Paula: Welcome to Let’s Talk Loyalty, an industry podcast for loyalty marketing professionals.
Paula: I’m your host, Paula Thomas, and if you work in loyalty marketing, join me every week to learn the latest ideas from loyalty specialists around the world.
Paula: So, in today’s episode of Let’s Talk Loyalty, I am super excited, as always, but today is probably a real career highlight for me.
Paula: So, many years ago, I worked with Emirates Airline for a short period of time, and I did do some great work with Skywards.
Paula: Now, alongside all of that, all of my listeners will know that I live in Dubai, and that is the home of Skywards and home of Emirates Airline, which is where Skywards is obviously the official Airline loyalty program for.
Paula: Now, recently, Skywards announced an amazing milestone of 25 million members.
Paula: So, I realized that nothing could be more exciting, in fact, than sitting down and chatting about Skywards with the Divisional Senior Vice President of Emirates Skywards, Dr. Nejib Ben Khedher.
Paula: Welcome to the show.
Paula: So, I have to say, Nejib, I have incredibly fond memories of working with Emirates and Skywards.
Paula: In fact, I joined the organization 20 years ago, back in the year 2000, and we did some incredible work with Skywards in early 2001.
Paula: And having looked at your own LinkedIn profile, I can see you have a phenomenal career in both technology and in Emirates specifically.
Paula: So, almost eight years within the airline and the last five years specifically working on various roles within Skywards.
Paula: So, before we get into talking about the program, tell me, what is your favorite loyalty statistic?
Dr Nejib: Well, Paula, we have a balanced scorecards that tracks a dozen customer and commercial KPIs.
Dr Nejib: As a global program with a diverse base, we have a different frequency, recency characteristics than other large airline programs.
Dr Nejib: It’s therefore important that we stay relevant and engaged with our members above and beyond the flight activities that may be, in our case, infrequent.
Dr Nejib: As our focus on measuring not only flight active, but also more broadly program active.
Dr Nejib: So my favorite KPI is 12 months program active members.
Paula: And can you define what is a program active member than Nejib as distinct from obviously flight active or self-explanatory?
Dr Nejib: We look at 24 months flight active and 12 months flight active, but program active is anybody who has engaged with either on a flight activity or with any of our partners on the program, either through an earn or a burn activity.
Paula: And I love to talk to senior people actually around KPIs because I think what a lot of us have to do is defend our programs a lot of the time.
Paula: I’m pretty sure Skywards is way past having to defend anything because it’s such an amazing brand.
Paula: And in fact, just for listeners, I will also say Nejib because again, we know and love Emirates for so many years, but for people in other parts of the world, they may not be as familiar with it.
Paula: And I do know that Emirates is one of the biggest airlines in the world now.
Paula: And certainly one of the biggest operators of the Airbus A380, very famous for that.
Paula: So-
Paula: And 777, of course.
Paula: Yes, you have to have a balanced fleet.
Paula: So we won’t talk about the fleet, but great just to kind of give that background if anyone isn’t familiar with the airline.
Paula: So tell us then about Emirates Skywards, Nejib.
Paula: You know, how has it evolved over the years?
Dr Nejib: It’s good to hear that Paula, you were here at the inception of the program, but obviously we’ve moved in the past 20 years and I’ve came on board about four years ago when I started the transformation of the program.
Dr Nejib: So maybe I’ll talk a little bit about what happened in the past few years.
Dr Nejib: Again, the program will celebrate its 20th anniversary in May 2020 this year.
Dr Nejib: We’ve mentioned, you’ve mentioned the 25 million monstone.
Dr Nejib: We have actually grown to date to 27 million members.
Dr Nejib: And we’re adding nearly 300,000 new members every month.
Dr Nejib: We nearly doubled in size over the last four years.
Dr Nejib: I would say most importantly, something maybe not everybody knows is that our bases in the UK, US, Australia and India have overtaken our domestic UAE base, and they became our four largest member bases with more than 2 million members each.
Dr Nejib: Wow.
Dr Nejib: But in terms of the program itself, we evolved from being just a frequent flyer program, catering, I would say, to the top 3% who can afford our flight rewards, to being relevant to millions around the world.
Dr Nejib: We somewhat democratized the flight rewards through the Cash Plus Miles scheme, where members can join the program, fly just once or twice, and then realize discount value on their next ticket purchase.
Dr Nejib: Two-third of the Cash Plus Miles transactions are for less than 10,000 miles.
Dr Nejib: So you can see that it’s affordable, it’s something that’s accessible.
Dr Nejib: We expanded earning from flights to everyday spends.
Dr Nejib: That’s another big change.
Dr Nejib: So more than 50% of the earned transactions and 25% of the miles are actually earned on other categories than flights.
Paula: Okay.
Dr Nejib: As a matter of fact, we’re positioning our earn and burn offering as what I would call everyday spend that transports you away from your everyday life.
Paula: The marketing people have fun with that one.
