How Landmark Reimagined Loyalty: The Shukran Program Story (#726)

Lisa: Tell us a bit more about the internal motivations and drivers for that shift and that revamp, please.

Aoun: About four years ago, Shukran was a one-size-fits-all type of loyalty program.

Aoun: Same earn rate, same bonuses for everybody across the whole 13, 14 million people.

Emily: And we heard from the customers what they were looking for.

Emily: So as you know, a few years ago, we were running a very transactional earn and burn program.

Emily: We heard from the customers themselves that they were looking for soft benefits as well.

Aoun: One keyword that was pasted in every meeting was simplicity.

Aoun: We thought we had a simple program, but our earn rates changed by concept.

Lisa: I did have a look at the app yesterday.

Lisa: It’s actually really kind of simple and to the point.

Lisa: Was that a conscious decision?

Aoun: There was a huge change management required on that front.

Aoun: Shukran touched so many points within the journey of an employee and a customer.

Aoun: Bridging those gaps was one of the key areas that required a lot of focus.

Paula: Hello and welcome to Let’s Talk Loyalty and Loyalty TV, a show for loyalty marketing professionals.

Paula: My name is Paula Thomas and I’m the founder and CEO of Let’s Talk Loyalty and Loyalty TV, where we feature insightful conversations with loyalty professionals from the world’s leading brands.

Paula: Today’s episode is hosted by Lisa Brightwell, who founded and leads Bright Insights Consulting, a consulting firm based here in the UAE.

Paula: With over 20 years’ experience in the region, Lisa specializes in crafting innovative loyalty strategies that harness customer intelligence to drive engagement, differentiation and long-term growth.

Paula: Enjoy.

Lisa: Hello and welcome to Let’s Talk Loyalty and Loyalty TV.

Lisa: I’m Lisa Brightwell and today I’m delighted to be joined by Aoun Raza and Emily Ong from Landmark Group’s Shukran program, a powerhouse loyalty program spanning in GCC, Asia and Africa.

Lisa: For over 15 years, Shukran has been connecting millions of members across multiple brands, and today it stands as one of the region’s most successful loyalty programs, boasting more than 14 million active members.

Lisa: In this episode, we’re going to explore the motivations behind Shukran’s recent program revamp, unpack the new value proposition, discuss the impact and transformation has had on the business and its customers.

Lisa: I hope you enjoy our conversation.

Lisa: Hello, Emily and Aoun, welcome to Let’s Talk Loyalty and Loyalty TV.

Lisa: Thank you for being in my lovely living room this afternoon.

Lisa: So welcome.

Emily: Hi, nice to meet you.

Aoun: Thank you for inviting us.

Lisa: Pleasure.

Lisa: I feel like it’s a bit of a theme of my podcasting, having two people.

Lisa: I had two people on the last one and I always say two people is double the fun.

Lisa: So I’m looking forward to today’s conversation.

Lisa: But we always start the podcast with the same question and I think the reason is just to get to know you guys a little bit better, a bit of an insight as to who you are as leaders or who you are as people.

Lisa: And you know, the question I’m going to ask is, can you please tell us about a book, a non-fiction book that has potentially influenced your career, your leadership style or your life in some way and to tell us a little bit about the book please, Emily, let’s start with you.

Emily: Okay.

Emily: I’m currently reading the book, How to Lead in Product Management.

Emily: It’s written by Roman Pickler.

Emily: So why I really like it is because it’s broken up into digestible chapters, covering how you align on stakeholders, how you lead your team, how you lead your product vision and all that for a product manager.

Emily: So I think even if you are new to product management or if you are someone who’s already experienced, you can go back because the way this book flows is by chapters.

Emily: You don’t have to read from front to back.

Emily: You can just go dive into every chapter, any chapter and just cover the topic that you want to.

Emily: So how it shaped me, I think it’s helped me connect emotional intelligence with everyday product experiences.

Emily: And this, I think, it’s a great way for any product manager to pick up the skills related.

