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 the 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.
This episode is sponsored by Epsilon. Today I’m delighted to announce a unique opportunity for one lucky listener of Let’s Talk Loyalty to enjoy a complimentary workshop with the loyalty experts at Epsilon. One brand, every mon will have the chance for a unique, independent loyalty lab, a review of your loyalty program, where Epsilon will share their expert ideas, how to drive your program’s performance to a whole new level.
This workshop is a powerful way for you to measure and then increase the return on your investment in your loyalty program. So to apply, head over to letstalkloyalty.com/epsilon and enter your details.
Tom: Hi everyone, and thank you. I’m Tom Peace, Managing Director of The Loyalty People, and I’m here to provide under Short Summary Show for Let’s Talk Loyalty.
This week’s five minute summary show highlights paula’s interview with Isabelle Birem, The Senior Vice President of Loyalty at Accor Hotels, which first aired in the 21st of November, 2021.
I’d urge you all to listen to the full version, which can always be found at www.letstalkloyalty.com episode 163. This was a really fascinating interview discussing a Accor’s Live Limitness program that I truly believe is a program for the future with some market leading member benefits. In this summary show, I’ll be pulling out some interesting aspects of the full podcast and showcasing my thoughts on why this is such an inspiring program.
Accor is a global hotelier with over 5,300 hotels across more than 40 brands, including Ibis, Mercure, Pullman, and Sofitel. I’m personally a massive fan of the Accor Live Limitless program or ALL as it’s called, and count myself as a loyal member. I regularly use a range of the hotels for either business or pleasure, and with so much choice and competitive pricing in the sector, it really is the value of this loyalty scheme that makes the difference, for me.
It’s a really excellent program because it’s simple to understand, it’s valuable, and it’s backed with quality hotels and superb service. The first thing I notice about this program as a loyalty professional rather than the consumer, is that the loyalty proposition is built into the brand through the Accor Live Limitless branding.
It is vital to ensure that brand marketing and loyalty marketing are aligned with it any business and Accor have really got this right through their Live Limitless brand, in my humble opinion. Isabelle talks about the importance of this and how hard Accor have worked to make this a reality. The branding is very clever and speaks the fact that customers can get all that they desire to create a lifestyle beyond their usual limits and enjoy experiences outside a normal hotel stay.
The crux of the Live Limitless program is that points earned across the entire network of hotels, can be redeemed by the member, not just for hotel stays, but also for dining, mobility and other experiences such as theater tickets. It was interesting to hear from Isabelle about how the loyalty program has helped unite the different hotel chains around a community of Accor hotels rather than as competitors within the group.
Isabelle talks about how important it is to constantly demonstrate the value of the program in generating revenue to the hotel owners, and this is a key element of success. Isabelle also talks about how the program was designed based on customer research and feedback. I love to hear this, and it is so important to invest in listening to your customers and building a solution to meet their needs. As a result this program is hugely successful. Right at the start of the podcast, Isabelle talks about how important it is to create value and how burn drives earn. And this is so very true, and especially in the travel sector. Members want valuable ways to use their reward points, and Accor have really focused on delivering this. Accor Live Limitless enables members to redeem their points on hotel, dining, partner experiences, and mobility solutions such as Uber, car hire or even bike rental. So as well as you using your points for hotel stay, a member can use them for other very useful solutions or for enriching experiences they might not normally have tried.
Another aspect of this program, which is very exciting, are the money can’t buy experiences that members have access to. You’ll have to listen to the full show to hear about the amazing experience one member had to train with the French National Football Team.
Thanks for listening, I hope you enjoyed the summary show. This show is really great example of how creating customer value and aligning your brand marketing to your loyalty program really develops customer engagement. I hope you’ll look up and listen to the full show on the Let’s Talk Loyalty website, all the best and speak soon.
Paula: This show is 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 has already certified over 500 executives in 38 countries as certified loyalty marketing professionals.
For more information, check out thewisemarketer.com and loyaltyacademy.org.
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