Dr Nejib: You can credit me for this one.
Paula: Lovely.
Dr Nejib: Well, Skywards miles are actually evolving, starts becoming a true aspirational lifestyle loyalty currency.
Dr Nejib: Yeah.
Dr Nejib: We also had a very strong digital drive in the past few years with a focus mostly on the mobile channel.
Dr Nejib: So we built a comprehensive loyalty section in the Emirates app, and we launched a number of Skywards branded special purpose apps as well.
Dr Nejib: We also introduced a number of industry firsts.
Dr Nejib: In particular, last year, we introduced a gamified scheme for our platinum members where they can unlock some additional exclusive privileges.
Dr Nejib: And we also introduced targeted and personalized Skywards offers in the shopping path.
Dr Nejib: I think we’re one of the first airlines to do so, where we basically, when you’re shopping online, you will have very, very personalized offers that will come to you in the form of either specials, cash plus miles rate or an instant upgrade.
Dr Nejib: And this was done to drive higher conversion when our members are booking online.
Dr Nejib: Finally, and for the fun part, we introduced Skywards exclusives last year, leveraging our sport and cultural sponsorship assets through an engaging experience on the Emirates app, including an auction functionality that proved to be extremely popular with our members.
Paula: And actually I was writing an article yesterday, Nejib, and it specifically highlighted that I think certain demographics, so for example, millennials, really do value those experiences exactly what you’ve mentioned, rather than just, you know, maybe there’s, you know, an aspirational flight in the future, but actually, no, maybe I want to go to the Dubai Rugby Sevens, the Emirates Rugby Sevens.
Dr Nejib: Yes, a fun event, obviously.
Dr Nejib: And you’re absolutely right.
Dr Nejib: And this experiential piece is really what builds the emotional connection with the brand, with Emirates, but with the program itself.
Dr Nejib: And again, we need to cater to a very diverse space geographically, but also, as you may imagine, a diverse segments as well, including millennials now.
Paula: Yeah, for sure.
Paula: And I will say, I love the point about the accessibility of rewards.
Paula: And again, I’ve cashed in miles for partial contributions towards my flight, and already that halo effect comes into play.
Paula: But actually, I also wanted to say something that happened just last week, which was fabulous, very positive from a friend of mine who had a redemption trip booked to one destination, and circumstances changed, and he decided he could no longer travel.
Paula: And I think within an hour, all of those Skywards miles were back in his account, and there was absolutely no problem.
Paula: So the efficiency has been built in, and you’re definitely earning trust.
Paula: So the digital transformation is definitely coming through there.
Dr Nejib: Thanks.
Paula: You can tell I’m a fan, huh?
Dr Nejib: Yeah, absolutely.
Dr Nejib: You know more, maybe.
Dr Nejib: Yes, you know more about the program, maybe, then.
Dr Nejib: Yeah.
Paula: It’s amazing.
Paula: I know sometimes we sit and you kind of, you know, you’re in the office, but when you talk to people face to face, yeah, you learn a lot about loyalty programs.
Dr Nejib: I’d say our members are the best spokespeople, obviously, for the program.
Dr Nejib: Everything we do is for them, and it’s great to see people who advocated.
Paula: Yeah, for sure.
Paula: And that’s a subject, actually, that I’m sure is coming up in Emirates as well in terms of customer experience.
Paula: So that’s what I’m feeling coming through in terms of your program.
Dr Nejib: Excellent.
Paula: So tell us then, you obviously have a whole portfolio of products.
Paula: So what would you say are the most popular products?
Dr Nejib: I’ll talk about products and partners as well, because again, we’ve expanded the program relevance by actually working with a number of partners worldwide.
Dr Nejib: But as I mentioned before, we focused our effort on allowing members to earn more through everyday spend, while redemption focused mostly on travel, to make their travel experience.
Dr Nejib: And that’s the aspirational part, I would say, of the program, the travel experience even better.
Dr Nejib: But the diversification of the sources of earn and burn over the last years can be measured in the substantial increase in number of transactions.
Dr Nejib: So we had plus 40% earn transaction and plus 100% burn transactions over the last three years, over where we were, I guess, three years ago.
Paula: Sure.
Dr Nejib: This is explained by the introduction of a large number of new partners in the financial, travel and lifestyle categories.
Dr Nejib: So let me give some examples.
Dr Nejib: On the earn more aspect, but starting with our core products, whereby Skywards members can now earn substantially more miles on Emirates Flex Plus and Flex Fairs versus Special and Sabre Fairs.
Paula: Okay.
Dr Nejib: Now these changes have incentivized upsell, especially among the members who are keen to maintain their tier status.
Dr Nejib: On the non-flight side, the bulk of miles earned is from financial partners, as you can expect it.
Dr Nejib: We have now 15 core brands with six banks here in the UAE alone.
Dr Nejib: Wow.
Dr Nejib: And we have reward point conversion with another seven financial institutions.
