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, Manav Fernandez has lived and worked in the Middle East for over two decades.
Paula: He is a senior executive with extensive experience across a number of industries, everything from education, from hospitality and tourism, through to banking and automotive, retail and aviation.
Paula: Now, as many years as a branding expert and a top Dubai marketing agency, Manav was responsible for the design, branding and launch of a program called Gems Rewards, which actually won the award for the best loyalty program in the Middle East and Asia at this year’s Loyalty Awards in London.
Paula: So that’s an incredible achievement.
Paula: Congratulations, Manav.
Manav: Thank you.
Paula: Now, that’s obviously the main reason that I invited Manav on the show, but I also thought it would be incredibly interesting just to talk about the idea of loyalty or awards in the education sector, because it’s something we don’t hear about very often.
Paula: Now, as a marketeer, Manav describes himself as commercially astute and profit-focused, and this is something I really like and identify with, because it’s perhaps the most critical skill, I think, for any loyalty manager to run a successful program that is equally loved, both by customers and the senior management team in the business.
Paula: Manav recently set up an agency called Quick Brand Fox Consulting, which runs loyalty programs for a range of clients.
Paula: So with that introduction, Manav, welcome to the show.
Manav: So what a great introduction that was.
Manav: Thank you, Paula.
Manav: Thank you for having me.
Paula: Great, great.
Paula: Now, it’s lovely to sit down and chat, and for listeners, this is my first opportunity to sit in a studio and chat to my guests face to face.
Paula: So I’m enjoying that for a nice change.
Paula: So as you know, Manav, I’m starting all of the shows talking about statistics.
Paula: So tell our listeners first and foremost, what is your favorite statistic about loyalty marketing?
Manav: So my current favorite statistic is one from the Boston Consulting Group, who predict that over the next five years, personalization will push a revenue shift of some 800 billion US dollars to the 15% of companies that get it right.
Manav: Yeah, that was something that kind of made me sit up and take notice.
Manav: I love to drop it into conversations when a client or a potential client is saying, what’s the benefit of a loyalty program?
Manav: Or what sort of return on investment can I see?
Manav: And you kind of see eyes opening quite wide when numbers like this are thrown around.
Paula: For sure.
Manav: And it is the Boston Consulting Group.
Manav: It’s not some monkey outfit that’s talking about this.
Paula: Exactly.
Manav: That is definitely my quote for right now.
Paula: Okay, wonderful.
Paula: Well, a great start.
Paula: I’m beginning to talk about personalization.
Paula: So, first of all, you’ve been living in the UAE for quite some time.
Paula: And tell us where you’re originally from and what it’s like living and working in Dubai.
Manav: So, I’ve had a pretty fantastic journey, to be honest.
Manav: I was born and brought up in New Delhi, India.
Manav: And I moved to Cairo in Egypt in 95, lived in Cairo for a couple of years.
Manav: I was young and adventurous, and I would have gone anywhere on the planet they had asked me to.
Manav: So, I got to be there for a while, and then the opportunity to move to Dubai arose.
Manav: And I’ve been in Dubai since the tail end of 96, and half my life, to be honest.
Manav: And what an amazing journey.
Manav: What a great place to be.
Manav: What a great time to be alive.
Manav: And what a great time to be working in loyalty.
Paula: Exactly, absolutely.
Paula: So, tell me, why do you like working in loyalty?
Manav: Look, loyalty for me is the culmination of what I’ve done for many, many years, which is communication, advertising, brand marketing, and finally, sort of now in loyalty.
Manav: Because first of all, with advertising, especially in this region, with the diversity of people, diversity of cultures, population, pop exposure, and therefore backgrounds, when we were doing communication advertising, a lot of our brands, a lot of our clients would revert to what I call the lowest common denominator.
Manav: So trying to make the message as simple and easy for as many different clients to understand or potential customers to understand.
Manav: And inherently what that does is it kind of dilutes the intrigue value or the interest value because you can’t use a lot of pop culture, you can’t use a lot of cultural references, you can’t make jokes because what’s funny to one culture may not appeal to another.
Manav: And so we were sort of, my advertising background in the region was very much this mass advertising, this spray and pray, literally.
Manav: And the metrics there are all wrong, it’s all about cost per thousand.
Manav: So from there when I moved towards sort of branding, we started looking at more segmented opportunities.
Manav: Towards what I’d start calling mass customization.
Manav: Okay, brilliant.
Manav: Yeah, yeah.
Paula: A start.
Manav: It’s a start and it exists.
Manav: So my background is in apparel manufacturing where you look at, for example, a pair of jeans.
Manav: There’s seven billion people on the planet.
Manav: How do you start creating sizes for different people?
Manav: And I guess the apparel industry is one place where they have to do some form of mass customization or segmentation.
Paula: Yeah, yeah.
Manav: But when you move into loyalty, you have the opportunity to start looking at the utopian segment of one.
Manav: Right?
Manav: So you can look at all your data and literally a different message can go to you compared to the message that comes to me.
Manav: And that’s got nothing to do with, well, it could have to do with our ethnic backgrounds, it could have to do with our gender, but it could also have a lot to do with all of that and so much more.
Paula: Of course.
Manav: So I think what the premise of a loyalty program is, it allows you to start collecting data about your customers and therefore be able to speak to them individually.
Manav: So it’s the right message delivered at the right time in the right place.
Paula: Yes, absolutely.
Manav: And to me, that is why this is such an exciting business to be in.
Paula: Absolutely.
Paula: And certainly the technology, as we know in recent years, has developed extraordinarily.
Paula: So what might not have been possible 20 years ago is certainly possible now.
Paula: So it’s probably incumbent on us as marketeers to really keep up to date in terms of what the technology is capable of.