Emily: And when I put it into the context of loyalty industry, this is what we have to do, right?

Emily: This is what we do day in and day out, align our stakeholders and manage our team.

Emily: So I think it’s very applicable.

Lisa: Amazing.

Lisa: I love the fact you can pick up different chapters and just have little moments where you can read them versus having to read the whole book.

Emily: That’s right.

Lisa: That’s great.

Lisa: Aoun.

Aoun: For me, it goes back a little bit earlier in my career when I first sort of joined the Loyalty bandwagon.

Aoun: There’s a book called Never Lose a Customer by Joey Coleman.

Aoun: That one really inspired me because it was, I mean, I was already in my career into the whole marketing segment of businesses.

Aoun: But then when I read the main points that it discusses is around, the loyalty is built in the first 100 days.

Aoun: That thing really stuck with me.

Aoun: It’s the first 100 days where you have to prove to the customer that you’re actually there for them.

Aoun: And it’s not really a transactional based relationship, right?

Aoun: It’s more about belonging.

Aoun: And we, which he further talks about belonging and how businesses sometimes forget to look at customers as their guests.

Aoun: And it’s more around the loyalty experts to focus on that front.

Aoun: It really inspired me to sort of take that role up in my future endeavors.

Aoun: So I think that that’s sort of shaped up my way, my thoughts around looking at loyalty and also leading into the whole aspect of loyalty from how the team should be presented versus what the customer should look like within the organization.

Lisa: Amazing.

Lisa: Sound like two really good books.

Lisa: And we’ll put them in the show notes so that if anybody is interested to read up on them, we’ll put them for everyone there.

Lisa: Thank you for that.

Lisa: So before we kick into some questions today, I think it’d be really great just to understand who you both are in terms of your roles within Shukran.

Lisa: And also I think that the audience may not be familiar with Landmark as a group.

Lisa: Shukran is obviously the loyalty program for Landmark Group.

Lisa: So it’d be great to get a little introduction to yourselves and your roles.

Lisa: And then if Aoun, you could also tell us about Landmark Group and the Shukran program.

Lisa: So let’s start, Emily, if you would please.

Emily: Okay.

Emily: So with Landmark Group, I’m the customer and product leader.

Emily: So this is a place where I think about how we create customer value for the entire group, not just a particular brand that we hold.

Emily: So that’s where I’m working on.

Emily: That’s the area I’m working on.

Lisa: Amazing.

Aoun: Yeah.

Aoun: For me, I’m the AVP of Marketing and Loyalty.

Aoun: So Shukran sort of sits under my portfolio.

Aoun: It was passed on to me as a teenage child.

Aoun: It’s been in the industry for now about 15 years.

Aoun: And talking about Landmark Group, Landmark Group has been in this region alive for more than 50 years.

Aoun: So, I mean, it’s massive, huge amount of customers.

Aoun: We’re sitting at over 14 million active customers.

Aoun: We are in four different, actually multiple industries now.

Aoun: Mainly in the retail space, we’re in the home businesses, baby, fashion.

Aoun: We also have hospitality wings.

Aoun: So, yeah, it’s quite a widespread organization with touching multiple industries, multiple different types of customers.

Aoun: And yeah, Shukran has been through quite a few revamps in its entirety, but I think very recently we’ve been through one also, which we’re pretty proud of.

Lisa: And I guess that’s a big topic for the conversation today, is the Shukran program’s revamp.

Lisa: So tell us a bit more about the internal motivations and drivers for that shift and that revamp, please.

Aoun: Sure.

Aoun: So about four years ago, I joined about four years ago into Landmark Group.

Aoun: At that point, Shukran was all size, one size fits all type of loyalty program.

Aoun: Same earn rate, same bonuses for everybody across the whole sort of 13, 14 million people, right?

Aoun: We started making cohorts of the top customers, mid customers, figuring out how people’s behavior changes across the number of years that they stay with Landmark.

Aoun: And that shifted into an internal debate about what does the loyalty program actually mean to the customer?

