Paula: Hello and welcome to Let’s Talk Loyalty, an industry podcast for loyalty marketing professionals. I’m Paula Thomas, the Founder and CEO of Let’s Talk Loyalty, and also now Loyalty TV. Today’s episode is hosted by Amanda Cromhaut, the Founder of Truth, an international loyalty consultancy, and the Author of the book Blind Loyalty 101 Loyalty Concepts Radically Simplified.
If you work in loyalty marketing, you can watch our latest video interviews every Thursday on www.loyalty.tv. And of course, you can also listen to Let’s Talk Loyalty every Tuesday, every Wednesday, and every Thursday to learn the latest ideas from loyalty experts around the world.
Amanda: Hi, I’m Amanda Cromhout, CEO and Founder of Truth. Today, I have the absolute pleasure of talking to Dr. Nceba Hene from African Bank and Audacious Rewards. African Bank launched Audacious Rewards back in February 2023 to reward positive financial changes for the underserved and the underserviced market in South Africa. They have immediately seen an incredible change of behavior amongst their customers, seeing a 14 fold increase in credit card transaction activity over a 20 percent increase in their cross sell for their new credit customers and a 67 percent overall increase in profitability, if you look at like for like members within Audacious Rewards versus non loyalty members.
Not only is this podcast an absolute lesson in performance of a new loyalty program, but we also see how important the change management process and the engagement of the internal and frontline staffers for African Bank and its journey into Audacious Rewards. Audacious Rewards entered the International Loyalty Awards Probably as one of the youngest programs in the world and walked away as a winner in 2024.
Today, I have the absolute privilege of chatting to Neba Hene, who is Head of Loyalty and Rewards at African Bank. And Neba has asked me to call him Nebs for short.
So Nebs, welcome to Let’s Talk Loyalty. It’s an absolute honor to have you on the show.
Dr Nceba: Thank you very much, Amanda. Looking forward to our discussion.
Amanda: So we had the privilege of meeting each other in Dubai, even though we’re both based in South Africa. And the reason we were both in Dubai was the conference, the Global Loyalty Connect, but also because African Bank were not knowing at the time, potentially up for an award at the International Loyalty Awards. So we’re going to talk about that a little bit later.
But before we do, I think, you know, the first question we always ask our guests on Let’s Talk Loyalty, what is your favorite loyalty program?
Dr Nceba: Now, thank you for that question, Amanda. My favorite loyalty program is V+, but in the South African context is called Shell V+.
Globally, it’s known as Shell GO+. The reason why I like this fuel retail rewards program is because in the South African landscape fuel companies were not allowed to have their own rewards program. And they were the first one to get permission from a regulatory perspective. So, they’ve broken down the barriers from that aspect.
And hence, they couldn’t be called, they couldn’t be called Shell V+, they could call it V+. And it was also foresight from Shell Global to allow them to use a different name. So I think it speaks about understanding the local market. However, the great thing about that which I enjoyed about the program is the instant rewards components and that you could reward it for cash.
So I’ll give you an example, Amanda, is that in South Africa, most taxis or will stay at the fuel station. So they will travel during the day, one each time they fill up because taxes fill up in small quantities. Each time they fill up, they will get the points instantly, which is in cash. So at the end of the day, they’ve got X amount of money, which they then use to buy bread and milk every day.
So consumers and taxi drivers were no longer needing to buy milk and bread out of their own pocket. They were just using the points or cash, which was generated from that day’s work.
Amanda: Beautiful. Yeah. Wonderful. What a great example. And I think, thank you for using that because it actually highlights maybe one of the differences of the South African market versus some of the international markets who may be listening to the show. Around how loyalty programs really play a difference in the lives of South African consumers in terms of making ends meet. So, yeah, and I don’t think Shell V+ has been mentioned before as a favorite program. I might be mistaken, but we did an exercise for Paula and the Let’s Talk Loyalty team where we assess the Top 100 Loyalty Programs, according to the guests of Let’s Talk Loyalty, so loyalty professionals. And I remember then that Shell vPlus wasn’t part of that list. So great. Lovely to have a new program for everyone to consider and to think about. Okay.
So I think in order for guests around the world to understand the value proposition that you’ve put in the marketplace quite recently, it’s a young program, and we’ll talk about that in a moment. Let’s get a little bit of an idea, please nebs around the actual company you work for African Bank. Like how long has it been in the market? Where is your market positioning?