Dr Nejib: But we’ve expanded also outside our home base.
Dr Nejib: We now have a co-brand credit cards in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Malaysia, Pakistan, India, Australia.
Dr Nejib: And we are scaling up to other geographies with the conversion bank partners in Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, Korea, China, the Philippines, Brazil and Oman, and that list continues to grow.
Dr Nejib: We also ramped up our presence in the US our second largest member base, with a soon to be launched co-brand, hopefully by end of April.
Dr Nejib: But also conventional agreement with all the major reward schemes from Amex, Chase, Citi, HSBC and Capital One.
Dr Nejib: So that’s not the financial partners, but other popular earn categories are with major hotel chains and car rentals.
Dr Nejib: In particular, and you may know this Paula, being a Skywards member yourself.
Dr Nejib: And I hope you’ve enjoyed this partnership that we have with Marriott Bonvoy, which has been extremely successful.
Dr Nejib: Actually, we have now 225,000 members who are enrolled in our joint, what we call your reward program.
Dr Nejib: Where people benefit from being a tier member, both on the Marriott side, as well as on Skywards.
Dr Nejib: We will be soon relaunching what we call Skywards Hotels, which is powered by Rocket Miles.
Dr Nejib: And this proposes one of the most actually attractive earn rate per dollar spend, and it’s available on more than 400,000 properties worldwide.
Dr Nejib: Wow.
Dr Nejib: You may also be familiar with this one.
Dr Nejib: We’re also making a big foray in the retail category, both in physical outlets and e-commerce businesses.
Dr Nejib: So, if you’ve visited Dubai Mall, which is one of the largest malls in the world and a destination within a destination, I would call.
Dr Nejib: Dubai Mall adopted Skywards Miles as its loyalty currency.
Dr Nejib: So we have more than 100,000 members who are actively engaged with the Dubai Mall program since its launch 18 months ago, earning miles against nearly $1 billion in retail spend.
Dr Nejib: So pretty large and pretty successful.
Dr Nejib: Now, we also launched Skywards Every Day, which is an app on its own, and we changed radically the way we onboard partners by offering a B2B platform for smaller retail outlets to join the program, becoming de facto their loyalty program.
Dr Nejib: And within just two months of its launch, we have 250 plus partners and 1,000 outlets where you can instantly now earn miles.
Paula: My God.
Dr Nejib: Again, this is a new product that we’re introducing and a new way for us to bring partners at scale.
Dr Nejib: Maybe I’ll end with a couple of things.
Dr Nejib: We also launched MyFamily to allow members of a family to consolidate their miles earned and reach rewards faster.
Dr Nejib: So more than 500,000 family accounts have been created to date.
Dr Nejib: And finally, we revamped our buy gift transfer and we added a couple of other products, reinstating miles, extending the validity of miles or the expiry of miles and accelerating the mile earned.
Dr Nejib: This has quadrupled our volume in direct sales of miles over the last three years.
Dr Nejib: So this is mostly on the earned side.
Dr Nejib: On the redemption side, as I said, we focus on enhancing the travel experience.
Dr Nejib: It’s still dominated by Emirates Flight Rewards, which is again the most aspirational, I think part of our program.
Paula: Of course.
Dr Nejib: And it contributes to around 75% of the overall activity mix.
Dr Nejib: We’ve mentioned a couple here earlier, Paula, you’ve used Cash Plus Miles, and you mentioned that an accountants of yours has used one of the reward tickets.
Dr Nejib: But the most, I think, I would say sought after reward continues to be upgrades.
Dr Nejib: We’re on track to fulfill well over 400,000 upgrades this year.
Dr Nejib: And-
Dr Nejib: Strong growth is reflected by the fact that we’ve made it easier in the last 12 months for our members to view availability of upgrade when they booked via emirates.com.
Dr Nejib: In some cases, you actually can be booking a flex or flex plus fare in economy.
Dr Nejib: And we’ll show you that there is an upgrade available on business and you can instantly actually get that upgrade.
Dr Nejib: If you’re a member of FUSION, you have enough miles to make that happen.
Dr Nejib: You’ve mentioned cash plus miles.
Dr Nejib: Again, that’s nearly 10% of all tickets sold on EOL are actually have a cash plus miles component.
Dr Nejib: And then overall, when I said we democratize a little bit the program, overall miles redeemed per redemption transaction is standing downwards.
Dr Nejib: And as more members are able to realize value from the program even faster and around 20% reduction in the last three years.
Paula: My goodness.
Dr Nejib: On Skywards Exclusive, again, the fun one where people can bid for some of our events.
Dr Nejib: We’ve relaunched it just a few months back and we have already 2,000 members who have engaged with it and 50 million miles were redeemed for about 5,000 tickets, whether it’s football, rugby, you mentioned rugby sevens there, horse racing that’s coming, Formula One, or even cultural events.
Dr Nejib: We just had the Emirates Jazz Festival and then we had people also.
