In this short summary episode of “Let’s Talk Loyalty”, we looked back on an episode from early 2021 when we talked about loyalty programmes as they evolved during the global pandemic, in an insightful conversation with Ashish Sinha, Managing Director of Epsilon APAC & MEA.
While some brands did their utmost to be extraordinarily helpful to consumers in that particularly difficult time, others overloaded their members with offers and deals that they didn’t want or couldn’t afford to redeem.
Listen to enjoy some unique Epsilon insights on how true customer loyalty can be earned.
1) Episode #80: Loyalty Trends in APAC by Epsilon’s Ashish Sinha
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: Are you leading a loyalty program in the UK and wondering what will be important in the future?
PAULA: Would you love to hear brand new research into loyalty trends so that you can figure out how to future-proof your program?
PAULA: Well, to launch Collinson’s new partnership with Salesforce and Salesforce’s new loyalty management module, these two leaders in loyalty are hosting an exclusive event in London all about future-proofing loyalty.
PAULA: It’s being hosted at Salesforce Tower right in the heart of the city of London on Thursday the 12th of May.
PAULA: So to get your free invitation, simply register on invite.salesforce.com forward slash future-proofingloyalty.
PAULA: It promises to be a wonderful afternoon, a chance to meet and mingle with other loyalty professionals, and be inspired with some wonderful ideas for the future of your loyalty program.
PAULA: Hello and welcome to episode 217 of Let’s Talk Loyalty.
PAULA: Today, I’m going back and revisiting my talk with Ashish Sinha, the managing director for Epsilon for Asia Pacific, the Middle East, and Africa.
PAULA: As many of you know, Epsilon is a great partner of Let’s Talk Loyalty and certainly is one of the best-known loyalty marketing platforms in our industry.
PAULA: This was such an interesting conversation because we were almost a year into the COVID-19 pandemic.
PAULA: So together we discussed how much loyalty programs had already changed during that short time, how brands had to adapt not just themselves to the pandemic, but how the pandemic was affecting their own customers’ behaviour.
PAULA: Of course, like anything, some brands got it really right and others really struggled to respond.
PAULA: One example was a company who responded to their dramatic loss of sales by bombarding their members with more and more deals, which might have seemed like a reasonable thing to do at the time, but really did a lot of damage to their relationships with loyal customers.
PAULA: Mainly because the reason they had stopped buying was that they were actually struggling financially due to COVID itself, with, for example, so many people losing their jobs.
PAULA: So a key lesson I think we talked about in this episode is really how important it is for all of us to examine our data and really uncover why customers are behaving the way they are.
PAULA: Ashish gave us two other great examples of brands that got it exactly right.
PAULA: One was a bank, which instead of sending out offers for new insurance or investment products, instead decided to focus on helping their customers become better educated on government programs or grants that might be able to help them if they were under financial strain from COVID or a related job loss.
PAULA: The other one was the wonderful pharmacy retail chain called Walgreens, who had recently revamped their loyalty program.
PAULA: Now it’s set up in a way not just to reward customers for shopping there and buying the usual things, but they’ve brought in a whole new approach where they are partnering with their customers to offer tailored health solutions based on each person’s individual medical history.
PAULA: And again, as we often do on this show, we then talked about how crucial it is for brands to take extraordinary care of the customer data they collect.
PAULA: Platforms like Facebook have made plenty of mistakes in the past, and that is really making customers extra cautious about giving out their private information.
PAULA: Given the rise in COVID-19 and the exponential growth of e-commerce as a result, brands are collecting more and more data, and of course now it’s first party data, which is the richest and most valuable type.
PAULA: The biggest takeaway for me from this episode is that ongoing commitment to use our data to get to know our customers and make sure that we’re really partnering with them to help and enrich their lives, not just send them constant offers and coupons.
PAULA: There were so many wonderful insights in this episode.
PAULA: It’s definitely a great one to go back and listen to a second time.
PAULA: If you’d like to, it’s quite simply letstalkloyalty.com forward slash 80.
PAULA: That’s it for today’s short summary.
PAULA: Tomorrow we’ll be talking about the world’s largest hospitality loyalty program that you’ve never heard of.
PAULA: The Discovery Program, which is the world’s largest alliance for independent hotel brands and is used, for example, by Anantara, Avani, Kempinski and actually over 30 other brands.
PAULA: Then on Thursday, we’re bringing back Adam Posner to share with us his 2022 report on consumer insights from the Australian loyalty market, all of which are relevant to loyalty marketeers all over the world, no matter where you are living and working.
PAULA: Thanks again for listening to today’s episode of Let’s Talk Loyalty.
PAULA: I really do appreciate it.
PAULA: This show is sponsored by The Wise Marketeer, the world’s most popular source of loyalty marketing news, insights and research.
PAULA: The Wise Marketeer also offers loyalty marketing training through its Loyalty Academy, which has already certified over 245 executives in 27 countries as certified loyalty marketing professionals.
PAULA: For more information, check out thewisemarketeer.com and loyaltyacademy.org.
PAULA: Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Let’s Talk Loyalty.
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