Paula: And I suppose keeping our own skills up to date as well in terms of being aware of the whole ecosystem around loyalty.
Paula: So, yeah, so it’s really important.
Paula: I love the utopian segment of one.
Paula: I don’t think there’s many are achieving it, but we’ll get into good and bad examples maybe without naming too many, you know, as to what we both like and what we’ve seen maybe in this region.
Paula: And I think you know one of the things I love about this podcast is I’m getting to talk to people in all different parts of the world.
Paula: So it’s great to have your experience in the Middle East region because I think a lot of the listeners are from outside the region.
Paula: So it’s great to get a perspective in this part of the world.
Paula: So tell me then of all the programs you’ve worked on, Manav, what are your favorites?
Manav: What other program?
Manav: I guess we would probably at some stage talk about Gems Rewards.
Paula: Of course, yeah, we’ll come to that one.
Manav: Very, very fond of and attached to it.
Manav: But really more so because it is so left of center, right?
Manav: It’s not a typical program.
Manav: It’s not a segment that you would expect to have a program or need to have a program.
Manav: And I guess we’ll talk more about it.
Manav: But I’m very fortunate that the chairman of Gems, Mr.
Manav: Sunny Varkey, had this crystal clear vision of what he wanted to do.
Manav: And I was chosen to do it.
Manav: And that’s been an amazing, amazing opportunity for me.
Paula: Okay, well, we might as well talk about it now, Manav, and it’s one that we did a tiny bit of work on together, but you really are the person who drove that from start to finish.
Paula: And I think for listeners, the first, I suppose, starting place is to understand why would a company that really runs schools, why would it need a loyalty program?
Paula: It doesn’t happen, I don’t think, in any other part of the world.
Paula: So tell us first of all, why was a loyalty program even a need in the first place for the business?
Manav: So education here is primarily private for the expats.
Manav: It’s private education, you know, because we don’t pay taxes.
Manav: And as a result, everything else, you know, the government doesn’t really need to provide these things.
Manav: However, you know, GEMS has pioneered education and has allowed this, you know, has supported the Emirate, you know, of Dubai and I guess the UAE to flourish because it’s, you know, the ability to attract talent into this country was born from being able to provide sufficient education and sufficient health care.
Manav: Two sort of pillars, fundamental pillars of being able to build a nation.
Manav: So in order to put a quality education within the reach of every child, which is a mission statement of the business, quality does come at a cost, right?
Manav: Whether it’s the infrastructure, whether it’s getting the right teaching staff, and everybody is imported, if you will, right, from outside.
Manav: So in order to provide and establish and continue to build a better and better quality of education, that has a direct impact on cost.
Manav: Now, Mr.
Manav: Varkey was very clear when he spoke to me, he said, look, we don’t want to compromise on quality, but we don’t want to take away from our family’s lifestyles.
Manav: So how do we build a program that is able to give a family the very best education that they deserve and want for their child, without having to make sacrifices on their everyday lifestyle aspirations?
Manav: And so that kind of stuck with me when I was designing the program.
Manav: And that is how the program, it’s built around exactly that.
Manav: So I wouldn’t say that it’s a loyalty program.
Manav: It’s very much a rewards program.
Manav: It’s a program that helps make education more affordable.
Manav: Because without compromising on the sort of infrastructural aspects, without having to build smaller schools or put more children into classrooms, per classroom, and therefore compromising their quality of education.
Manav: So the business was able to continue to build on the quality while reducing the impact of that cost on a family’s budget.
Manav: And I think at the end of the first year, we saw families were saving a lot of money, and one of the families was able to save up to 30% of their school fees, which was extraordinary, absolutely, very, very rewarding.
Manav: And I believe that at the end of the second year, the total amount of savings was something in the region of 50 million dirhams across the program.
Manav: And again, very, very impactful.
Manav: That’s not a small number.
Manav: And I’d say that’s $15 million, give or take.
Paula: Exactly.
Paula: Not everyone knows dirhams as a currency, so thank you for doing the conversion for us.
Paula: And I suppose that the customer value proposition just on that program, because again, nobody will have seen GEMS rewards unless they’re in this region.
Paula: So maybe just talk us through how does the program actually work for the families?
Manav: So there’s various aspects of the program.
Manav: At the core of the program, as I said, the whole program rests on an app, of course, because today everything is app-based, and it’s the most measurable form.
Manav: We partnered with over a thousand merchants, some of them in the sort of more luxury space, some of them more in the everyday spending space.
Manav: And all of these partners offered our families, the GEMS families, some form of discount or an offer for transacting there.
Manav: The model is, it’s not that complex, but I’m not going to go into too much detail, but it’s around discretionary and non-discretionary spending, looking at what typically is the amount of money a family would spend on education, and then offsetting that by doing all these partnerships or creating partnerships in areas that we use the spend data to continue to build in those areas for each of those sort of segments.
Manav: So that was a core aspect.
Manav: We also partnered with a local bank to create a co-branded credit card that again allowed parents who were using the card to pay school fees to get various benefits, and then there were other soft benefits that were tagged onto the card, very specific to education.
Manav: We also had a marketplace that we created together.
Paula: We did.
Manav: And the marketplace was an online shopping experience or a shopping portal that families can go shopping on for specific things.
Manav: And when they buy or shop on the portal, they would earn points that could be used to offset school fees.
Manav: The fourth component I believe was an ambassador program that allowed parents to refer children into our schools and basically get a referral fee.
Paula: Amazing.
Manav: And that was cumulative.
Manav: So technically, the more children you referred into a school, the more you could earn back.
Manav: And therefore making your own child’s school fees cost neutral.
Manav: And cost neutrality was the goal.
Paula: Phenomenal.