Dr Nceba: Yes. I’m under African Bank as by its name is a financial services company into banking. So this African Bank is rich with history and the company was conceived in 1964.
So how that went about is that a group of audacious black business leaders gathered in the chamber of commerce, which was called NAFCOC. And that meeting took place in Soweto. Amongst them, they, at that time, black businesses in South Africa couldn’t get funding, couldn’t get access to funding.
Now they then came together and said, listen, how do we grow our businesses? How do we get more funding? And they came up with an idea to say, let us build a bank so that we can get access to capital. At the meeting, they agreed that they’ll put some capital, some seed. And it’s quite odd because to have a bank, to start a bank, you needed a million Rand. So after five years, realizing that we’re actually battling to get any funding, they then went to England to investors to consolidate some capital.
After they were kindly given by investors overseas, they then had a million rand when they start to register the company or wanting to get a license, a banking license, they were told that you could have a banking license, but you couldn’t employ any staff of the existing banks in South Africa. So, which means now you have to start a bank with people that have never done any form of banking.
Backlash at the time was so kind in London to then say they’ll come to South Africa to train the stuff that would be recruited for African Bank. And then the doors were opened in 1975 and it took 10 years, right? I mean, for the spirits of audacity, not to die at that period is quite a lot. And hence we say we are the bank for the people by the people and serving the people which are predominantly underserved, and underserviced.
Amanda: I think just listening to you when you said, I know the purpose of the word audacious, which we’ll come on to in a moment in terms of African Bank, but you talk about audacious leaders. And if we look at a definition of audacious leaders, it’s showing a willingness to take surprisingly bold risks.
So I think that summarizes it perfectly. And just to put into context when Nebs said seven rands, that’s approximately 30 pence in British Sterling terms. So that kind of gives you a sense of the money we’re talking about. So, well, wonderful. What a great story and what a great market positioning, because I certainly know that’s what you’re going to talk about for Audacious Rewards.
But before we get into the meat of that discussion, what I particularly love, Nebs, about you as a leader in the loyalty industry is your very interesting route to this position, because you don’t come with a marketing degree. You don’t come with a marketing career. So I’m not going to explain what you do. I think it will come from you in a much more powerful way, but needless to say, it personally really interests me because of my sporting background and love of sport, but share with us a little bit more about yourself because it’s probably, I think the most unusual route to a loyalty leader. So tell us about yourself.
Dr Nceba: Yes. Thanks, Amanda. I think I want to say you need to go the uncharted territory. You know, by profession, I’m a biokineticist. So globally it’s called an exercise physiologist. So my areas of expertise are two pronged. It’s one in sports science, from an exercise from a strength and conditioning perspective.
And then the other element is focusing on non communicable diseases, and you’ll see how they actually work together. So my first half of my career, I spent working with national teams in South Africa. I worked with the SA women’s rugby team as one of the founder members of the women’s rugby team in South Africa.
I took them to two World Cups two World Cups, and then I took, I was in charge of the sevens rugby. I took them to Dubai and we got a silver medal, sorry, a bronze medal in Dubai at the World Cup sevens World Cup. And then I’ve worked with Netball South Africa as the strength and conditioning coach. Go and also for under 23 is for the SA National team for football. So that is the one side of me.
And then there’s the other side of me, whereby I’ve worked with leaders from preventative medicine perspective, whereby I tried to manage the non communicable diseases. So it’s to encourage them and to nudge them that they need to eat healthier, exercise, manage their alcohol intake, and their smoking.
Now, loyalty and biokinetics in one way or another, they go hand in hand. Because I’ve got a philosophy and a belief that I do not treat a hamstring, I treat the human. You’ve got to understand the human, what drives a human what you need to do to sway and nudge a human being. And that is what a loyalty and rewards does, is to incentivize someone to do what they should be ordinarily doing anyway.
Amanda: Yeah, makes absolute sense. I mean, I’m constantly talking to biokineticists about my hamstrings. I totally understand that. But it’s an amazing story. It really is. And your doctorates about behavioral, social media and behavioral lifestyle, I believe it’s also, it’s just all works together. It makes complete sense to me, but as I say, I do believe it’s probably the most unusual route to being a head of a very successful loyalty program. So congratulations for probably a first there.
So I think let’s get straight into it. You know, you are head of a program called Audacious Rewards and it’s quite a young program. So we’ll talk about that in a moment in terms of how it’s performed since it was launched. So Audacious Rewards just quickly. So we set the tone of the conversation. What is it about and why is it so different?