Paula: Yeah, the branding was sensational.
Paula: I went to see Lionel Richie.
Paula: I was super excited.
Paula: Yeah, he was stunning.
Dr Nejib: Yeah, yeah, it was very good.
Paula: It was very good.
Paula: Yeah, you guys are everywhere.
Paula: Yeah, tell me this Nejib, you did have one reward category, which was the Emirates High Street Store for gift rewards like jewelry and those kinds of rewards.
Paula: And I know that part of it has been discontinued.
Paula: So I’d love to get a sense of that kind of, like why was that decision taken?
Dr Nejib: Well, Paula, as you can expect, we continuously evaluate our partners to determine what is more relevant and of value to our members worldwide.
Dr Nejib: So as we discontinued Emirates High Street, we actually made sure we provided access to a wider selection of merchandise through a new partner, Dubai Duty Free.
Dr Nejib: And at Dubai Duty Free, miles can be redeemed against any items, including the high-end retail.
Dr Nejib: As a matter of fact, 200 transactions a day, averaging 20,000 miles per transaction at Dubai Duty Free.
Dr Nejib: But most importantly to your question, members from 185 countries have engaged with Dubai Duty Free, which is way broader than what Emirates High Street allowed us to ever reach, given some of the logistical limitations that we had with a business like Emirates High Street.
Dr Nejib: So Dubai Duty Free, easier experience.
Dr Nejib: You can actually use Cash Plus Minds on any items at Dubai Duty Free, and it’s a very seamless experience, and it enhances your journey.
Dr Nejib: Actually, just on this category of redemption, in the future, we hope to also provide an earn and burn proposition on Emirates Red, which is our on-board duty free, which has been extremely successful since it’s launched six months ago.
Paula: Lovely.
Dr Nejib: So both Dubai Duty Free and Emirates Red deductions fit well in our strategy of earn more, travel better, as both are tied up with a traveler journey, and provide that enhancement to the Emirates and Dubai experience.
Paula: And clearly, I mean, it is a very clever decision when you explain it that way, because again, the customer and the member then is fulfilling themselves.
Paula: So as you said, the logistics are no longer your concern, they get the reward instantly, and there’s no cost to them or to you for that fulfillment.
Paula: So it’s self-fulfilled.
Paula: So I love that.
Paula: And definitely Dubai duty-free must get there soon.
Dr Nejib: Yes, and there is no reason for them not to buy a nice gift to redeem themselves, redeeming myself, to redeem themselves with their significant others.
Dr Nejib: By the way, Paula, just on maybe something more serious, we also have one category of redemption, which is pretty popular, is this whole donation of miles, which goes hand in hand with the Emirates Airline Foundation, whereby the generosity of our members is supporting dozens of projects aiming at improving the quality of life of children around the world.
Dr Nejib: So that’s another category, which is super important as well.
Dr Nejib: Make us feel good.
Paula: Oh, of course, I know.
Paula: And it is important because at the end of the day, yes, we love to reward ourselves, but we all do want to have a bit of a bigger contribution, I think, on the planet.
Paula: So great that you’re facilitating that.
Paula: For some people, I did mention there are lots of people on the simpleflying.com website listening to this show.
Paula: So if there are, for example, some people who are not members of airline loyalty programs, you’ve told us loads of the benefits, but just if you were to summarize, what are the top two or three reasons for joining an airline loyalty program like Skywards?
Dr Nejib: Well, good thing you talk about people joining because from pure hygiene perspective, we did not only make it easy for members to join, but we wanted also to provide immediate value offering.
Dr Nejib: So for example, right from the moment of joining Skywards members access preferential Wi-Fi pricing and discounted lounge access here in Dubai in outstations.
Dr Nejib: And as members progress, they unlock more perks such as generous baggage allowance and hassle-free check-in and boarding.
Dr Nejib: But I believe they stay loyal to the program to enjoy the indulging experience Emirates has to offer.
Dr Nejib: So getting an upgrade on our 777 Game Changer with its fully enclosed suites in first class or on the A380 upper deck with its onboard lounge and shower spa is much more than just an upgrade.
Dr Nejib: And unwinding at one of our iconic Emirates lounges, whether in one of the seven at our Dubai Hub or one of the 34 that we operate overseas is also an experience well sold after.
Dr Nejib: And you can add more rewards across the customer journey, including unlimited Wi-Fi in premium cabins and premium members also enjoy complimentary invites to money can buy experiences.
Dr Nejib: I talked about Skywards exclusive as a way for people to redeem, to get these VIP experiences, but for some of the premium members, we extend those complimentary invites again, talking about the Emirates Airline Jazz Festival.
Dr Nejib: For example, we had 40 couples who were invited to the concerts every night.
Dr Nejib: So, whether it’s cultural, political, or sports, we give them that access.