Manav: I find that very, very successful men are slightly unreasonable in their demands.
Paula: Yes.
Manav: And unreasonable even in their demands to themselves.
Paula: Of course.
Manav: And Chairman Varkey said to me, I want to achieve cost neutrality for all my children.
Manav: Which is a big ask and hopefully someday we’ll manage that.
Paula: Yes.
Manav: Or the program will manage it.
Paula: Exactly.
Manav: But it was definitely designed to be able to achieve that.
Manav: And so it was a very direct correlation between engage with the program and earn back.
Manav: Or if you choose not to engage with the program, well, then I can’t really comment on that.
Paula: Exactly.
Paula: Yeah.
Paula: But I think one of the reasons that we both enjoy living here is exactly that kind of mindset.
Paula: So I haven’t met Chairman Varkey, but I know that Dubai is a city that believes it deserves the best and always wants to go the extra mile.
Paula: I think it’s the reason we have the world’s tallest building.
Paula: We’ve won Expo 2020, the phenomenal World Festival coming up next year.
Paula: So it’s really a city, I think, that sets those kind of expectations.
Paula: So it’s certainly not surprising to hear that that’s what’s coming through in GEMS Rewards.
Manav: Absolutely.
Manav: Having lived here for almost 23 years now, I often get asked, why Dubai?
Manav: Why do you live there?
Manav: And I remember moving here when I did and telling some of my friends, and they looked at me almost sadly, like, why are you in the middle of the desert?
Manav: It’s a hardship posting.
Manav: And now several years later, I have friends from as far and wide as Chile and South America, New Zealand, Japan, and Vancouver, literally the four corners of the world.
Manav: And people aspire to be here.
Manav: The leadership with their vision and their ability to execute and deliver on that vision have really, really put Dubai and the UAE and the Middle East on the map in the most positive way possible.
Manav: Changing and turning cliches on their heads.
Manav: And they’ve done that by, again, having this sort of uncompromising, divine unreasonability.
Paula: Exactly.
Manav: And everything is great but never good enough.
Paula: Never good enough.
Manav: So, not only that, but the changing landscape is that you see a physically different Dubai.
Paula: For sure.
Manav: I believe having lived here 23 years, it’s almost one into 23 years.
Manav: Because every year, something changes.
Manav: There’s something new that shows up.
Manav: It’s newer, bigger, bolder in its ambition.
Manav: And that has made this place wonderful to live in, but also inspiring.
Manav: For sure.
Manav: I think a lot of us expats have come here and lived our best selves.
Manav: I most definitely have.
Paula: For sure.
Manav: Just purely by virtue of being inspired by people around me.
Paula: And a lot of my friends would agree with that, Manav.
Paula: I think what they would say is when you live and work in Dubai, you probably have an opportunity to grow and progress and be promoted in ways that you would never have experienced or an opportunity to do maybe in your home country.
Paula: So I know in Ireland, for example, there’s so many amazing people doing extraordinary work that for me to make a difference, it’s much harder to stand out.
Paula: Whereas in Dubai, actually, maybe we might be the first in our industry or the best in our industry.
Paula: It almost feels easier to kind of get that recognition.
Paula: So yeah, I think we’ve both achieved that in our years here.
Paula: And without giving too much away, I will say that Dubai is a very young country.
Paula: It was formed as a country the same year I was born.
Paula: So for it to have achieved what it has, I think is completely extraordinary.
Paula: So yes, we’re clearly both fans of living and working in Dubai.
Paula: So I just want to talk, I suppose, Manav, about key success factors in loyalty programs.
Paula: So we’ve talked about Jen’s rewards, and I’m sure you have other examples maybe around the world of loyalty programs you admire.
Paula: So what do you think is the key to success?
Manav: So I believe there are three basic pillars.
Manav: One of them is relevance.
Manav: So understand who your audience is, and make sure your program is actually relevant to them.
Manav: So really, for a program to be successful, you’ve got to take an outside in approach rather than an inside out approach.
Manav: And what I mean by that is don’t just go, you know what, I’ve got some dead stock line in the back of my warehouse.
Paula: For sure.
Manav: And if a customer does X, Y, and Z, I’m going to give them some of that dead stock.
Manav: Well, there’s a reason it’s dead stock.
Paula: Exactly.
Manav: So it’s so obvious, and yet you see this all the time.
Paula: It does happen, for sure.
Manav: So I know I’m exaggerating a bit using hyperbole for dramatic effect, but that is, so one is customer centricity.
Manav: I think it’s very, very core.
Manav: The second thing is simplicity.
Manav: Don’t make me do upside down cartwheels and stand on my head in order to figure out how I have to earn points and burn points and redeem them, because I can’t be bothered.
Manav: The span of attention is very, very low.
Manav: So if you want me to engage, keep it simple.
Paula: For sure.
Manav: I think a great quote from advertising is Ogilvie saying, your customer is not a moron.
Manav: She is your wife.
Manav: Perfect.
Manav: And so, treat her with the same amount of respect because she can see through your BS.
Manav: Absolutely.
Paula: And you will not get away with it.
Manav: And I think in this day and age, interestingly, even more so.
Paula: Exactly.
Manav: He said this going back years, but I think it’s even more relevant today with people having a short span of attention and the amount of competition out there is even more than ever before.
Manav: So you really have to keep it simple.
Manav: And then the third thing, I think, the third and most important perhaps is transparency.
Manav: The last thing you want is for me to earn points and only to find that they’re worth nothing.
Paula: Yeah.
Manav: Right?
Manav: And this happens a lot.
Manav: There’s all these back of house algorithms that when I want to use my points, suddenly the value of them drops.
Manav: And again, it’s that customer centricity.
Manav: If I want to use my points over Christmas, then they should be worth the same that they would be in the peak of summer.