Dr Nceba: Well, Amanda, what you said to do is, we reward people, African Bank customers for the everyday banking and also for making positive financial changes. And our focus predominantly is the underserved and underserviced market in South Africa. So we’re quite clear of the market that we’re servicing.
Now, I always look at it in three pillars. We’ve got a join pillar whereby you can join the program and it’s for free because our market says I’m already paying banking fees. So why should I pay for rewards program? So it’s free and we allow them to join in multiple channels, which is via the branch. They can go to the branch call center. Yes, it’s D what’s up. So of all channels that can join, and then they can also then when they’ve joined, they can use their card to earn points by opening an account, using it for debit order and credit card swipes and also for changing the seller and debit orders.
But what is quite important for us, Amanda, is that we also incentivize them for improving their credit score because a person who’s going out is able to then get good debt and then utilize to advance their life. And that is why the financial wellness aspect is critical for us as a bank. However, what is of utter importance for us is the immediacy value. So if you swap your card with us immediately within 15 minutes of being cleared, you earn your points. We are saying, what’s the point of waiting for points? So we make sure that you get them immediately because we understand most South Africans. Their salaries only last them 10 to 15 days. So in the last 15 days, they can rely on our points to actually get them through the month because they’ve earned them instantly.
Now they can then use their points, spend their points to redeem on their daily expenses, such groceries, data and airtime, transport, and they can even convert those points to cash. And what’s quite interesting, Amanda, is that our customers are even exchanging for one dollar just to explain it in a global context. One dollar, because they just need to get through the day. Also for the transport and everything else. And we’ve seen great success because we are focused on our customers needs and their desires.
Amanda: Yeah, and I think that takes us back to what we said at the start, right? That’s the $1 redemption is enough to make a difference. And the fact that can be instant and can be, whether it’s at month end or not, but typically at month end to help consumers get through the month, it really is becoming a more powerful and more impactful concept here in South Africa. And it seems like you, you’ve delivered a program, designed a program to absolutely address that need.
So let’s understand that more as we go through today’s discussion. You mentioned sign up through multiple channels and I hear you mentioned WhatsApp as a channel. It’s really interesting having spoken to many loyalty professionals around the world, how South Africa seems to be leading the way, in how it uses WhatsApp in its loyalty environment. So I’m seeing it more and more with more programs and it being a really powerful channel for consumers and the brands themselves.
So you’ve spoken about Audacious. We had a smile and a laugh at the beginning about the Audacious leaders. So is there anything else before we get into some of the performance of the program around why you chose the name Audacious Rewards?
Dr Nceba: So Amanda, African Bank is what you call a challenger brand. So it’s not one of the established banks in South Africa. And now what we’re doing is that it is what you call the accelerate 25 strategy. The bank said, we want to be a fully digital bank, which advances lives. And then what we then asked ourselves is that what do we need to do to actually make the bank successful?
What was clear and we’ve seen, and even in your research, Amanda, is that 51 percent of South Africans decide to bank based on the rewards program. So we knew a reward program is quite important. So the leadership identified that we need to have a rewards program. Number two, we then asked the question, what do we call it? We said, our founders were at the audacity to build the bank. Now let’s have the audacity to have the best rewards program. which can advance the lives of South Africans. And hence we called it Audacious Rewards.
Amanda: I love it. I love the fact that your brand DNA goes right back to the early years of the seven rand investment straight through to your loyalty offering. I think it’s really powerful. We often in our consultancy work, talk about the power of the loyalty brand being on brand with the mother brand. And this is just demonstrated perfectly through what you just said. So thank you. Thank you for sharing the stories. I think that’s what, what’s coming through here.
Okay. So you launched in February last year, so February, 2023. And from all accounts, just listening to you, I see, you know, I listened to you on many media channels and obviously I saw you at the Loyalty Awards, which I’m going to come to in a short while. But the International Loyalty Awards, but tell us how the program has performed since you launched last February.
Dr Nceba: Wow. I think it has taken the entire leadership by surprise how Audacious Rewards has performed. Because you’ll understand Amanda is that rewards is about changing behavior. And it’s seldom to see that an instant change of behavior. So it speaks about our customers were actually hungry for what we’re giving them.