Paula: Yeah, and to be selfish again for a moment, I will say that the Wi-Fi on board, I’m not sure if Emirates was the first, it may still be the only, I have no idea how many airlines have Wi-Fi, but it is a huge factor in my decision making, because at the end of the day, I need my time to be productive, and I love that on board Wi-Fi, and it is super good value.
Paula: I think I pay $15 as a Skywards member, and that’s for the whole flight home to Dublin for me.
Paula: So I’m definitely a fan of that.
Dr Nejib: Excellent, and we have, as you know, very long flights with the largest international carrier out there, so I think it’s important that we provide that facility to our members.
Paula: Wonderful, wonderful.
Paula: Then I suppose more for the loyalty managers listening to the show, Nejib.
Paula: A lot of us have to defend our programs a lot, I think I mentioned at the beginning.
Paula: So tell us, do you believe that Emirates and Fly Dubai obviously attract more customers because of the Emirates Skywards program?
Paula: Like, what is the value of the program to the airline?
Dr Nejib: Yeah, it was good, Paula, that you mentioned all of Fly Dubai.
Dr Nejib: We’re obviously the loyalty program of both Emirates Airline and Fly Dubai today.
Dr Nejib: But just talking about some of maybe the KPIs that illustrate maybe the contribution of loyalty.
Dr Nejib: So a few that I’ll mention.
Dr Nejib: So 50% of Emirates passenger revenue and 15% of Fly Dubai passenger revenue come from Skywards members.
Paula: My goodness, wow.
Dr Nejib: And if you look at Emirates Online, 66% of the Emirates Online revenue is from Skywards members.
Dr Nejib: So heavy reliance on this base to produce the revenue on both direct and indirect.
Dr Nejib: But maybe a couple of statistics that are even more telling is that if you look at the shopping online, conversion is also is about eight times higher for Skywards members than non-Skywards visitors shopping on our online channels.
Dr Nejib: Well, it’s important to get people into the program, get them to log in so that we know who they are.
Dr Nejib: I mentioned earlier that we have all these offers that come in the path when you’re shopping.
Dr Nejib: Obviously, you logging in, being a member, gives us insight about who you are and allows us to customize these offers to you.
Dr Nejib: Now, the airline also looks at the average yield from Skywards members versus non-Skywards.
Dr Nejib: That’s nearly 60% higher.
Dr Nejib: Again, you expect that from a program, but I think it’s pretty indicative of the value of having loyalty.
Dr Nejib: Let me give you a couple more.
Dr Nejib: You asked me for two, but I’m giving you too many here.
Paula: I love the statistics.
Dr Nejib: Believe it or not, I still have to sell the program.
Paula: Well, you’re selling it to me, so go for it.
Dr Nejib: So this is important, especially in challenging times.
Dr Nejib: When growth slows down or during throbs, we see the Skywards performance be much more robust, scoring even double the growth rate of non-Skywards.
Dr Nejib: So this is very important.
Dr Nejib: I usually say when the going gets tough, Skywards gets going.
Dr Nejib: In this case, your loyal members keeps flying.
Paula: Yeah, amazing.
Dr Nejib: But we wanted also to have some statistics to really see how we influence people’s decision when they’re flying with us.
Dr Nejib: And in a recent survey where we made 10% of members state Skywards as one of the top three reasons they chose Emirates.
Paula: Love that.
Paula: Okay.
Paula: So 10% say it’s in their top three decision-making criteria.
Dr Nejib: And then you have all the metrics around revenue contributions, et cetera, that I think, yeah.
Paula: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Paula: So super powerful.
Paula: So I am amused.
Paula: You still have to defend it from time to time, but yes, people slowly, I suppose.
Paula: I mean, they can see it as a cost line for sure until they get those statistics.
Paula: So well done on defending it so well.
Dr Nejib: It’s important, and I think that it’s good also for the team, and I say maybe to the loyalty managers as well.
Dr Nejib: You know, you’ve got to rally your team and exposing these statistics and showing how their contribution is contributing to the airline, I think is important for the team’s morale.
Paula: Wonderful.
Paula: And we didn’t talk previously, but I would love to get a sense of how big your own team is, Nejib, in terms of how easy is it to manage Skywards and all of the partnerships that you mentioned.
Paula: Can you give us any sense of the scale of the operation there?
Dr Nejib: Yeah, we have about, I would say, in the core team, around 70 people.
Dr Nejib: And then we have another 50 who are more on the operational side of things.
Dr Nejib: So we have actually, for example, the presence at the airport.
Dr Nejib: I don’t know, you probably have seen that Skywards desk that we have in there.
Dr Nejib: We have people at the lounges as well.
Dr Nejib: These are people who are operational and they are at the airport.
Dr Nejib: But the core program is supported by about 70 people.
Paula: Fantastic, fantastic.
Paula: And you mentioned earlier all of the various partnerships you’re developing.
Paula: So I’d love to ask you a bit about what criteria you use for partnerships and particularly in the context of the platform that you mentioned where merchants can then, I suppose, elect to join and use it as their own loyalty program, which again, I think is super clever.