Aoun: Is it a loyalty program?

Aoun: Is it just a CRM engine, which is collecting data?

Aoun: Is it an actual driver of transactions and loyalty, right?

Aoun: So that took quite a bit of research, quite a bit of alignment, a lot of debates, a lot of, I mean, I would put those as the main early, early age challenges across, which we had to sort of deal with.

Aoun: But I think eventually we came up with the solution because we had also tiered, we had a tiering program early on, like I think over eight, nine years ago, but it was a single tier.

Aoun: This was more around the whole RFM model and also the main sort of crux of the statement was we want to give back more to the customer.

Aoun: If we want to do that, how do we do it?

Aoun: How do we incentivize customers for being loyal to the brand?

Aoun: And that was what sort of the statement was for our leadership.

Aoun: And yeah, back and forth.

Aoun: We’ll tell you more about the program in a bit.

Lisa: And so I guess that was your internal motivations, like in terms of looking at the data, looking at segments, looking at what customers want.

Lisa: But how much of that, the decision to make that revamp came from any customer feedback?

Lisa: Did you look at what customers were, were customers telling you that they wanted to change?

Lisa: Did you do any customer research?

Aoun: Yeah, so there was quite a bit actually done.

Aoun: So that was, I guess, phase two.

Aoun: Phase one was to understand that we do need to change.

Aoun: And I think that’s some of, like in large organizations, that’s the biggest, like to move the wheel is the hardest.

Aoun: We spoke to over 14,000 customers, like we had surveys and interviews, et cetera, of about over 14,000 customers in different territories, in different concepts.

Aoun: Because we run, we basically exist in eight territories, right?

Aoun: So every customer, every nationality is different.

Aoun: They have different customer behavior, based on which area they’ve lived in, plus what type of family format they have, what are their backgrounds, what are their experiences.

Aoun: So yeah, we had to talk to a lot of different customers, understand, find out what’s the equilibrium format of what they would want us to build, and then bring it back to the organization and then try to debate it within the operating schematics, I guess.

Emily: Maybe I can add on here.

Emily: So basically, I think we had our business objectives and we heard from the customers what they were looking for.

Emily: So as you know, a few years ago, we were running a very transactional earn and burn program.

Emily: All you did was to earn the points and you can just offset with cash at the end when you make a purchase.

Emily: So that was very transactional.

Emily: So we heard from the customers themselves, this 14,000 that we surveyed, that they were looking for soft benefits as well.

Emily: I mean, with the recent years, you would see a lot of partnerships being formed, benefits that they get, not for a price, but because they are a treasured valued customer.

Emily: So with the tiering program, we came up with four different tiers from classic all the way to platinum.

Emily: And of course, depending on which cohort you belong to, then you deserve the suitable benefits for that level.

Emily: So that’s how we set it up.

Emily: So with that, the mechanics changed.

Emily: In the last one, two years, that’s where we introduced the idea of using this RFM model.

Emily: We wanted to incentivize if you spent a certain number of qualifying transactions, and then you would progress upwards on the tier.

Emily: So the higher value you are, that’s also because you brought us more revenue.

Emily: Then we give you higher platinum benefits.

Emily: Things like free shipping when you make purchases online, or you have hundreds of free offers that you can get one-for-one deals, stuff like that.

Emily: So these are things that customers really wanted.

Emily: And in terms of identifying what kind of benefits would fit them, we had to customize per market as well, because in Saudi, the customers might want something very different from what we might want here in the UAE or in Kuwait and all that.

Emily: So we did try our best to personalize some of us as well as customize by market.

Emily: Yeah.

Lisa: So a big part of that CVP transformation was tiering, obviously, and structuring that and creating that value for members.

Lisa: I did have a look at the…

Lisa: Obviously, I’m a member.

Lisa: I did have a look at the app yesterday just to kind of prepare for today.

Lisa: And I was noticing in the tiers, obviously, you do have tiers now, but there isn’t an exhaustive list of tier benefits.