Paula: Of course.
Manav: Otherwise, or at least let me know what they’re worth.
Paula: Exactly.
Manav: Right?
Manav: Instead of these sort of shifting sands.
Paula: Yeah.
Manav: So, I think if these three things you’re able to deliver on, you will get a relatively engaged audience.
Paula: Yeah.
Manav: At least your chances of success are higher.
Manav: For sure.
Manav: They may not be guaranteed.
Manav: But if you don’t have them, it’s guaranteed that you will fail.
Paula: Yeah, for sure.
Manav: Right?
Manav: So, I think that I believe very strongly are the key pillars.
Paula: Yeah.
Paula: And I know what comes through in your work, Manav.
Paula: I mean, to me, you know, of course, the rules, the business rules are going to change the parameters to promotions, and we all know that, and that has to happen.
Paula: But I think when you know that at a senior level in the company, there is integrity around what you’re trying to achieve, I think then at least you know that the program is going to be successful, or at least has the opportunity to be successful.
Manav: Absolutely.
Manav: You know, the two programs that I brought up, their success is based on the fact that there’s such a strong top-down…
Manav: Yes…
Manav: .
Manav: vision for the program.
Manav: So, whether it’s, you know, it’s Mr.
Manav: Alabaar at EMAR…
Manav: .
Manav: or whether it’s Chairman Varkey at GEMS…
Manav: Yeah.
Manav: You know, they have such a focus on being customer-centric…
Paula: Yeah…
Manav: .
Manav: and on actually caring about their customers and their ecosystem…
Paula: Yeah…
Manav: .
Manav: that there is no question about the integrity of the program.
Manav: So, it’s not just a mere tick in the box.
Manav: Right?
Manav: They actually want to make a difference.
Manav: And, of course, there’s nothing wrong with being profitable while making an impact.
Manav: In fact, if anything, to be able to do those two things together, it’s genius.
Paula: It’s the whole point.
Manav: Right.
Manav: You know, whereas people see them as being two sort of polar opposites.
Manav: You can either be charitable…
Paula: Yes…
Manav: .
Manav: or you have to be profitable.
Paula: Yeah.
Manav: But I believe very strongly that more and more businesses are learning that you can do both.
Manav: You can have a social responsibility or be customer centric and be profitable.
Manav: Like, you know, a great example is Zappos, you know, and Tony Hsieh’s ability to turn that whole business around from being a loss making business that was trying to sell shoes online to what he called a service business that happened to sell shoes.
Paula: For sure.
Manav: You know, and I think if everyone in every business was made to understand the impact of customer centricity, true, genuine customer centricity, maybe there’s no need for a loyalty program.
Manav: How blasphemous is that on a podcast about loyalty?
Manav: But I really believe that.
Manav: And look at Apple.
Manav: You just have to look at Apple to understand how they’ve decided to own the customer experience.
Manav: Make it as frictionless as possible.
Manav: Continue improving on it.
Manav: And they have raving fans.
Manav: Fans who are willing to forgive them when things don’t always work.
Manav: And that to me is true loyalty, right?
Manav: It’s when you’re able to forgive a friend or in this case a brand because you believe in them.
Manav: And you know that they have your best interests at heart.
Paula: There you go.
Paula: Back to integrity.
Manav: It comes back to that.
Manav: Exactly.
Paula: So I guess one of the key reasons that we do structured loyalty programs is around capturing data.
Paula: So how do you think we’re doing in terms of capturing data, using data, either locally or internationally?
Paula: Because to me it’s something I think most companies are aware of.
Paula: There’s a famous quote I was just writing about and I think it was The Economist was quoting it and we all know it now.
Paula: So they basically said data is the new oil.
Paula: And I was writing about an oil company actually capturing data.
Paula: So it certainly seemed like they were definitely focusing on the next biggest asset in the world.
Paula: So how do you think we’re doing in terms of data capture and personalization?
Paula: Tell us your thoughts on that.
Manav: Okay, so a recent film I watched on Netflix called The Great Hack I think it was, shows the power of data in its ability to flip elections.
Manav: So what you can and can’t do with data is it’s obviously very, very powerful.
Paula: And terrifying sometimes.
Manav: And scary.
Manav: However, I think we’ve got a long way to go as far as being able to, we understand what we can do with it.
Manav: But I don’t think we’ve kind of figured out how to get there yet.
Manav: And so GDPR for example being implemented, that’s very, very new.
Manav: The policies around privacy, and this is going to take some time from a policy point of view, but also in terms of just pure investment.
Manav: I mean, I hear from so many people, the costs of personalization are so high.
Manav: But really, I think the cost of not personalizing is even higher.
Paula: For sure.
Manav: Right, because the amount of wasted you get by not personalizing your marketing dollars or your messaging or your product is going to cost you so much more.
Manav: And the two, again, a lot of my wisdom is borrowed wisdom.
Manav: I love quotes, but I love the story about a conversation between a CEO and a CFO.
Manav: And the CFO says they’re talking about investing in training for their staff.
Manav: And the CFO says, well, what if we invest in all of them, and then they leave?
Manav: And the CEO says, well, what if we don’t?
Manav: And they stay.
Manav: And so you’ve got, so which one is worse?
Manav: And so I think we’ve got to make sure that one company start to understand the value of personalization.
Manav: And the cost of losing a customer because you haven’t done that right or you haven’t understood that data.
Manav: Don’t send me messages that address me as miss or misses.
Manav: Don’t misspell my name.
Manav: Because especially if you have details about me, like if my bank misspells my name, that’s going to upset me.
Paula: It’s pretty fundamental.
Manav: Yeah, it is.
Manav: And especially because when I open a bank account, you get my passport copy.