Dr Nejib: Yeah, we’re, I’ll start on the global side.
Dr Nejib: We’re a global program that seeks to have, again, local relevance to members around the globe.
Dr Nejib: So we look at partners that are customer focused, that share the same ethos, and that can help us increase our relevance both geographically, but also across the member segments that we serve as well.
Dr Nejib: We also want to make sure that we provide a seamless earn and burn experience, especially through the digital channels.
Dr Nejib: And we select partners that actually can provide that broken experience as well.
Dr Nejib: Now, some of the partnerships are of strategic nature and allow us to even further extend the status recognition to our premium members and ensure a seamless journey and the rewarding end to end experience.
Dr Nejib: This is a case of Marriott Bonvoy, for example.
Dr Nejib: If I look at the Skywards every day, and again, there we get requests from partners.
Dr Nejib: We’ve created this B2B platform where actually any partner or any output that can actually come to us, retail outlet, come to us and request.
Dr Nejib: We do like a Skywards for them.
Dr Nejib: We just look again at the brand, if it matches, some of the values that we have, and that’s how the selection goes.
Dr Nejib: But we’re trying to, again, be open up again the partnership platform to cover not only, as I said, the geographical base, but also all number segment peeling to millennials and because they’re experiential in nature, some are more of our mature audience and that, for high end, for example, restaurants and things like that.
Dr Nejib: So we try also to be as diverse as possible to allow all members to engage with our partners.
Paula: And given the kind of scale and scope of the program then, and I suppose particularly it’s global nature, how do you manage that program in terms of that scale around the world?
Paula: You’ve mentioned a team of 70 here, I think in Dubai.
Paula: Do you have overseas resources or how else do you manage it?
Dr Nejib: Good question.
Dr Nejib: We don’t have today overseas resources, however, we’re looking into some of the geographies where we have scale now, that we should have some kind of representations.
Dr Nejib: Today we actually work closely with our field commercial colleagues who have excellent insights about their constituencies, their geography, to drive market based promotion and increase member activities in their country.
Dr Nejib: So we rely on them mostly to provide that insight, but also to help us promote the program with their base.
Dr Nejib: Now we do focus on our top 10 markets, which represent nearly half of our member base across five continents.
Dr Nejib: And we have custom initiatives, as I mentioned, geared to address the specificity of each of these markets.
Dr Nejib: Our colleagues as well who are overseas also provide us with insights in terms of the type of partners we should be engaging with as well to make the program even more relevant.
Dr Nejib: We also share with partners some intelligence around the market dynamics and work in collaboration with them to drive member engagement.
Paula: Well, that makes sense, actually.
Paula: And again, from my own airline days, the commercial team on the ground, of which I was a part, it certainly makes sense because we see the power of the loyalty program.
Paula: And if we can get support from head office, it’s very exciting.
Paula: So that makes a lot of sense.
Paula: And then, I suppose, starting to think about, you know, competition among airline loyalty programs.
Paula: I think it was the very first sector in the world to ever use loyalty beyond, I think, in the UK, those green shield stamps, but then airlines really formalized or professionalized loyalty.
Paula: So given where we’ve come from, what do you think is, I suppose, the future of loyalty programs?
Dr Nejib: I think loyalty programs will still be important to create this stickiness, and I mentioned earlier by creating now more emotional connections through rewarding experiences beyond the flight experience.
Dr Nejib: And so loyalty programs need to create relevance beyond the transaction with an ability to engage, maybe incentivize members at the very relevant and personal level, regardless of their position in the relationship life cycle.
Dr Nejib: I also believe successful loyalty programs can help transform airlines into lifestyle brands, rather than remain as just travel mediums.
Dr Nejib: And they can do that again through partnerships and again, offering experiences.
Dr Nejib: Loyalty programs are also increasingly leveraged as a goldmine of customer insight.
Dr Nejib: And as such, they are key, I think, to any personalization initiatives and prime for any one-to-one marketing again.
Dr Nejib: So the other thing that you mentioned about loyalty programs being cost centers, well, the good news is that some loyalty programs are seen as an asset that can be monetized with some of the programs being valued even higher than the parent airline, given their high growth, high margin potential.
Paula: Yes, absolutely.
Paula: And again, I was writing about that yesterday.
Paula: I know the Qantas Frequent Flyer Program revenue exceeds the revenue from their international flight service.
Dr Nejib: Exactly, exactly.
Paula: Amazing, amazing.
Paula: Another big thing, I know you have a very strong background, Nejib, on the technology side of all businesses.
Paula: How do you integrate technology into loyalty from a Skywards perspective?
Dr Nejib: Yeah, excellent question.
Dr Nejib: I actually stated earlier that Skywards transformation is about harnessing large amounts of data to engage effectively with members on the digital channels.
Dr Nejib: That’s the whole, the transformation was mostly around this whole data digital play for us.
Dr Nejib: And technology is obviously the enabler to do so.