Lisa: It’s actually really kind of simple and to the point.

Lisa: And you get the accelerated earn rate and then you get a bundled amount of offers and then in platinum, the free shipping for the top tier.

Lisa: And I actually thought it was really refreshing to be really simple because sometimes you go in pro-res and there’s so much there’s so much details that you get a bit lost.

Lisa: So was that a conscious decision on the tiering and what value you kind of built into that?

Aoun: So one key one keyword that was pasted in every meeting that we had when we were designing this program was simplicity because…

Lisa: It’s underrated, isn’t it?

Aoun: Yeah, exactly.

Aoun: Because we thought we had a simple program, but our earn rates changed by concept.

Aoun: We had different earn rates across the board.

Lisa: I didn’t realize.

Aoun: Our sale versus non-sale benefits changed based on concept.

Aoun: Our partners had their own versions of earn and burn that you can switch with external partners which don’t exist within the group.

Aoun: And it was just a nightmare for marketing to get the message across to the customer.

Aoun: That was, I think, one of the biggest things that we figured out in the survey, that people know that program exists.

Aoun: They know that it’s beneficial to them because they see the AED value at the end of it.

Aoun: But then we actually had to have a calculator with the brand selector within the app, which was the most used piece within the app that customers needed to use, which gives you a statement, right?

Aoun: If a customer needs to go before shopping to calculate how many points he needs based on a brand, you know, you need to simplify it.

Aoun: So I think simplicity was one of the keywords that was mentioned every single time.

Aoun: And we had a direction from our leadership as well.

Aoun: Very, very strong direction to simplify the program and make it like, unify it across all brands, unify it across partners, have the same offering and make it more personalised, that it’s unified to a platinum member.

Aoun: Two platinum members get the same offer.

Aoun: Two gold members would get the same offering.

Aoun: So that’s where we had, I think the two keywords were simplify and unify.

Lisa: Yeah, I definitely got that from the user experience.

Lisa: So well done.

Emily: Because I think in order for a program to be really successful, the customer needs to understand it.

Emily: So we target simplicity because it’s easier to educate a customer.

Emily: And if the customer is not able to understand the program, they won’t really form the emotional connection and they won’t really understand what will I gain when I shop with Landmark Group.

Emily: So I think that’s why that was the guiding principle in terms of the program mechanics as well as the design.

Emily: So that’s why bringing back to what you raised earlier, we try to keep the content as simple as possible and such that you don’t have to calculate at the back of your head what do I get out of this.

Aoun: I also think ahead of the customer, I mean quoting Fred Reichelt here in The Loyalty Effect, he says the loyalty actually starts with the employees, not with the customers.

Aoun: So educating over 20,000 employees to get the message across to the customer is the first point of contact.

Aoun: That’s the first touch point.

Aoun: And if we have, what, five, three to five seconds at the cash counter to get the message across, because we’re a mass sale business, mass fashion business, mass home business, right?

Aoun: At any given time, there are more than 10 people waiting in line.

Aoun: So you can’t really take that moment out and explain a program for three minutes to the customer and get the questions and answers.

Aoun: It needs to be very simple.

Aoun: It needs to be easy to remember.

Aoun: And it needs to also match up.

Aoun: The benefits need to be as like a complicated program can have large benefits.

Aoun: Like a lottery would have a huge list of decencies.

Aoun: But we have to match up what the benefits are to how complicated the program is for the customers to remember it, I guess.

Lisa: Yeah, no, 100%.

Lisa: And so you mentioned benefits there.

Lisa: We’ve got obviously with the new value proposition, the simplicity, the tiers.

Lisa: And in those tier benefits, you have the offers.

Lisa: And so tell us a bit more about the notion behind bringing in, I think you have a partnership strategy there to bring in offers en masse and you give these different offers to your customers.

Lisa: Tell us about the thinking behind that.

Lisa: I think it was obviously opening up the program to be a bit more lifestyle outside of your own brands.

Lisa: But the thinking behind it, Emily, maybe.