Now, if you look at it from a numbers perspective, our monthly engagement on a month on a monthly basis has increased by 14 X. So in the financial world, non interest revenue is quite an important element, which means front of wallet. Are t hey using your card? So we saw a 14 X improvement in the utilization of the African Bank card within a year.
And also you’ll record that I talked about how the importance of people knowing their credit score and improving their credit score because you know how much you can take on from a debt perspective from a financial education perspective, and which results in financial inclusion in terms of the requesting of credit scores, we saw a 516 percent increase in the request for credit reports. Which is phenomenal, and you seldomly don’t see that, and take into consideration, Amanda, that this has been predominantly a personal loans business, which requesting of reports is almost, could say, is ingrained, but the ROAS program has just taken that leap.
Now, the magic comes in this area now, because you’re in banking for two reasons. You want to increase your non interest revenue, which I’ve shown we’ve done that. And also what you want to do is that you want to cross sell. You want people to buy more of your products. That’s the business that you are in. Then 90 percent of new credit customers took up a debit product. And that was an increase from 70%.
So you had a 15, 20 percent increase in the take up of a new product based on the debit card, which was very nice for us. And now what also was an eye opener is that there was a significant increase about 15, 10 to 15 percent of people that took up an, a savings product. Based on that, because now they understood the financial situation. They understood the importance of saving. So they ended up getting in the culture of actually saving. So, which was quite exciting for us.
Now, the medical number is that we also then saw overall a 67 percent increase in profit in the 12 months, because they’ve got customers that are swiping more, any more net non interest revenue. Also, people are purchasing more products. Therefore, which means we’re becoming more financially viable. And there was members and we did that on a like to like members. So we took members. that are the same cohort when rewards members versus non rewards customers. And we saw a 67 percent profit uplift in that regard.
Amanda: That’s incredible. And I just want to say on behalf of everyone at Let’s Talk Loyalty and the audience of Let’s Talk Loyalty, thank you for sharing such real numbers and explaining like for like cohort analysis, because often I hear percentages quoted and it’s a bit of a sort of not necessarily on this show, but in general, you hear percentages quoted and it’s just a generic kind of not necessarily tied back to the actual loyalty program.
But what I’m hearing you say Nebs is if you look at like for like members on a cohort basis, based on Audacious Rewards, the change of behaviors across NIR and cross sell product cross selling into new products has brought a 67 percent increase in profitability for that, those for that cohort.
Dr Nceba: Indeed. And Amanda, we might talk, get to it. And it’s not me saying that. It’s our independent actuaries based in America telling the story for us. So we might get into that.
Amanda: Yeah we definitely will, because that’s a very interesting part of the story as well. Okay, lovely. Well, I don’t really need to ask you too many more questions on the analysis, but what a fabulous set of figures. So congratulations to you and the team. I’m no wonder your board are very excited about Audacious Rewards. So obviously started off well, and hopefully we’ll continue to do so.
So given that, given the performance, I can imagine then therefore the rewards division, the rewards program is very significant for the bank. I mean, how does the bank in general, you know, we often hear stories about organizations that have their loyalty program out in a separate department. It’s not really fully integrated. It’s not really brought into by the senior leadership. Tell us about that positioning within African Bank.
Dr Nceba: Yes. I think in African Bank, there’s a full buy in. So it’s a CEO sponsored initiative. So it’s got vital importance. And in doing so is that it’s under the marketing division. Under the marketing division. The reason why we put it under the marketing division is that so that it cuts across the business. So it goes in because we want to have a scalable business, which is diversified and sustainable.
So marketing cuts across. So we’ve got access points to all the divisions from that perspective. And then as a business, we indicated that, look, because we’re a challenger brand a speed to market is important and agility is quite incredibly important in that regard. We then subsequently decided that we are going to get expertise externally to come and support us in that regard.
And internally, how do you market the program is that every Wednesday we have what you call an Audacious Rewards day where all staff in the contact center, front office, they were the Audacious Rewards T shirt to make sure that it’s ingrained and it’s center. Why we chose Wednesday? Because it’s in the middle of the week. So which means we’re the middle with the core of the African Banks service offering. And then also what happens that we have the radio station whereby we talk about the program and other different platforms that are probably exists everywhere in terms of a radio station, a TV station, and also emailers and communication thereof.
Amanda: Yeah, I love this. I mean, I, again, back to how we look at organization, we look at a loyalty program and do an assessment. You know, one of the things we assess, we spoke about the branding earlier about Audacious Rewards and how that ties back to the mother brand. But we also look at how much staff within an organization or your partners love the program.
