, it’s a pleasure to have the opportunity to interview you today. Can you briefly start by introducing yourself and Allianz’s efforts in customer loyalty to our members?
Joe Mason, Chief Marketing Officer, Allianz Partners: First of all, thank you for having me. It’s always a pleasure to talk to people who are like-minded in terms of creating better experiences for customers and for partners. My name is Joe Mason. I’m the Chief Marketing Officer of our travel line of business within Allianz Partners, and we serve customers and partners from the airline space to retail travel agents, cruise lines to B to C, event ticket distributors and basically anyone who has a presence in the travel industry. We typically serve them and their customers, hoteliers included. I’ve been with the company for about nine years. My last five have been spent here in Paris, and the previous four in the US. I’m very happy to talk to you about loyalty, which is something that’s very important to Allianz and to our division.
1:29
GLO: 2023 was an interesting year. First, of course, it was the first full year after the pandemic. Companies were still facing some challenges, but at the same time, they were laying the foundations for 2024 and 2025. What were, in your opinion, the key milestones for the loyalty industry in 2023?
Joe Mason, Chief Marketing Officer, Allianz Partners: So what were the things that influenced us in 2023, and what do we expect in the coming years? I think obviously within the industry in which I work, travel, we’re coming off the greatest disruption in the history of travel, and that is the pandemic. And what we’ve seen throughout 2022 and into 2023 is a great resurgence of demand, from customers and from travellers within the sector. And as a result, many of our partners and virtually everyone in the travel industry used that opportunity to kind of rethink how they would design and deliver customer experiences. What we’ve seen is a convergence of travel and technology. In my case, within insurance, what we’ve tried to do is build products and services that meet the needs of travelers, as the needs of travelers have changed more than ever before. There’s more volatility, there’s more uncertainty, and there’s more concern about booking a trip and whether or not there’s going to be societal unrest, some sort of geopolitical problem, or some sort of environmental issue to deal with. And on top of that, we have inflation. A lot of those factors have come together within our space to help us rethink how we deliver our products and services to make sure that we’re taking care of our customers. And that goes for all our business units and all of our regions around the world.
3:32
GLO: Loyalty, surprisingly, was one of the best-performing segments in travel through the pandemic. Do you think loyalty is still important, and how do you see the role of loyalty in 2024/25?
Joe Mason, Chief Marketing Officer, Allianz Partners: It’s a very good question. Loyalty is the outcome of companies making good decisions on behalf of their customers. Loyalty doesn’t just happen; repeat purchases don’t just happen; and repeat visits to websites don’t just happen. They have to be well-designed in order for customers, who already have an extremely high bar when it comes to customer experience and user journeys, to purchase products and continue to purchase products. Loyalty is really an outcome of good service and good design. I think customers have more options than ever. There’s more competition than ever. And when you have options, competition and very good services and products that are being delivered by the entire industry, customers have a choice. When customers have a choice, those companies that can provide the right expectations and meet those expectations with high-quality goods and services are the ones that typically win. And when it comes to loyalty, those are the companies that typically get the repeat business, which is so critical for everyone in the travel space. No one wants a customer to visit their hotel, buy their insurance, or fly their airline just once. Just once doesn’t work for anyone in our industry because this industry relies on high-frequency activity and high-frequency travel, and as a result, you have to be consistent. So not only do you have to deliver high-quality goods and services, you have to consistently deliver them, and you have to at least meet the already high expectations that are expected by consumers and partners. And in the best-case scenario, you exceed those already high expectations. Those are, at least in my mind, the ingredients for long-term loyalty to certain companies and certain products and services.
6:14
GLO: Looking into 2024, which trends do you think we’ll be dominating the landscape? (In 2023, we talked a lot about data analytics, ChatGPT, artificial intelligence, etc.) In your opinion, what are the key trends for 2024 and what are you investing in?