Emily: Okay, I think loyalty is really about building the ability to think of the brand in any part of your life.

Emily: So basically, we wanted to be part of the customer’s life as well.

Emily: You’re not shopping for a dress every day, right?

Emily: But you could be going to…

Emily: Okay, maybe you…

Emily: So basically, whatever you do, we wanted you to think of one of our brands and Shukran itself.

Emily: You can recognize that whatever I do, Shukran is part of your life.

Emily: So by opening up to work with partners of the like mind, maybe we target the same kind of audience, that’s where we get mutual benefits with each other.

Emily: And also these are what customers want.

Emily: So we really want to give what customers want.

Emily: Of course, some comes with a cost and some that’s just mutual benefits because it’s just a synergy between two partners.

Emily: So I think that’s where we work with our local territory teams because they are the ones that understand each market.

Emily: Being present in multiple territories, we can’t just sit in our office right here and know everything.

Emily: So we rely very much on our local partners too.

Lisa: And do you have a specific partnership criteria that you use for how you onboard partners in the programme?

Lisa: Is there things that you look out for?

Aoun: I mean…

Lisa: Is that not a good question?

Aoun: No, it makes sense.

Aoun: I guess we’re also in the learning phase.

Aoun: It’s the first time we do this.

Aoun: Shukran has always been part of intern…

Aoun: We’ve always looked at internal offers or looking at our internal businesses to tell us what their specific customers are looking for.

Aoun: This is the first time we’ve expanded it outside of our internal offerings.

Aoun: And we’re learning every day because we have a good deal with our partners that we can switch partners, like at least 20, 30% partners every quarter.

Aoun: So we keep switching to get the best mix.

Aoun: Exactly.

Aoun: And we’ve learned also from the experts within the industry who’ve consulted us on figuring out what, say, the top 10 to 12 redemption heavy businesses are.

Aoun: And those are the ones we went for first.

Aoun: And now we’re expanding across the region because, I mean, while we call it GCC, it’s still many, like it’s multiple countries, right?

Aoun: Multiple countries.

Aoun: And even within countries, you have locations that have their own preferences.

Aoun: So the goal and strategy is to go more localized.

Lisa: Yeah.

Aoun: We’ve started off because it’s a huge task.

Aoun: We’ve started off with more like larger brands.

Aoun: But I think as we learn our customers, as we go forward and learn our customers and hear from them what they want, we’ll keep incorporating them as we go.

Lisa: That’s the beauty of that is that you’re also gathering data on people’s wants and likes in a really passive way, right?

Lisa: If you see that I’ve redeemed my vouchers or my offers for F&B, you now have a real interest in that.

Lisa: And what can you do with that within your own ecosystem as well?

Aoun: Yeah.

Lisa: And we’ve talked a bit about data, talked about how you looked at it in the beginning to assess the need to revamp the program, evaluating the program.

Lisa: Can we talk a bit about data?

Lisa: I know, Emily, when we spoke the other day, you were talking about the depth that you went as an organization to structure that.

Lisa: Can you tell me a bit about that?

Lisa: I find what you did there really the right steps in moving the program in the right direction, which not everybody always thinks about, is starting first with data.

Lisa: They always kind of start with strategy first.

Lisa: So I think what you talked about the other day really was really relevant.

Emily: So one thing I really like about what we do is we are a very data-driven company and we’ve got leadership support in investing in the right place.

Emily: So what we did was we spent the last year working on introducing this customer data platform, so the CDP.

Emily: So in order to get that done, we wanted to get the full 360 view of a customer, right?

Emily: So basically whether you shop with us offline, online, concept, the brand A versus brand B, we would be able to see that all within a single profile.

Emily: So we wanted to achieve that and with the help of the platform that we used, we ingested the data from the various sources, whether you shop the data from the POS, data from our e-com apps, and even how you interact with our app, these are all the data that we can now see.

Lisa: Amazing.

Emily: Yeah.

Emily: So I think data is present everywhere, but it’s usually unclean.