And I’m really impressed with the work that you do to ensure that this stays front and foremost in the minds of your whether it’s customer service staff, whether it’s other staff around potentially your product houses and so on. Just simple things like wearing the T shirts and the radio and the TV and actually.
I’m just going to remind you of what you told me about in our conversation last week around, you’ve even launched a clothing range, which has been, I believe, designed by YDE, which for those who don’t understand that outside of South Africa is the Young Designers Emporium, which is a very well respected design house within South Africa.
So I just think it’s magical. I really do think there’s some magic in what you’re doing based on just these small sound bites and small snippets of stories.
Dr Nceba: Yes. Amanda, what is unbelievable about the story is that we’ve got a young designer called Kossing and what you’ve done that it has never been done in the market.
Do you believe me when I tell you that our staff collection, we don’t call it uniform, we call it a collection, doesn’t have the African Bank logo. That’s how audacious we are. The clothing that our staff wear on a day to day basis in front office. They do not have, doesn’t have a logo because we are saying our staff are also living in the community.
They don’t have enough money to actually wear something in the branch and also wear it on weekends. So I wear, you can actually even wear it to a wedding, to even to a function and to a party. And we’re saying that our distinct look and feel of our clothing range. People will know it’s African Bank without even telling them.
And that is unheard of. Imagine a top brand deciding they’re not going to put a logo on their shoe or on their clothes. And that is what African Bank has done with our clothing range.
Amanda: You’re stunning. What a great story. I think this is like a really storytelling podcast today, Neb, so thank you. Okay. I’ve mentioned it a couple of times that we met crazily only for the first time in Dubai at the Global Connect, Loyalty Global Connect Conference and the International Loyalty Awards.
So you were one of the speakers, but you were also invited to the International Loyalty Awards as one of the shortlisted brands within that within the awards. So I’m very proud to say I’m a judge on the international awards, but I actually didn’t judge the category that you were shortlisted for.
And needless to say, you came out as the winner, which for a brand as young as Audacious Rewards. So only a year old by the time you had to submit the Your submission for the awards, you were a winner and it was a winner on a very again, another story to tell around your involvement in a camp from a campaign led point of view with the Soweto Marathon.
So obviously ties back a little bit to your background, but tell us a bit more about that. I mean, you won an award on the international stage after a year of operation. So first of all, congratulations. And secondly, yeah, please tell us about this.
Dr Nceba: Thanks, Amanda. It’s a very emotional story. Our founders had the audacity to start a bank. We had the audacity to enter an global award, International Loyalty Awards, and we’re asking her, who are you to enter in one year in existence? And we said, we’ve got a story to tell, and we want to show how we go about things. Now, tying back to our story is that There’s a race, a marathon in South Africa, where it’s a marathon by the square, 10 kilometer half a marathon and a full marathon race in South Africa in Soweto.
Now as just earlier indicated, African Bank was founded in Soweto. Now we’re calling it the people’s race because the bank has gone back to its people. Soweto has got a population of over 2 million people, which is the third, if you look at it, the third most populous area in South Africa. Now they saw the homecoming of their own bank, which was started to actually be part of sponsor race, which is one of the biggest races in South Africa with about 20, 000 entrants and looking to get to 30, 000.
Now we use this race as Audacious Rewards to announce ourselves into the stage to say, we believe that financial, there’s a correlation between financial wellness and financial health. You know, if you run out of money, what happens? You get chest pains, you get anxiety, the pressure goes up, but if you exercise, you decrease, that’s where my biokinetics background starts to kick in.
We then said, this is the route because we’re going to a community. Let’s support them, let them develop a relationship and with African Bank through Audacious Rewards. What we then did is say. The barrier to entry for these races is quite high. We’re going to give a 50 percent discount so that the people of Soweto can come run in, in their race because we don’t want people coming from outside for them to watch people in their own community running. So we create, we decrease that. And then we indicated that if you’re a part of African Bank, you’ll be part of a VIP treatment. Here’s someone from Soweto living on a day to day on the bread line is getting VIP treatment. The feedback we’ve seen was phenomenal, and that is what is called giving back to your community, and that is why, and rewarding them for actually believing in this bank and sticking with the bank over the years.