Joe Mason, Chief Marketing Officer, Allianz Partners: Another really good question. If 2023 was a year that we talked about chat GPT and AI and predictive modelling and trying to understand behaviour better, I think 2024 is going to be the realisation of that. I don’t think many companies have truly embedded AI the way that they’re capable of and to me, it’s all on a quest to have more relevancy, more personalization, and more tailored products and services that meet the high demands of consumers, meet the high demands of partners, and meet the ever-growing demand and scrutiny in some cases of the industry. With respect to sustainability and the choices that people make, I think we’re going to see an acceleration of technology and its application and relevancy for frequent travellers.
7:45
GLO: Where do you see the biggest opportunities in 2024 for Allianz Partners and the loyalty sector?
Joe Mason, Chief Marketing Officer, Allianz Partners: I think the biggest opportunities (we touched on before) are around relevancy, personalisation, and tailored products and services for consumers. The patience of today’s consumer has basically left the building. People don’t want to have to learn new processes; people don’t want to have to learn new interfaces. What companies must do is create interfaces that aren’t only intuitive but also come across as refreshingly easy and refreshingly simple. And what we’re trying to do at Allianz with our business partners is design insurance products that protect all facets of the travel journey, from planning to going on the trip to being at the destination to returning home—and that’s the person; those are the bags; that’s health and well-being. And we have services that help customers anytime, anywhere. We have a high bar because customers (nearly 100 million) trust us to protect them during their travel, and that’s a super high bar. So, it’s something we take incredibly seriously. We want to instill more confidence in travellers. We want to give travellers and our customers greater peace of mind to know that if anything goes wrong and if there are any unforeseen events or any unexpected events that occur that disrupt a trip—whether it’s an accident, illness, flight delay, a flight cancellation, loss bags, etc.—we want to have easy access to our agents and easy access to our claims portal, and we want to make that process refreshingly clear and refreshingly easy for our customers.
9:49
GLO: What challenges did you face in 2023, and which challenges do you expect for 2024?
Joe Mason, Chief Marketing Officer, Allianz Partners: With respect to challenges, I don’t think it matters if it’s 2023, 2010, or 1995. Challenges are oftentimes self-inflicted. That is to say that the ambitions that we have as companies tend to exceed our ability to deliver some of those ambitions as quickly as we would like. And I think all companies have, or at least should have, ambitions that exceed their capacity, at least in the short term. What I see in 2024 is more execution of the technology that has begun to ramp up in 2023. These are challenges that we face at any time of our existence, and they’re the constant battles that organisations face, and that’s a trade-off between ambitions and capacity. As it relates to some macro factors, some of the challenges have to do with sustainability and how much influence eco-friendly travel is going to have on travel behaviour. That’s a question mark. How much is Allianz truly going to be able to design products and services that are even more relevant for me and more relevant than perhaps a competitor may offer? We also have the inflationary concerns that are subsiding a little bit, but we still see some softening in the category in the industry, and we just don’t know for sure how that’s going to play out. Luckily for all of us in the travel space and travel royalty space, demand has been strong, and we expect demand to continue to be strong. And we expect all big companies to fulfil some of these ambitions that we all have. And I think, as a result, what that means for our travelers and what that means for our customers is a better and more confident experience. And when people have more confidence, they tend to do more things that benefit everyone. If I’m more confident, I have more energy, more interest, and a greater sense of adventure. These are things that collectively we work with our partners to deliver, and we have created an incredible brand and an incredible story around that and have millions and millions of customers to testify to that. It has been a very, very fun journey. It’s an exciting one. We’re in a very exciting ecosystem, and loyalty is going to continue to be a major part of the mindshare and mindset of teams and corporations.
13:17
GLO: If you were to make one prediction for 2024 for the loyalty ecosystem, what would it be?
Joe Mason, Chief Marketing Officer, Allianz Partners: I think the definition of loyalty is going to continue to expand. I think there are a lot of things that are going to fit into this bucket that we call loyalty. I think companies, more than ever, are going to be maniacally focused on products and services that exceed customer expectations, which have grown immensely over the past few years. And there’s going to be an expectation that technology is going to be used in smart, productive ways. So that’s the gist of it, I would say and as it relates to investment dollars, more and more projects that companies undertake tie to customer relevancy, repeat purchases, long-term customer value or lifetime customer value and loyalty. So projects, activities and initiatives that drive more engagement with consumers, drive better experiences for consumers and allow companies to be instantly available when they’re needed. These are things that I expect we’re going to see a lot more of in the coming years, and certainly in 2024.