Emily: It’s really messy.

Emily: So to get that done, we had to really sit back, clean it up and therefore make it into a very digestible method that our business users can use.

Emily: Because business users are just people like you and I, right?

Emily: You can’t expect them to really know how to run queries and all.

Emily: So they need a proper user-friendly platform in order to create, let’s say, campaigns that they want to run or marketing ads that they want to target, retail media ads.

Emily: This is also a field that we are doing right now.

Emily: So I think that’s what we enabled for the business.

Emily: And yeah, it has definitely shown improvements in the way we even run, the way we do things.

Emily: The ways of working has changed.

Emily: And I hope it has made things easier for all our business users.

Emily: And the customers at the end would get something like, you know, better messaging that’s more personalised because right now we are able to personalise campaigns better because we can segment them better.

Lisa: So you’re creating a lot of segments and then driving more personalised comms.

Lisa: Amazing.

Emily: Because previously, you know, if you want to send a message out, you would send to your a few million all the same.

Emily: Right now, you can possibly message something, someone seated in UAE, something different from someone seated in KSA.

Emily: You can even personalise by your preferred language.

Aoun: Disclaimer, all the data is hashed.

Aoun: Nobody has view to it.

Aoun: It’s centrally managed.

Aoun: Very, very heavy, tight lock and security is on top of it.

Aoun: Yeah, reach out to Infosec for any other additional requirements that you have.

Emily: Don’t worry, I can keep that very well.

Lisa: It sounds like such a basic thing, but actually it’s a very hard thing to do to go as a business.

Lisa: It’s a business transformation, right?

Lisa: Looking at all your data points, bringing it in, consolidating it and finding it into your words, user-friendly way for the business to actually use it and action it.

Lisa: I was impressed to hear that the lengths that you guys have gone, not only have you done that foundation, you’ve gone through that revamp of the programme and they come together and converge.

Lisa: With the revamp, we’ve talked about some really nice elements, is there any other enhancements to the value proposition other than the simplicity and the tiers and the partnerships that you added in?

Aoun: I think I’ll take that one.

Aoun: One big change that I want to mention is the internal shift that we had within the business.

Aoun: When you have a business that’s been existing for over five decades, you also have customers who have been with you for over a decade, right?

Aoun: Like even two decades, for that matter.

Aoun: There was a huge change management required on that front.

Lisa: I can imagine.

Aoun: Which was, I think, the largest lift and shift we did across the organization because Shukran touched so many points within the journey of an employee and a customer, right?

Aoun: So, data points, automations, all the touch points within the stores, we had a predominantly offline business.

Aoun: We’re moving into an omni-channel setup, but some of our businesses are more aligned towards being offline.

Aoun: So, bridging those gaps was one of the key areas that required a lot of focus.

Aoun: Bringing those team members on board, getting the idea, the notion, the belief up, I think was the key.

Aoun: From there on, there’s a long list of offers and I mean like soft and hard benefits, basically where we’re categorizing them.

Aoun: I think this is the year of testing.

Aoun: We’re partnering up with quite a few businesses in the region, figuring out what the customers want, but specifically to tiering and offerings on the site, I think as a retailer, the list is endless.

Aoun: So we have a few things coming up, stay tuned.

Aoun: I think as we move ahead into the year, we want to expand our benefits portfolio as much as possible.

Lisa: And so recently I saw you did an event in Saudi Arabia for your Platinum customers.

Lisa: Are events something you’re going to be working on more for the program?

Aoun: It’s a big part of our strategy.

Aoun: We had a really successful event that you mentioned just now in Riyadh.

Aoun: We had thousands of people attend it, recorded over a thousand customers attending it.

Aoun: We had partners who were excited about it.

Aoun: Our concepts took part and it was an event to give back, basically.

Aoun: We had a really nice year ahead.

Aoun: We had our Shukran anniversary, which is basically we celebrated every year and we give 10x points offer back.

Aoun: So the event was all circled around it.

