Paula: Welcome to Lets Talk Loyalty, an Industry podcast for loyalty marketing professionals. I’m Paula Thomas, the founder of Lets Talk Loyalty. Today’s episode is hosted by Tom Peace, managing Director of the Loyalty People, a strategic consultancy with a laser focus on loyalty, CRM, and customer engagement.
The Loyalty People also runs a free global community, for anyone working in the loyalty industry, if you are working in loyalty marketing, make sure to join Let’s Talk Loyalty every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday to hear the latest ideas from loyalty experts around the world.
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Tom: Hello everyone Tom Peace here, Managing Director of The Loyalty People, which you might have heard last week. Paula announced that from now on I’ll be working with Paula and the Let’s Talk Loyalty team to bring you your weekly summary shows every Tuesday. I’m a massive fan of the Let’s Talk Loyalty podcast, and Paula has built an amazing following, and rightly so, as the podcasts really are the best in the industry in terms of the quality of the guests and the insight.
Over the coming months. I’ll be bringing you. Weekly five minute summaries of Paula’s interviews showcasing particularly interesting aspects of the full podcast and discussing my key loyalty insights. I’ll always explain how you can listen to the four version and the original podcast, which can always be found on the letstalkloyalty.com website.
The first summary show in this weekly series is with Raghu Mahadevan from 7-Eleven, first aired in November 2021. This was episode number 161 and can be found at www.letstalkloyalty.com/161.
7-eleven is such a great brand to hear from as they are such a globally recognized brand and offer a really great loyalty scheme. Raghu is also very knowledgeable and engaging guest and with some very interesting advice on loyalty in customer care. So this really is a must listen show.
Let me run you through my highlights in the show. Firstly, Raghu talks us through the fact that customer loyalty isn’t just about the brand. Through the podcast, Raghu talks about factors that seven 11 really work hard at, such as the customer shopping experience and the investment the business makes in ensuring that customer service is first class.
I love this. It’s so true that a customer’s loyalty to a brand is not just driven by the actual loyalty program, but also through all the interactions that a customer has with a brand. The opposite is also very true. There’s really is no value in building a loyalty program on top of an underperforming business model that customers don’t engage positively with.
It’s absolutely vital that customer strategy is the heart of your business and a key function of your customer marketing efforts. When this is the case, a well-functioning loyalty scheme will help amplify customer loyalty, and this is exactly what we see here with 7-Eleven. To reinforce this, Raghu talks about how the entire 7-Eleven business is obsessed with customer satisfaction metrics, whether it be Net Promoter, Score Satisfaction Surveys or App Ratings, everyone is pulling in the same direction to ensure the customer is well cared for.
Anecdotally, it’s also really interesting to hear that if 7-Eleven invented the convenience store format way back in 1927, who knew? And from this beginning, almost a hundred years ago, 7-Eleven have grown into a massive global business transacting with 10 million customers per day globally, and a brand that really is at the center of many communities.
Raghu talks us through a number of ways that 7-Eleven invest to ensure that their stores are the go-to destination for their community members. The first of these is the evolution of convenience through the pandemic. 7-Eleven are obviously known for their convenience, but through the pandemic, they really invested ensuring that they met the needs of their customers, especially as delivery became a necessity rather than a luxury.
7-Eleven also brought to market a new initiative, Scan Pay Go, which enables customers to shop, pay, and leave the store, but through their mobile. During the pandemic, this enabled customers who are sensitive to standing in line to manage the Covid restrictions with safety and ease. Another innovation that Raghu talks us through is their digital wallet, where customers can load cash onto their digital wallet to use in store at a later date.
This adds further to 7-Eleven s appeal to customers looking for safety and convenience, and it’s another way that 7-Eleven drives customer loyalty through innovation. It’s really great to hear about a big brand, really investing in innovation, and Raghu talks a lot about the investments they make in customer experience, especially relating to tech.
Their app is market leading and is as an astonishing satisfaction rating, especially for a retailer. You’ll have to listen to the main show to find out just how good.
The last elevation I’ll mention is where 7-Eleven are in d team are working on an app solution that will enable customers to lock in their fuel price for up to four days.
This is a fantastic way for customers to help manage fluctuations in fuel cost and something I’m sure many customers will be thrilled about. So in summary, this is a fantastic podcast and well worth the listen. Raghu talks so well about our customer loyalty isn’t driven by rational, tangible benefits such as points, although these are really important, but also through good old-fashioned customer service, experience, and innovation.
And finally, if you’re not familiar with my company, The Loyalty People, we are a strategic consultancy with a laser focus on loyalty, CRM, and customer engagement. We deliver innovative customer strategy for brands globally, such as Papa John’s, Decathlon, Mall of Qatar, Christian Louboutin, and many others. We also run a free global community for anyone working in the loyalty industry, where we provide latest loyalty trends, market leading insight, and partner updates.
If you haven’t already, you can subscribe at theloyaltypeople.global or follow us on LinkedIn. Thank you for listening. Hope you really enjoy the main show.
Paula: This show was sponsored by The Wise Marketer, the world’s most popular source of loyalty marketing news, insights, and research. The Wise Marketer also offers loyalty marketing training through its Loyalty Academy, which is already certified over 500 executives in 38 countries as certified loyalty marketing professionals.
For more information, check out thewisemarketer.com at loyaltyacademy.org.
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