Amanda: Yeah, it’s a beautiful story. Absolutely beautiful. I haven’t run Soweto Marathon, so maybe that’s my next marathon, maybe.
Dr Nceba: And you’ll see how we do it then.
Amanda: Potentially committed on air here. Okay. Thank you for that story again, around again, and it was recognized at the International Loyalty Awards. So congratulations to you and your team and your partners for what you achieved there at Soweto.
Just fantastic. But let’s dig a little bit deeper under the surface. You know, I’m sure it’s not perfectly easy every day. I’m sure you face some big challenges. So if you have to reflect back on the last 18 months, what are the biggest lessons you’ve learned in this process?
Dr Nceba: Yes, Amanda, we’ve paid our school fees and we still pay our school fees even now.
So the most difficult thing, Amanda, it’s attribution. Is to establish what African Bank. Not gone an upward trajectory without the existence of the rewards program. Yes or no. It’s so difficult because you’ve got the sales team to say, listen, we’re driving more numbers, we’re doing that. So then how do you attribute it to the rewards program?
And Hey, by the way, we are paying people, which means we’re making less money. You know, so to get the story and people to understand it and to have that buy in it’s quite a challenge and it continues, but people understand that it’s an enabler. It’s actually a business enabler and the business driver. So that is one big discussion that is it’s quite interesting.
And then also another big discussion that we’ve actually had over the over six months or so was this whole element about auto registration, which means if you become a bank customer, do you automatically become part of the program, leave their legislative elements and all of that, or do we get someone to actually buy in, to actually join? And we’ve resolved that. We said for three months, let’s bring in everybody. Let everybody just join without knowing. All right. And it was a disaster because people do not commit to what they’ve been enrolled into. And immediately when you change the rules to say, listen, to get value and benefit, you must actually have opted in and you must you must have joined the program, even though it’s free.
And that’s when we saw the dynamic shifts in the behavior because people values, it’s like a social compact. People value that element of a social compact, even if something’s for free.
Amanda: Yeah, totally. I mean, and we often speak that through with our clients, you know, so I love it. Thank you.
And thank you for sharing, you know, that there are challenges in the everyday as a school learning day, right? I say that often to my team and to our clients. So good to see that hasn’t just been plain sailing behind the scenes. Obviously there’s a lot of hard work and lessons learned. But I know you haven’t done this alone.
And I mean that in respect of not just your team. So you’ve spoken a lot about the internal respect of the African Bank teams and so forth, but you’ve got a broader structure that I particularly enjoyed hearing about in terms of you’ve got outsourced partners. And so tell us a little bit how you have pulled this together. What is the team and the extended network of organizations that actually deliver Audacious Rewards?
Dr Nceba: Yes, Amanda. We’ve asked ourselves. To become the best or to run toe to toe with the best. And I’m using an Olympic terminology because we’re going to the Olympics. What do you need to do? It’s simple. You need to get the best of breed. Straightforward.
But with an understanding of the local market, what you then did is to say, we’re going to get Loyalogic, which is a global platform, loyalty platform to be our platform play. So that was quite critical from that perspective. So that we’ve got someone who’s got global experience, which could get us access to elements that we required and proven track record because we couldn’t take a chance on this investment.
Then what we then said is that we need to have a local partner to source partners, people who understand the local market and yet have got the experience. We then got a company called Pinnacle Rewards, who then source our partners and maintain our partner relations. Then we then said, once we’ve got that, how do we make sure that what we’re telling the board and the leadership is credible? It’s not something that’s manufactured by never or my team. We then brought in a company named Kairos. Kairos are the only actual firm in the world that is totally focused on loyalty programs.
Amanda: Yeah.
Dr Nceba: And they develop sophisticated stack of actual tools. Some of them I’m still trying to wrap my head around. So that is our winning formula in that regard.
Amanda: And I love that. I love the humility you’re showing there, Neb. So, you know, around that this is a complex industry and you’ve brought in the best in terms of your partnerships.
I just want to focus a little bit on Kairos, because I know Len Laguna very well. He’s a contributor to one of the chapters in Blind Loyalty, and he’s extremely well known. He’s, you know, he’s a legend. That’s, you know, so what is it that’s, in particular, if you were to highlight one of the greatest findings from the work you’re doing with Len, what would that be?
Dr Nceba: Yes. I mean, before we get into that Amanda, is that it’s one thing to be smart like Len. But it’s something else to be a good guy and he’s got both traits and that’s what I love him for it. You know, and it’s quite humble and it’s quite humble and you know, which is quite odd for me, but well, I mean, that’s the kind of caliber of a person.