Aoun: We took a space and we wanted to see what the customers would like, what would they feel.

Aoun: And it was so amazing because they brought their kids, they brought their friends to have a good time at our stalls, talk about our loyalty program and also talk to our concepts directly, where there were so many learnings around it.

Aoun: And of course, there was some thank you moments as well, where we gave out over 5,000 of vouchers and gifts to the customers.

Aoun: And we’re just going to make it bigger and bigger as we go ahead.

Aoun: Yeah, because it’s a really good place for us to meet our customers and also feel like we’re one family.

Lisa: Amazing.

Lisa: So the customer feedback was great from the event.

Lisa: And so is the customer feedback great on the program changes as well?

Lisa: Do you do you get feedback from customers on what you’ve changed?

Lisa: Are they loving it?

Lisa: What’s the sentiment so far?

Aoun: Sure.

Aoun: I mean, like, it was a big change.

Aoun: We’re happy to say there was no negative feedback.

Lisa: Okay, good.

Aoun: Which was also a shocker for us because we were all like looking at every single sentiment tool out there to figure out if somebody’s mentioned anything wrong.

Aoun: But yeah, we got lucky.

Aoun: I think because we heard the customer so much before we set up the schematics of the program, I think it was successful.

Aoun: I mean, I hope they’ve tested it enough to tell us the right story.

Aoun: But for now, we’re happy.

Emily: Actually, you’ll be surprised because when we first launched this whole revamp, we did start off with a pilot territory.

Emily: After running at the pilot territory for a few months, we did go out for research again.

Emily: During the research, we did take in their feedback.

Emily: Things like renaming one of our tier was something that we did even.

Emily: When customers feedback and we truly recognize that, we will also make changes because we know that’s what will help our program improve.

Emily: With that kind of feedback, we then scaled out and rolled out across the territories.

Emily: That’s something that I really love about Landmark.

Emily: We are having a two-way conversation with our customers.

Lisa: Amazing.

Lisa: So, what’s next?

Lisa: Sounds like you’ve done some amazing changes to the program.

Lisa: Sounds like customers and business are happy.

Lisa: But what’s next for the program?

Lisa: Can you share anything?

Lisa: What’s happening next?

Aoun: I mean, yeah, sure.

Lisa: Putting you under pressure.

Aoun: Yeah, true.

Aoun: But definitely not as much as our customers.

Aoun: We’re still learning, I think is the key statement here.

Aoun: There are quite a few things in the mix that are planned in.

Aoun: We’re still trying to take the boxes on the basics.

Aoun: I think this is the year where that would be happening.

Aoun: What’s coming up?

Aoun: More events, more thank you moments for the customer.

Aoun: Nice.

Aoun: We’re definitely trying to build a better proposition by concept.

Aoun: So our top customers within each brand are also very important to Shukran as a Loyalty program.

Aoun: And we currently want to build a proposition for them specifically.

Aoun: So that’s we’re gearing towards that one.

Aoun: And a lot of meet and greets, I guess, as we go ahead, because while our partners increase, there will be more offers that come across.

Aoun: And also, we would want to leverage the other regions, other areas in the regions, that we haven’t touched so much.

Aoun: Because we tend to centralize our efforts on the larger bases, larger cities, larger concepts.

Aoun: But there’s so much more that’s in the trucks of it.

Aoun: And we want to address those fringes a bit more.

Aoun: So yeah, there’s quite a bit planned.

Aoun: I don’t want to reveal anything before it’s live, but yeah, we do have an announcement at the end of the show.

Aoun: I guess.

Lisa: Okay.

Lisa: Well, then I’ll ask you my final question then.

Lisa: It’s a surprise question for you.

Lisa: But from your revamp, what is your favorite change to the program and why, Emily?

Aoun: Oh, that’s a hard one.

Aoun: Yeah.

Lisa: Oh, you have to pick one.

Lisa: So sudden.

Emily: Let me think.

Emily: What’s my favorite change?