Dr Nejib: Whether it is with the introduction of data mining and data science tools and techniques, or building a marketing technology platform for more targeted and timely communication.
Dr Nejib: So along with implementing the right technology stack to support the loyalty business, the organization also needs to upgrade its capability to adopt and effectively leverage such technology.
Dr Nejib: This is not given, so technology is not enough.
Dr Nejib: But the way we use technology is actually what will make the difference.
Paula: Okay, okay.
Paula: Yeah, well, certainly sounds like it.
Paula: I can imagine the size of the technology team there as well as the loyalty team.
Paula: And then I suppose just the last few questions, Nejib, particularly looking forward, and I suppose that the roadmap for the industry in terms of growing and developing, what do you think might be the next big trend?
Dr Nejib: Yeah, so I would start with blockchain because I think the jury is still out on blockchain, but we can see that the technology lends itself pretty well to loyalty schemes.
Dr Nejib: And we have been keen to try it out here at Skywards, both on the smart contracting aspects, but also to create a secure and seamless earn-burn experience for members across partners.
Dr Nejib: It is still in a proof-of-concept phase, and as I said, the jury is still out, but there are hopes, again, that we see how we can leverage this technology again to make the program even easier to engage with.
Paula: Great.
Dr Nejib: Now, the second item I think that is big on our agenda is cybersecurity and data privacy.
Dr Nejib: It has become the forefront of designing any product we do and any communication channel that we use.
Dr Nejib: This is growing in complexity as we want to have a seamless experience with partners without compromising the action.
Dr Nejib: The other piece that’s somewhat related is around being much more sophisticated around fraud management.
Dr Nejib: I mentioned earlier, miles is becoming increasingly a currency that is sold by many.
Dr Nejib: And we need to be much more proactive and sophisticated when it comes to fraud management.
Dr Nejib: And I think machine learning will probably come to the rescue here as well.
Dr Nejib: You see from all of these, I’m a bit tainted from a technology standpoint.
Paula: I like to hear the balance.
Paula: So it’s great to say blockchain is the new, exciting, sexy thing that everybody wants to talk about.
Paula: But as you said, it has a role to play, but sometimes people are out there looking to execute with technologies just to have the latest thing to play with almost.
Paula: So it has to go through a very robust proof of concept.
Dr Nejib: And we’re going through that working with a number of partners as well to make that happen.
Dr Nejib: But maybe core to what we do is this whole one-to-one marketing and Uber personalization, which is gaining momentum and proving more effective.
Dr Nejib: I can talk about our own experience.
Dr Nejib: We saw up to 10 times uptake versus control groups on some products and offers.
Dr Nejib: When we use predictive data science, the right audience through the right channels.
Dr Nejib: The numbers are really telling.
Dr Nejib: I believe also talking about personalization is not just about targeted offer, but the future is also to unbundle some of the benefits and provide more an a la carte choice for members.
Dr Nejib: Than just the traditional way we talk about tiers and about benefits in a very static way.
Dr Nejib: We need to make it a bit more dynamic, more personal.
Dr Nejib: But I think one of our main challenges is to learn to compete for attention and mind shelf, not just with other airlines, but actually we have to be competing with other agile industry and number service providers for that attention.
Dr Nejib: And you mentioned millennials and with the growing segment of digital natives who trust their peers more than trust their brands, who need to rethink the programs, to meet their experiences, to share moments, to embrace some causes and be instantly gratified.
Dr Nejib: So the world is changing around us and we need to adopt new ways for us to engage these members.
Dr Nejib: And on the topic of social responsibility, I think loyalty programs have a role to play, you know, to be advocates of sustainability, but also to promote health and fitness by rewarding the right behavior that do not only serve our communities, but also serve the communities, I think, as a whole.
Paula: Wow, love it, love it.
Paula: So you have a huge amount going on, Nejib.
Paula: What, I suppose, can we expect to see coming through from you guys maybe in the next year or so?
Dr Nejib: I think we’re just gonna rest a little bit, catch our breath.
Paula: I’m exhausted just listening to you.
Dr Nejib: Not very far from the truth, but the coming year will be mostly about further, I think, leveraging some of the assets that we have built in the past years.
Dr Nejib: We’ve launched subscription product as a proof of concept.
Dr Nejib: We’re going to try to, I think, bring it to a broader audience.
Dr Nejib: It’s called Skywards Plus.
Dr Nejib: We will continue the enhancements of miles utility with the Emirates products and make it available, not just for flights, but as a form of payment for all ancillaries.
Dr Nejib: I talked about Skywards exclusives.
Dr Nejib: We’re going to actually expand that as well and bring more experiences in there, including some of the money can buy experiences with our own partners.
Dr Nejib: And we will continue to provide more earning opportunities through financial lifestyle partnership, including the scaling up of Skywards every day, not only here in the UAE, maybe in the Gulf region.
Dr Nejib: We’re also launching Skywards Mall in the US and UK.
