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 / Shyam Shah, CEO, Loyalty Juggernaut, USA/ Peter Kisbye, CEO, Loyal Solutions, Denmark / Chuck Ehredt, CEO Currency Alliance, Spain / Ani Elmaoglu, CEO, Ketchup, Turkey / Tony Piedade, Deputy Chair, GLO / CEO, Redwing Consultants, UK / Iain Pringle, Partner, New World Loyalty, UK
GLO
Kristi Gole, Head of Startegy, Global Hotel Alliance: I love consumer choice. I love consumers being able to personalise for themselves because they can do it much better than a business is going to do for them. It reminds me of Mandarin Oriental. I love their Fans programme where they say “here are your benefits for this stay, pick the three you want”. That’s beautiful, it’s amazing. Operationally it’s really hard to deliver, but they are a small company and they figured it out. I love that the consumer has the choice, in maybe a certain context or maybe in a certain state that they’re in or whatever it is, they are able to tailor it to them at that point. I love consumer control and consumer choice. So, my magic wand would be that we would set up a programme that a consumer can just make whatever they want. And then it somehow works for us financially and operationally, that would be amazing. And if I figure that out, I am going to launch that.
Ben Lipsey, Head of Flying Blue, Air France – KLM: I think it’s less of a magic wand and it’s more of an investment for the future. But I really think it’s a focus on data. We all talk about data protection, which I think is very important and not to be forgotten and of course, is there in Europe, but I really think that we’re kidding ourselves if we don’t think that a lot of our spending is I wouldn’t say tracked but certainly monitored in aggregate and a lot of your travel patterns, for example, there are databases of where you travel. So, if you could create a tool that would link all of that and as a result, I end up getting relevant marketing, or see deals or sales or some kind of attractive offer that was relevant to me, rather than one that’s completely mass market. I think this will come and it’s just a matter of time. For me, what’s the really interesting thing from a loyalty perspective is: how do I talk to the customer on an individual level?
Andrea Pinna, Global VP Loyalty Strategy, Radisson Hotels: Emotional connection with the programme. Emotional loyalty will be for sure a key pillar to develop. We use many times the word reinvent sometimes we really need to reinvent something but enter it a bit more into the DNA of our brands and of our programme. Today members are looking for an emotional connection with the programme. They want to feel that the brands are aligned exactly with their expectations and their values. This will be for sure important for 2023 and not only with full personalisation. Full personalisation will be for sure the key offer or strategy for the loyalty programmes.
Tony Piedade, CEO Redwings Consultants (UK): For me, it would predictive tech, predictive solutions & features to loyalty programmes. So by that, I mean, if I’m being tracked as being somewhere by a store where there is an offer for that store to be able to make that offer to me at that point in time. Now, I think that a whole number of things need to happen, not least the ability for me and the security environment to be available for me to be able to say, “I’m happy for this app to track my position”. But if you can unlock that, and make the loyalty programme super useful, based on where I am at a particular point in time this would make quite a difference and would be fantastic. And you can also use that in an online environment while there are already people who track URLs and site visits. Well, there is some ability now to predict what it is I want or need. Maybe that’s the challenge for Amazon they seem to be doing some interesting things in that space.
Iain Pringle, Partner, New World Loyalty (UK): If I had a magic wand – I’ve always believed that coalitions were and still are the right way to go for loyalty. Because it makes sense for customers it makes sense for the brand. What I mean by that is that the customers collect in lots of different places to get a reward that has the greatest value and makes sense. To create a coalition that really added value to customers and the customers loved. The magic wand that I would waive would do what Brian Pearson always described as “making the elephants dance” because all big programmes or big brands have egos, and it’s very difficult to get big brands to play nicely together. And so my magic wand around the world (and it would be worth a fortune) would be in each market to wave the magic wand to create a coalition that really added value to customers and the customers loved. If you look around the world the programmes that would get the most engagement are the biggest programmes. But the thing is, getting the big brands to play nicely together is really, really hard. And I’m not even sure a magic wand could do it if I’m honest.
Ani Emanoglu, Ketchup Loyalty (Turkey): Connect to the thoughts of the consumer to know when he/she will do their next purchase and what he/she wants to hear from the brands to trigger the purchase.
Chuck Ehredt, CEO Currency Alliance (Spain): If I had a magic wand, I would wave it at lots of companies and get them to implement dynamic pricing on redemptions. And the reason for that is most redemption catalogues are quite static with curated content where this hotel room is always 20,000 points, or this flight is always 70,000 miles, or this toaster is always 3000 points. And I think that’s ridiculous. The toaster might always be 3000 points because the cost of the toaster might be $18. But on the flights and the hotels, when the hotel is going to be sold out then there’s a real opportunity cost to let customers redeem for those hotel rooms because if they don’t accept the loyalty programme member redemption, they can sell that room for cash. But 70% of the time 70% of the rooms are not going to be sold. And the hotel chain cannot deeply discount those room nights in order to fill the available capacity because that will either violate their price parity agreements with Expedia or booking.com or would upset existing customers that have booked that night at a much higher price. But if the hotel is smart, they’ll offer those rooms for 6000 points instead of 20,000 points in order to get loyalty programme members to burn off liability and also take advantage of the availability of the property because cleaning a room for one extra guest costs, maybe $6. And any revenue above $6 is a contribution to the margin of the hotel. And then the guest is going to probably spend money in the bar, maybe pay for parking and go on a tour and activity etc. I think dynamic pricing in the redemption catalogue is a really powerful tool that very, very few brands are using, but I think it’s a great way to deliver more value to members and also clean up the balance sheet for the brand.
Peter Kisbye, CEO Loyal Solutions (Denmark): I would invent a solution where the consumer did not have to do anything for the reward to be triggered. If you had a technology that if I walked into a mall I would, without having to do anything, be recognised. And you could run the whole reward system based on that. Now the downside of doing that is that I’m not a fan of registering everybody on facial recognition and all this contradicts it but now we’re just thinking if we could do it without the downside, that will be it.
Shyam Shah, CEO Loyalty Juggernaut (USA): If I had a magic wand I would like to dream of a loyalty solution or a loyalty programme value proposition wherein the whole programme’s value proposition is co-created with each customer individually. That means every customer has a say. It’s as if the customer is part of your strategic think tank on how to really execute the loyalty programme. because a lot of investment and a lot of focus is invested in getting your loyalty programme right. The reality is loyalty programmes are experimental by their very nature, there is nothing like a perfect loyalty programme. Very well-run loyalty programmes are in their continuous and never-ending pursuit of being perfected. So if I had a magic wand, I would like to invent that perfect loyalty programme that works well for every consumer, retains every consumer, delivers value to every consumer and maximises their lifetime value. I think that for me would be the magic wand. But, as I said, it’s an imaginary goal. I think what makes this space very exciting and interesting is continuously rediscovering yourself because there is nothing like a perfect loyalty programme and there’s always something to be perfected.