Emily: I think I like the idea that customers need to understand the number of purchasers, the number of times they need to return to business because loyalty is about getting a customer to come back to you, to recall you.

Emily: So the fact that in order to step up in tiering, you need to come back and qualify for a number of spans.

Emily: So, introducing that as a new counter, rather than just how many points you have earned, is something new that they have to learn.

Emily: And I think we have seen it in terms of looking at the way our purchase frequency has increased and all that.

Emily: We have seen the advantage to it for the business as well.

Lisa: Amazing.

Aoun: I got some time to think about my answer.

Lisa: Yeah, you did.

Aoun: So, see, I don’t want to reiterate it, but the top one would be simplicity.

Aoun: We’ve already talked about it.

Aoun: It’s simple, it’s easy, it’s fast.

Aoun: But just as a second one, I guess, the relevance that the customers have to shift between brands.

Aoun: I think we used to always live in each of these brands, but isolated with each one.

Aoun: I feel now we have gotten that opportunity to tell the customer that it’s not only one or two brands, but it’s over seven, eight brands that you can actually earn and burn from.

Aoun: And now moving out of the group, we also have better offerings and other offerings available.

Aoun: So I feel that sort of cohesiveness of that cross-concept experience is what we’re trying to leverage a little bit more on.

Aoun: And yeah, I think Emily already mentioned the tiering piece.

Aoun: So yeah, those would be my picks, I guess.

Lisa: I know I need to wrap up, but I have one really quick question I want to ask on what you just said.

Lisa: Is that objective of kind of driving that cross-brand spend, is the program achieving that for you, the new structure?

Aoun: Yes, we were pretty amazed last year when we saw our targets.

Aoun: Yep, so we basically built the program on four pillars.

Aoun: The basis is obviously returning back saying, as the brand name suggests, saying thank you to the customer for being with us.

Aoun: But we want to build a family.

Aoun: We’ve been part of this land, this region for as long as some of the families exist.

Aoun: So we want to also build that sort of nuance, make that omni-tiered experience easier, better for the customer.

Aoun: And one big part of it is the cross-concept behavior.

Aoun: So yeah, we’ve hit our targets.

Aoun: That’s at least a good part.

Aoun: I don’t know if it was our efforts or the business efforts, but-

Lisa: A combination.

Lisa: You’re on one team.

Aoun: Yeah, a combination of both have made us get to that point.

Lisa: And so you alluded to a little announcement you wanted to make.

Lisa: So as our final point for the podcast today, do you want to tell us your announcement?

Aoun: So final point, we mentioned the Platinum Day that was in Riyadh.

Aoun: We’re doing it for the first time in UAE in December.

Aoun: So stay tuned.

Aoun: For now, the dates are December 13th.

Aoun: We’d love to see our family within the UAE in one of our malls.

Aoun: So yeah, it’s going to be big.

Aoun: There are going to be some really good gifts and prizes and things to have fun with.

Aoun: Bring the family and we’ll have some good time together.

Lisa: Amazing.

Lisa: Well, thank you both, Emily, Aoun, for today.

Lisa: I really enjoyed learning about the program.

Lisa: I think it’s really amazing that we’ve kind of transformed Shukran from a transactional program into a much more experience led program.

Lisa: I enjoy being a member.

Lisa: And so thank you so much for coming in and telling us about it today.

Lisa: And if anybody wants to get in touch with you, I guess the best ways to reach out to you on LinkedIn, we’ll make sure we put that in the show notes.

Lisa: But thank you very much for joining.

Lisa: Let’s Talk Loyalty and Loyalty TV.

Aoun: Thank you so much for inviting us.

Aoun: It was a pleasure.

Emily: Yeah, I had a great chat.

Lisa: Thank you.

Aoun: Looking forward to the next one, hopefully.

Lisa: Inshallah.

Aoun: Thank you.

Emily: Thanks.

Paula: This show is sponsored by Wise Marketeer Group, publisher of the Wise Marketeer, the premier digital customer loyalty marketing resource for industry relevant news, insights and research.

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