Dr Nejib: So a way for people also to earn with retailers in both these two member base.
Dr Nejib: This is actually our first and second largest member base.
Dr Nejib: All in all, I think it’s gonna be a quite busy year ahead for this team.
Dr Nejib: It’s key for us to keep the team energized after four years of transformation efforts and massive accomplishments that you can feel.
Dr Nejib: I’m proud of and very thankful for.
Paula: I’m certainly, I can hear the pride.
Paula: So well done you.
Paula: And as I said, I’m a huge fan.
Paula: In fact, I’m probably a bit of a groupie.
Paula: So my last question then, Nejib, is having done this now for almost five years, what do you think are your biggest learnings running such a big program and having achieved so much?
Dr Nejib: Well, our focus in the past few years had been around transformation and transforming the program to adapt it, as I mentioned, to the data and digital age.
Dr Nejib: Key to this was to be able to innovate and introduce new B2C products and partners to the program, driven mostly by member insights and relying on the digital channels to communicate with them.
Dr Nejib: But you know this, Paula, you have worked here, and you know how Emirates is a very strong brand.
Dr Nejib: And our natural tendency is to over-engineer things and only release to market products that are 100% bulletproof.
Dr Nejib: We had to learn to be more agile and be faster to market with our ideas.
Dr Nejib: And I wouldn’t have been able to do it if we didn’t change the mindset, not only within Skywards, but also, I think, with the rest of Emirates.
Dr Nejib: So within Skywards, we started using the MVP and iterative approach to enhance our offering and get concepts rolled out to our member base.
Dr Nejib: We also rely heavily on testing through control group methodology and measure the true impact of some of our offerings and products with the purpose of learning and fine-tuning.
Dr Nejib: So we’ll see us put something into the market, learn from it, and then enhance it.
Dr Nejib: And we’ll have new iterations of that same product.
Dr Nejib: We’ve done that with Skywards Plus with a very limited audience.
Dr Nejib: Now we’re going to broaden that audience going forward, and we’ve made some fine-tuning into the product itself.
Dr Nejib: We’ve done that with Skywards every day with a set of partners, and now we’re gonna scale it up.
Dr Nejib: So we’re doing all of this through a test methodology.
Dr Nejib: So this is the way we operate within Skywards, but also, again, change the way we operate also with Emirates.
Dr Nejib: I have to say, on the topic of change, you cannot underestimate the power of communication and storytelling.
Dr Nejib: You heard me talk about the numbers as a way for us to convey the program contribution.
Dr Nejib: But when you’re also embarking on calling out new products and your new partners, it’s very critical to rally not only your own team, but also your internal and external stakeholders to be able to execute to your transformation plans.
Paula: Okay, some amazing lessons there coming through, Nejib.
Paula: And just for listeners, I do want to just also credit Skywards with some amazing effectiveness back in my own time there.
Paula: So, Nejib knows I worked with Emirates and Skywards back in the year 2001, and that really feels like a lifetime ago.
Paula: But I was the first marketing manager for the online booking engine for Emirates when 100% of transactions were done through travel agencies.
Paula: And quite simply, what we did was connect the online bookings with Skywards.
Paula: And we gave double Skyward miles, and we told all the Skywards members, you know that you got double miles for booking online.
Paula: So it was incredibly powerful, a changing behavior.
Paula: And again, to your point earlier about that audience being super receptive, very robust, and very excited, I suppose, when you give them opportunities to use and earn more miles.
Paula: So definitely, as you can see, it’s something I have an equal passion for.
Paula: So I suppose to wrap up, Nejib, I just want to thank you hugely for being on the show, both from Let’s Talk Loyalty and from simpleflying.com.
Paula: Is there anything else you wanted to say before we wrap up?
Dr Nejib: Again, I want to thank you.
Dr Nejib: And for those who are not members, I would really call on them to join the program and test it.
Dr Nejib: And then feel free to send me your comments.
Dr Nejib: We’re again here listening to our members to be able to continue to drive excellence in the program.
Dr Nejib: We’re actually just inheriting the excellence from your days, Paula.
Dr Nejib: You guys have paved the way.
Dr Nejib: We’re here to just carry on with that legacy of excellence.
Paula: Well, thank you.
Paula: I’m going to take all that credit.
Paula: So thank you very much for those kind words.
Paula: And of course, in the show notes, I’ll include links to Skywards and to your own profile.
Paula: So just want to say again, thanks a million for talking to Let’s Talk Loyalty.
Paula: Thanks so much for listening to this episode of Let’s Talk Loyalty.
Paula: If you’d like me to send you the latest show each week, simply sign up for the show newsletter on letstalkloyalty.com, and I’ll send you the latest episode to your inbox every Thursday.
Paula: Or just head to your favorite podcast platform.
Paula: Find Let’s Talk Loyalty and subscribe.
Paula: Of course, I’d love your feedback and reviews, and thanks again for supporting the show.
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