Manav: It gives you everything about me, my nationality, my age.
Manav: My gender.
Manav: So don’t send me stuff that is then going to be completely irrelevant to me.
Manav: And I think that’s such a basic thing that good businesses have managed to understand, maybe not to the same scale, but they’ve done it in the past.
Manav: And so there’s no reason why today, with the kind of technology we have, that we’re unable to do it.
Paula: Yeah.
Paula: And I think sometimes it comes down to a commitment to excellence.
Paula: And I was ranting, I know recently, about a company I’m a big fan of.
Paula: It’s in this region.
Paula: And it really just proved to me, now maybe it was just one glitch in the overall system, but I’ve seen this kind of behavior.
Paula: It’s a digital company.
Paula: I use their services regularly.
Paula: They had sent a promo code, which was available to use three times.
Paula: I used it three times.
Paula: And of course, then it’s invalid.
Paula: And of course, I chanced my arm.
Paula: I tried a fourth time and they said, no, go away.
Paula: And that’s completely fine.
Paula: It shouldn’t work.
Paula: And I’m testing the system.
Paula: But what upset me then was a week later, they sent a blast communication to literally say, here’s this promo code.
Paula: And I’m like, I already know this doesn’t work because I’ve already used it three times.
Paula: So, again, I tried it a fifth time.
Paula: Of course, it doesn’t work.
Paula: But for a digital company, to me, the most important thing is exclude the people who have already used this offer and availed of it and exclude them from the communication.
Paula: Because that’s a simple thing to get wrong.
Paula: So, you know, I’m assuming it’s not laziness.
Paula: I’m assuming it’s just somebody who made a mistake.
Paula: But to me, that’s anti-loyalty.
Manav: Absolutely.
Manav: And you know what?
Manav: The thing is that it’s a simple line of code.
Paula: Exactly.
Manav: That could easily just fix that problem.
Paula: For sure.
Manav: And not only just is it an irritant that you’re getting that same message over and over again.
Paula: Exactly.
Manav: Which is, again, you just mentioned it to me.
Manav: We’ve not talked about names, but I’m sure I’m going to get it from you offline.
Manav: But, you know, and you will tell people.
Paula: Yeah.
Manav: And a disgruntled customer will tell people.
Paula: For sure.
Manav: You know, so, you know, a similar story.
Manav: My wife, who happens to have a British passport, keeps getting offers from her bank about getting a new passport, which will give her access to Europe and, you know, 150 different countries and blah, blah, blah.
Manav: So, you know, if I got that as an Indian passport holder, okay, understandable.
Paula: Sure.
Manav: She has a British passport.
Manav: She can pretty much travel anywhere in the world.
Paula: Of course.
Manav: And interestingly, you know, she’s getting it from her bank, who again, as I said, the one thing they have is her passport.
Paula: For sure.
Manav: So, you know, we laugh at it, and the amount of money being wasted on that.
Manav: But it’s, you know, it’s in this time and age to be doing this sort of mass spray and pray approach.
Paula: For sure.
Manav: It’s just wrong.
Paula: Exactly.
Manav: It’s just poor marketing.
Paula: It’s not hard to get the basics right.
Paula: Absolutely.
Manav: And I think, yeah, we’ll…
Paula: That’s why it keeps us gamefully employed.
Manav: But again, I think, you know, a lot of this is about the business’ own commitment to excellence.
Paula: Exactly.
Paula: Exactly.
Manav: It can happen once.
Manav: It’s a mistake.
Manav: But when it happens over and over again, they really need to be questioning the people they’ve got.
Paula: For sure.
Manav: Doing what they’re doing.
Paula: And then I question my business relationship because I’m figuring, actually, they’re not paying attention.
Paula: So then I’m much more in the mindset of being open to competitors.
Paula: So definitely a big risk for the business.
Paula: Do they really care about me?
Manav: Absolutely.
Manav: And you know, the opposite of this is a completely non-digital example I’m going to give you right now.
Manav: But my brother-in-law was smirking at me recently when I was ordering my suits back in India from a shop.
Manav: Shop I’ve been going to since I was 15 years old.
Manav: Right?
Manav: My first suit was bought there.
Manav: My first actually was a blazer, was a jacket, sports jacket my dad bought for me.
Manav: And I was very proud of it.
Manav: And he was very proud because he was buying his son a sports jacket.
Paula: Beautiful.
Manav: And the assistant tailor master there is now the head tailor master.
Manav: And I’ve gone back to him year on year.
Paula: Yeah.
Manav: He sends me greetings.
Manav: Now, this is not a very educated man, you have to understand, right?
Manav: Very humble beginnings.
Manav: Sure.
Manav: But on Christmas, I will get a WhatsApp message from him.
Paula: Nice.
Manav: And on Diwali, I will get a message from him.
Manav: And so, my brother-in-law was laughing at me when I was ordering these jackets, and he said to me, Wink, wink, you know he’s charging you more, right?
Manav: And I said, yeah, I know.
Paula: And it was fine.
Manav: And then, literally 24 hours later, his assistant master showed up at my house to do a fitting at home.
Manav: Because I’m leaving Delhi in two days.
Manav: I’m like, you know, I need my jackets.
Manav: You know, can you accommodate?
Manav: And sure enough, he rocks up at my house.
Manav: He does the fitting at 930 at night and goes away.
Manav: And then two days, a day later, delivers a finished product to the house.
Paula: That’s extraordinary.
Manav: I don’t have to go back.
Paula: There you go.
Manav: So, you know, I know what I’m paying for.
Manav: I know I’m paying a little extra.
Manav: But the service I’m getting is brilliant.
Manav: Now, I don’t believe a customer who’s only after money or discounts is your customer.