14:40
GLO: We’d love to hear more about Allianz partners, specific solutions, and propositions for the clients. How do you help them improve the consumer experience and loyalty proposition?
Joe Mason, Chief Marketing Officer, Allianz Partners: At Allianz Partners, our goal is to be a constant companion for our customers. What do I mean by that? If you think about the travel experience, there are different phases of it, from planning to booking to traveling to a destination, coming home and all the things that happen in between. And what we’re trying to do at Allianz and what we have done at Allianz is build travel insurance, which generally protects people in the event of unexpected expenses, delays or cancellations. And we’ve wrapped that insurance with a variety of services that make the travel experience better. So services that relate to planning trips, services that relate to accessing certain hospitals or clinics if you need them at a destination, services related to health and wellness, safety and security, as well as some general services like flight statistics, all in one place through one app, either distributed discreetly through an app that we have called a lease or travel smart depending on where you are, as well as new services that we continue to add to make the experience better for customers.
16:09
GLO: If we look at the travel industry, the sector has had a huge comeback, especially this year. At the same time, airlines have been struggling to ramp up capacity, and they’re still facing delays and disruption caused by a lack of staff. How has the increase in travel demand impacted Allianz Partners, and how are you helping your airline partners to meet customer demands and increase customer loyalty?
Joe Mason, Chief Marketing Officer, Allianz Partners: Yes, thank you for the question. There is a lot there. On one side, we’re talking about demand. Consumer demand does continue to be strong, which tends to lift all ships in the travel industry, Allianz included. Revenge travel was certainly noticeable when we were coming out of the pandemic. There was a lot of pent-up demand. That softened a bit but is still very, very strong. We’re having an incredibly strong year that will continue. So, strong demand bodes very well for our business and bodes very well for our partners as it relates to some of the challenges that travel suppliers face. I think that’s natural. The pandemic was a dramatic jolt to the entire industry and a lot of companies took the time to retool, rethink, and reset processes. As a result, there were some hiccups along the way. I think we’re getting through that very, very quickly. Companies are taking this sense of loyalty incredibly seriously. And they want customers to come back time and time again. We’re all in this together. We have great partners around the globe, and we’re very like-minded on this topic. We want to do good things for our customers. And we want to be notified when we don’t, when we fall short, or when we slip. We’ve got a very open, transparent relationship with our business partners and our big distributors, as well as with the end customer who’s purchasing our products and trusting us to protect them.
18:29
GLO: Allianz has a long history of being an innovator with digital products and solutions. And one of the latest products you’ve released is a new app, which is a global product for insurance customers. Can you share with us your experience with the launch of this product? And is there any advice that you can share?
Joe Mason, Chief Marketing Officer, Allianz Partners: My advice would be to make sure that the mission is clear. Make sure that the company is organised to deliver on the ambition, and make sure that to what extent you build it yourself or rely on third parties. All of you understand what the vision is and understand the ambition. And together, you can work as one team and deliver great things to the market and to your partners.
19:17
GLO: Allianz is one of the largest insurance companies in the world and has many partners. What is your philosophy and your approach to new partnerships, and which areas are you looking at?
Joe Mason, Chief Marketing Officer, Allianz Partners: Our approach to partnerships is really simple. We like to partner with companies that have similar interests, are like-minded, and believe in putting the customer first. We also believe in partnering with companies where we feel like we have something to add. So specifically thinking about our travel business, we fill a gap that many travel suppliers have, and that’s related to the history and expertise of taking care of travellers wherever they may be in the world. The partnerships that we tend to find do the best are those that have those characteristics in mind. They also understand that there’s a very high bar for customer experience and services, digital services in particular. When you bring like-minded companies together, where each complements the other, either through the industry that they are experts in or have a big footprint in with other providers that have certain expertise and certain experience, bringing the two together can make the whole much greater than the sum of the parts. It’s been a wonderful journey, and we’re lucky to have partnered with some of the world’s largest companies and will continue to do so with the trajectory that we have.
Source: GLO