So what we’re doing Amanda with them, that’s quite interesting is that we’ve built a predictive model to estimate our future profit expected future profit in two years on the current membership base. So we’re looking at our expected future profit. So that’s quite important. Are these members going to give us revenue in two years time? And to what extent from a product perspective and from a member perspective?
And then another model that is built for us is around the member equity. What is the membership? What is the profit margin? What is their future spend? So that’s that’s the second element that is, we’ve done quite a lot of around.
And another element, a third element, which is quite important, is around test and learns. How do you make sure that our test and learns are practical, yet they’re solid solid, and then unquestionable. And those are the three things that we do. And what is quite interesting, I mean, is that I meet Len every two weeks. So for the last 12 months, I’ve been meeting Len every two weeks, except for the December period. Next time he shows me something about our members that we need to be careful about. He shows us what we’re doing well, we even know now the rate at when we can even predict when our members are going to actually redeem.
And that’s the kind of element that is really interesting for me. And it’s mind buggling and a sign of an intelligent person is that or something that’s very sound is that you understand him. He thinks I’ve got this land. I’ve got it. I understand you, Len. As soon as they put down the phone and I’m like, Jesus, Len, I phone him, Len, can you please speak to me through again? And he does it. He’s got that patience and I’m learning every single day. And African Bank is richer for it as an organization.
Amanda: Yeah, it’s wonderful. It’s a beautiful story. I keep using the word story, but I think that’s what today’s discussion is actually. And I think how you’ve described Len is how the rest of the world would also describe him. My interactions with him are exactly the same. So yeah, Just lovely. Lovely. And thank you for your generosity of spirit of sharing that.
Okay. We need to draw our conversation to a close, unfortunately, just because of timing, but you personally coming from a non loyalty and non marketing background are clearly leading your team superbly and doing some amazing things, but just, you know, how do you stay ahead of the curve? How do you stay abreast with what’s happening in the, this wonderful world of hours of loyalty and rewards?
Dr Nceba: So, Amanda. All I do is I follow the path of the people that have gone before me and who are known as experts in this world. So what I do, I just consume anything and everything you post because it’s cutting edge. So which means I’ll be cutting edge at some point in time. I’ll listen to what Paula does and the podcast because it’s cutting edge. And then I’ll read the Loyalty 360 colloquial, because I’m saying that people who know this work, I might just fall in their path. And that’s a simple formula, right? And that’s what I do from that perspective.
Amanda: Lovely. I mean, there is an enormous, there’s an enormous amount of content out there and there’s some real experts who, You know, generously share so much insights on loyalty and so forth. So I do think it’s a wonderful industry we’re in. I think we’re a very generous industry. I don’t really know if it happens in other industries because I’m not in them, but it is great. I feel the same. There’s a lot of really great individuals out there who I follow, who I learn from every day. Every day I’m a student, right? So, so wonderful.
Okay. So if anybody listening to the show would like to chat to you further, I’m with your permission, I’m going to put your, as you said, I could put your LinkedIn connection in the show notes. I’ll put a connection to the, to Audacious Rewards websites and any other links that you send me that may be useful. So honestly, Nebs, we could talk for hours. I’m absolutely fascinated about the success of the program in such a short time, but I’m also fascinated about your leadership style, the approach from African Bank in terms of how they’ve really embraced this, which we honestly don’t hear of all programs.
You might coming at it from where you are, you might think that’s naturally the way it is. And I’m reassuring you that it’s not and therefore you’re doing something really special. So thank you very much for sharing that with us and congratulations from everyone from Let’s Talk Loyalty.
Dr Nceba: Thank you, Amanda.
Paula: This show is brought to you by the Australian Loyalty Association. The leading organization for loyalty networking and education in the Asia Pacific region. Their Asia Pacific Loyalty Conference will take place on the 7th and 8th of August this year at the Gold Coast, Australia, with over 350 guests in attendance, including yours truly from Let’s Talk Loyalty.
I can’t wait to meet so many loyalty experts from the Asia Pacific region in person. Register now to hear global experts discuss current trends in loyalty marketing. There will be fantastic networking opportunities, hosted drinks and dinners, appointment bookings, competitions, and great prizes to be won.
Visit AustralianLoyaltyAssociation.com to find out more.
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