Manav: That’s not a loyal customer.
Manav: He’s going to go away.
Manav: A loyal customer is one who’s going to be influenced by the value that you create for him in other ways, recognizing what’s important to you.
Manav: To me, what’s important is time and convenience.
Manav: Driving halfway around the city to be able to go for a fitting is a challenge.
Manav: So he sends it to my house.
Manav: And so I will always go back to him.
Manav: And I’ve never even checked what he charges me, to be honest.
Manav: Not because I’m uber wealthy, but because it’s something that I respect and value.
Manav: And I understand that I will get much, much better value from this gentleman than I could from any new relationship I build now.
Paula: Absolutely.
Paula: It’s a really good example.
Manav: And so that’s what I, again, you know, coming back to it, if you can create a customer experience that delivers true value, it’s not about discounting.
Manav: It’s not about a structured points program.
Manav: It’s not about, you know, reducing your top line.
Manav: It’s just about creating real value for what matters to that specific customer.
Paula: Absolutely.
Manav: And that, I think, is what builds loyalty.
Paula: Yeah.
Paula: Love it.
Paula: Love it.
Paula: So, Manav, both you and I spend a lot of time going to, I suppose, exploratory meetings with companies that are looking at, you know, thinking about doing structured loyalty programs.
Paula: So, tell me, what do you think are the biggest challenges in those type of companies that want to do loyalty?
Manav: Well, I think I really believe, again, that a loyalty, if you’re in a meeting and you’re speaking to a junior executive, that’s a big alarm bell should be going off in your head.
Paula: For sure.
Manav: Right?
Manav: Because then the business itself is not committed to a loyalty program.
Manav: I’m not saying that you need to be speaking to the most senior person in the business, but a business needs to understand that loyalty will bring about a cultural shift across the business, whether it’s finance, whether it’s legal, whether it’s technology, whether it’s ops, marketing, of course.
Manav: But they’re all going to have to own the loyalty program.
Paula: Of course.
Manav: So I think that’s a starting point, which I always look for who am I meeting and how far up the value chain am I meeting someone.
Manav: Do they understand what they’re getting into?
Paula: The implications, for sure.
Manav: And if it’s not the first meeting, at least when you’re doing your first presentation, you want all the key players in the room.
Manav: The second thing is how do they perceive loyalty?
Manav: So I once had a meeting when we presented our sort of early solution, if you will.
Manav: And I say solution as in our process.
Manav: And the gentleman said, oh, I could hire five people on my internal team, and they could do all of this.
Manav: Why do I have to pay you?
Manav: So well, I very graciously packed up my stuff and left and never called him back.
Paula: Absolutely.
Manav: And I’m glad because that said to me exactly what their attitude was towards how loyalty works.
Paula: Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Manav: I’ve had people say, well, okay, so why does it cost so much?
Paula: Yeah.
Manav: And there’s two sides to this.
Manav: I mean, some people genuinely want to be educated, right?
Manav: Because one, it’s a skill.
Paula: Of course.
Manav: Two, there’s technology involved.
Manav: Yeah.
Manav: But then also some people simply think that it’s a switch a button on, and it’s going to be, and you’re ready to go.
Manav: But why are you charging me?
Manav: Yeah.
Manav: Surely, it should be free.
Paula: Of course.
Manav: You know, I once had somebody recently say to me, discovery phase.
Manav: You don’t need to do discovery.
Manav: I’ll tell you everything you need to know.
Manav: But if you knew everything, I wouldn’t be in the room with you because you would have sorted it out.
Manav: And I don’t mean to sound patronizing, but I think there are certain things where you start thinking, hey, you know, how, you know, do you just not, maybe you don’t understand it, and I’m happy to walk you through the process.
Manav: But when you just don’t value what I’m doing, and I don’t want to be doing it for you.
Paula: Absolutely.
Manav: And I think it’s the equivalent of going to a doctor and then negotiating on the prescription.
Paula: Exactly.
Manav: Or why are you charging me so much?
Paula: No, you want the best.
Paula: When it’s important, we all want the best.
Manav: And listen, there’s all sorts.
Manav: Just like your product has cheaper competitors, I’m sure there are people out there doing things and very, very competent, very good people.
Manav: I’m just not that person.
Manav: And I refuse to be that person.
Paula: For sure, yeah.
Manav: And both Chai and myself, my partner and my wife, we’re very clear on what we will not compromise on.
Manav: And we’re very fortunate by holding that position.
Manav: Both our programs have won awards.
Paula: Amazing.
Manav: Which is great.
Manav: And we’re both from outside of the industry.
Manav: But we’re both, I mean, she is probably more so than I, very, very driven, very commercially astute.
Manav: Our sort of motto of just getting it done is what has played a crucial role in getting us to where we are and giving us the self-belief and the confidence that we bring significant value to the table.
Paula: For sure.
Paula: And I think it’s something as well that we do have in common, Manav, and I do want to plug our skill set as distinct from some consulting services that may come in with an awful lot of big ideas but no skill or experience in delivering.
Paula: And my favorite example of that was with the biggest bank in Ireland.
Paula: And again, they brought me in and said, we need a loyalty program or a loyalty proposition, let’s say.
Paula: And it was under tight timeframes and all of the usual expectations.
Paula: And I literally was sitting in the meeting very confused.
Paula: And I was like, you have the top marketing agencies in this country on retainer for the last 20 years.
Paula: Why am I sitting here?
Paula: And they’re like, we know you can build it.
Paula: And I said, oh my God, that’s extraordinary.
Paula: So I do want to plug those of us who are practitioners as distinct from knowing great ideas on paper and knowing what’s actually going to translate in the marketplace.
Paula: And one of the favorite things I had actually with GEMS Rewards was the concept and the value proposition was already a finalist on the Loyalty Awards 18 months ago.
Paula: But it was only when the results came through this year that you actually won the award.
Manav: Yeah, actually, and we were very surprised when we were shortlisted four months into the, I mean, our first submission was four months in.
Paula: Amazing.
Manav: And really, we submitted on a lark.
Manav: You know, it was, let’s go in and submit, you know, get a bit of practice.
Manav: Did not expect to be nominated.
Manav: And I think you’re right, you know, the proposition was strong.
Manav: It was a segment in which loyalty hadn’t, sort of didn’t really exist beforehand.
Manav: And in many ways, I’m really happy that it took a year for us to deliver on what we were doing and demonstrate to the judges that you know what, you’re picking us in year one was well founded because here we are a year later with the numbers that demonstrate what we’re able to do.
Manav: But you know, I just want to go back to what you were saying about execution because there’s so much slip between cup and lip when it comes to a proposition and then the actual delivery of that program.
Manav: And one of the most frightening things, and again, is the sort of passive aggressive or the resistance you get internally when you start to build a program.
Manav: Because effectively, you’re giving a whole bunch of people a lot more work to do.
Paula: For sure.
Paula: I haven’t thought about it like that, but you’re right.
Manav: And you know, they already have a lot to do most of the time.
Manav: And now you’re asking them for more.
Manav: So whether it’s the finance team who has to figure out how to account for the points.
Manav: How is VAT going to apply to the points?
Manav: Legal has to build the legal structure around how this is all going to work.
Manav: Do we need as a best practice another business on which you move the liability?
Manav: Technology has got to wake up and figure out how everything is going to speak to each other.
Manav: So you know, you’re asking a lot of people to do a lot of work.
Manav: And their question is, hey, what’s in it for me?
Paula: Exactly.
Manav: And I have an answer to that.
Manav: Because really, if this doesn’t happen, there’s significant chances that the business may start doing poorer than it was doing earlier, which is going to have a direct impact on your ability to keep your job, perhaps.
Manav: So yes, there’s a lot in it for you.
Manav: But then you’ve got the frontline team, which also has to deliver.
Manav: And in many cases, for example, in hospitality, these guys don’t even experience what they’re delivering.
Manav: These beautiful, massive hotels, palatial hotels, they don’t get to sleep in those beds.
Manav: They don’t get to dine in those restaurants.
Manav: But here you are, you’re expecting them again to deliver and deliver more.
Manav: Are you a part of our program, sir?
Manav: Would you like to sign on?
Manav: And so on and so forth.
Manav: So you’ve got to really work at implementation and training, and then training more, and then some more, and explaining to them what’s in it for them.
Manav: And that was, for me, a huge part of what I was doing.
Manav: It was just speaking to parents at the Parent Teacher Associations, to teachers who are a front line again, and the program was also directed towards teachers.
Manav: They got to benefit from it.
Manav: To all our corporate staff, just everyone, to the finance people, the finance teams in the schools who were doing collections.
Manav: So there were so many different people who had to be told the same message over and over again, our board, our finance, our investors.
Manav: And again, I was sort of going from team to team, pitching, whether in rooms of three or four people, or sometimes in rooms of four or five hundred people.
Manav: And just tailoring the message to try and get them to understand what it is we were doing.
Manav: And my favorite moment, as far as validation is concerned, more than the award that was won, was my son.
Manav: When my son went to Jem’s World Academy and when we launched the program, I was in their school doing a talk to the teachers.
Manav: So I picked him up from school and we were driving home.
Manav: And he asked me how come I was at school, so I told him about the program and he asked me how it worked.
Manav: So in that short drive, I tried to explain to him what we were doing.
Manav: And there was this point where he turned to me and said, Dad, I’m so proud of you.
Manav: In my head, I could have cried.
Manav: Because I just thought, okay, this is a big win for me, to have a 17-year-old boy look at you and say he’s proud of what you’re doing.
Manav: The dynamic is wrong.
Paula: They’re so cynical, my God.
Manav: They’re cynical and your dad’s a loser and what does he know?
Manav: He doesn’t understand my problems.
Manav: So getting that from him was for me a real moment of-
Paula: I’ve done something.
Manav: I’ve done something, but I’ve also managed to communicate it.
Manav: And the person on the receiving end, the most cynical potentially person on the receiving end, has got it and gone, that’s pretty cool.
Paula: And liked it, yeah.
Manav: So that was a big moment for me.
Paula: That’s amazing.
Paula: So well done.
Paula: Yes, well, he’s a good son.
Paula: And even to articulate something like that, I don’t know as a 17-year-old where I would have had the courage to actually say to my parents, I’m proud of you.
Paula: So yeah, he’s a credit to you clearly.
Paula: So well done on that.
Paula: So tell me, Manav, then, I really just wanted to talk about trends in loyalty marketing because I think a lot of people listening are looking for new ideas.
Paula: We’ve talked a bit about personalization.
Paula: We’ve talked about some of the models you’ve worked on on those two amazing programs.
Paula: But again, I suppose we’re both out there in the world with eyes wide open as professionals in the industry.
Paula: So what would you say are the kind of key trends we need to be thinking about as loyalty professionals?
Manav: So I’ve already talked about one, which is personalization.
Paula: For sure.
Manav: And I think if there’s any, and you know, just going back to the statistic that we started with, there’s a potential for $800 billion to be made.
Manav: So I think personalization is not just a trend, but a necessity to make your program successful.
Manav: The second one is based around experiential rewarding.
Manav: So I think, you know, not just about having your currency in an ecosystem that allows you to, you know, go back and buy more of the same, or discount more of the same, but really about looking at widening your ecosystem and making sure that your customers are able to perhaps transact with experiences and create value around that.
Manav: And given the way the so-called millennials are looking for experiences, and remember the oldest millennials are now 35, 37 years old, so these are your customers.
Manav: Yeah.
Manav: They want experiences.
Manav: So experiential rewarding is huge, and Bonvoy from Marriott is doing a great job of allowing customers to buy into experiences using your points.
Paula: Of course.
Manav: So you can, and they can leverage their size and scale to be able to probably negotiate some pretty good rates for that.
Manav: The third thing is from a technology point of view, the blockchain.
Manav: And I think a lot is being said about the blockchain.
Manav: It’s like an iceberg.
Manav: We only kind of scratch the surface.
Manav: But this ability to use or be able to change your points, interchange points, because if you’re on five or six or seven different programs, but let’s say I need to buy a flight and I’ve got points in six different programs, can I change those programs?
Manav: Because on the blockchain, if these are all programs that are talking to each other, the value proposition for the customer becomes so much stronger.
Manav: And I’m sure that there’s somebody, a CFO is going to shout about, yeah, but my points are going to leave the ecosystem.
Manav: But I’m sure again that there’s a way of working around it and trading points at an equitable rate for both parties, all parties, so that at the end of the day, no one loses and the customer gets what he or she wants.
Manav: Otherwise, so many of these points just kind of disappear into oblivion, and they’re not doing what they’re meant to do.
Paula: Exactly, which is reward the customer.
Manav: Which is reward the customer.
Manav: They’re simply sitting there as a liability on your balance sheet and then disappearing in breakage.
Manav: And how is that creating a positive experience for your customer?
Paula: Definitely not, no.
Paula: And certainly in my experience, and I was just talking with somebody else about that, Manav, the more advanced the market is, I believe that the more likely they are to really make sure that that usability is there in terms of the points.
Paula: So whether it’s liquidity between programs or a CSR opportunity where you can donate them to charity, or whatever way it is that you ensure that that customer gets the benefit rather than sits there and resents the fact that either, you know, maybe I’m a frequent flyer and I don’t want another free flight or whatever it might be, you know, the whole point is you’re trying to build a relationship.
Paula: So let’s find a way to reward the customer.
Paula: Yes, using points as a currency, but let’s find a way that it’s really of value to that person.
Paula: So I like that point.
Paula: Great.
Paula: So the last question I really had for you was around resources.
Paula: So I’m really keen with everyone I talk to that I get access to their brain power, but also where they find the best information.
Paula: So tell us, where do you go to listen and learn?
Manav: So I’m a big fan of podcasts.
Manav: As you know.
Manav: So for me, being an Apple fan, the Apple podcast platform is superb.
Paula: Of course.
Manav: My current favorite is a show called How I Built This, which is a show on NPR, which basically the moderator speaks to different entrepreneurs who’ve built their businesses and how they built them, the challenges they faced and so on and so forth.
Manav: And there’s some great, some absolutely brilliant, brilliant interviews on there.
Manav: The other thing is a platform called Coursera, which is an online education platform.
Manav: There’s several of them.
Manav: There’s lynda.com, which is now connected to LinkedIn.
Manav: There is Udemy.
Manav: There’s edX.
Manav: My favorite has been Coursera, and I think I’ve been on there since maybe 2011 or 2012, was when I first did my first program on there.
Manav: I’ve studied things like gamification, social psychology, and so on and so forth, tons of stuff.
Manav: I’m constantly on there learning something or the other.
Manav: It’s just something I find very, very exciting.
Manav: I love to read.
Manav: My favorite book at the moment has nothing to do with loyalty, unfortunately.
Manav: It’s a book called Sapiens by Yuval Harari.
Manav: Absolutely brilliant.
Manav: Just so beautifully written, easy to digest.
Manav: A real page turner.
Manav: Then the other book that I read recently is called Hitmakers by an author called Derek Thompson.
Manav: The subtext is the science of popularity in an age of distraction.
Manav: Absolutely.
Manav: Again, real page turner just talks about what makes things popular.
Paula: And compulsive, I do.
Manav: There’s no real formula.
Manav: When I was working a few years ago, I remember somebody said to me, we want to create a viral video.
Paula: Everyone had that at one point.
Manav: Yeah, but hey, it’s not quite how it works.
Manav: But he kind of looks at how things, the confluence of different forces to create popularity.
Manav: And there’s some amazing stories in there.
Manav: So yeah, great books I’d recommend.
Paula: You sound like a very busy man, Manav, I have to say.
Manav: No, I wish I was, but I try and steal some time.
Manav: I try and create some discipline around my time in order to be able to do as much as I possibly can.
Manav: I don’t always succeed.
Paula: Okay, well, certainly in the show notes, we’ll put links into Coursera and the books that you mentioned, just in case anyone’s driving or whatever while listening to this.
Paula: Make sure we capture all of that.
Paula: So tell us then if anybody wants to contact you in terms of Quick Brown Fox Consulting.
Paula: Where’s the easiest place to get in touch with you?
Manav: Easiest way is my email address.
Paula: Okay.
Manav: It’s MF, my initials, Manav Fernandez.
Manav: So it’s MF at qbfconsulting.com.
Manav: If you want to know more about what we do as a service, drop me a line or look at our website, www.qbfconsulting.com or just drop me a message and I’ll come over and see anyone who’s interested.
Manav: Amazing.
Manav: Our businesses about creating customer experiences, about helping you transform your business into a customer-centric business and therefore becoming more and more profitable.
Paula: Wonderful.
Paula: Well, on that note, I want to thank you for coming onto the show.
Paula: Congratulations again on winning the Loyalty Award for this region and best of luck with Quick Man Fox Consulting.
Manav: Thank you, thank you for having me on here, Potter.
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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