Inside Vinted's CRM Strategy with Timothy Lange (#801)

Charlie: Welcome to Let’s Talk Loyalty and Loyalty TV, a show for loyalty marketing professionals, where we feature insightful conversations with loyalty professionals from the world’s leading brands.

Charlie: My name is Charlie Hills and I’m the Chief Strategy Officer of Mando, WPP Specialist Loyalty Partnerships Promotions and Rewards Agency, and a proud host for Let’s Talk Loyalty.

Charlie: I’m delighted today to be interviewing the fabulous Tim Lange.

Charlie: He’s the CRM Lead at Vinted, a brand I know you all know and love.

Charlie: Tim leads the CRM team’s messaging as the company transitions from a fashion resale platform to a multi-category marketplace and continues its expansion across Europe.

Charlie: His focus is on driving engagement, personalization, and improving the Vinted experience for millions of members.

Charlie: In today’s episode, you’re going to learn all about Vinted, how the brand manages loyalty without a program, and key insights and innovations to look out for.

Charlie: Listen in to be inspired.

Charlie: If you work in loyalty marketing, please join us every week to hear the latest ideas and insights from other loyalty experts around the world.

Charlie: Hi, Tim, and welcome to Let’s Talk Loyalty.

Charlie: Absolutely delighted to have you with us here today.

Tim: Yeah, super happy to be here.

Tim: Thank you for having me.

Charlie: Oh, I can’t believe we’ve got Vinted on the podcast.

Charlie: It’s so excited.

Charlie: One of my personal favorite brands, and I love that when the personal and the professional kind of collide.

Charlie: So I can’t wait to hear all about the wonderful world of Vinted and loyalty.

Charlie: But before we get into that, we need to set up and ask you our sort of favorite opening questions that we always do.

Charlie: So without further ado, and high pressure question here, what is your favorite book about life, loyalty or work?

Tim: Yeah, a great question.

Tim: So the one that always sticks with me is when I was first starting out in my career, I read a book called Quiet by Susan Cain, and it’s all about how the world is biased towards extroverts, but really undervalue introverts.

Tim: And I’ve always traditionally been more of an introvert, which is, I know it doesn’t kind of jive with the fact that I’m talking on a podcast.

Charlie: Yeah, I’ve seen you on stage on quite a lot of occasions.

Tim: Yeah, but I think the book does a really good job of trying to also highlight the kind of the value that an interviewer brings to the world, to kind of a workplace.

Tim: And I think it’s kind of been a good guidebook for me also as kind of a people lead to try to appreciate the skill sets of the different people around you.

Tim: So I think it’s one that’s really left a mark on me that I recommend everyone should read at some point in their career.

Charlie: Oh, that’s fantastic.

Charlie: And what a lovely recommendation.

Charlie: This is fast turning into one of my favorite bits of the podcast.

Charlie: Actually, I’m getting a really nice sort of library.

Charlie: And I’m really old school strategist.

Charlie: So I love a book.

Charlie: So I’ve got a bookcase and I sort of always try and make an effort to sort of buy my guest recommendations and it’s filling up in very interesting ways.

Charlie: So I promise I will read that.

Charlie: Thank you for the recommendation.

Tim: I’ll hold you to that.

Tim: I’ll hold you to that.

Charlie: Yes, I do.

Charlie: And I hope our audience do as well.

Charlie: Which brings us on quite nicely to the contents of the podcast, because alongside all the books I’ve now got on management and even poetry that our guests have recommended, I’ve got a lot of books on loyalty programs and on what they mean, and what people think of them, and a lot of research in that area.

Charlie: You obviously know a lot about this world.

Charlie: I know you’ve on a lot of the loyalty conferences and it’s what we’re going to talk about here today.

Charlie: But what’s your favorite loyalty program before we come on to talk about the wonderful world of Vinted?

Tim: That’s really a tough question because what I love about loyalty these days is I feel like you’re getting loyalty programs that pop up in such different ways, in such different formats now.

Tim: And actually my favorite one these days is I’m based in Germany.

Tim: And we have to purchase health insurance.

Tim: We have all these providers to choose from.

Tim: And actually a lot of them now kind of offer pseudo loyalty programs that are based on how much you’re walking every single day.

Tim: If you have gym memberships.

Tim: And so I love this form of loyalty that feels a bit more natural to you’re not necessarily going out collecting points.

Tim: It’s not necessarily about how much money you’re spending.

Tim: But the incentive is be healthier and you’ll get rewarded for it.

Tim: So that one is through TK.

Tim: That’s my health insurance.

Tim: But I have to give a shout out also to there’s a nice little coffee shop that’s open near me that has just like a very simple stamp card loyalty program.

Tim: And I still think these are the bread and butter of loyalty for me.

Tim: You know, buy six coffees, get one free.

Tim: And I think just the simplicity of it is something I miss now that we have these massive, you know, kind of multi programs that have all these gamified elements.

Tim: The simple is still the best.

Charlie: Plus, of course, you get the free coffee, which is still such an exciting, such an exciting reward, isn’t it?

Charlie: I think for all of us.

Tim: If my girlfriend doesn’t beat me to it, I get the free coffee.

Charlie: I’ve heard about that, actually.

Charlie: One of the things we were talking about in the coffee shop sector is about household and actually how you bring that together.

Charlie: My teenage sons are forever stealing mine.

Charlie: I find it extraordinary that 15-year-olds are heading off to get lattes.

Charlie: I’m like, what is wrong with you?

Charlie: But yeah, that’s a really nice.

Charlie: Those are two really lovely examples, actually.

Charlie: And both those models come up a lot with our guests, actually.

Charlie: That healthcare sector, I think, have really got that brand-appropriate reward for brand-appropriate behavior nailed.

Charlie: In the British market, vitality is our equivalent of your TK model.

Charlie: And it’s a really effective model and a really effective program as well, actually.

Charlie: I think lots of sectors have started to learn from it.

Tim: Yeah.

Tim: I mean, what better way to incentivize someone in that you’re rewarding yourself by getting healthier and you’re also getting the financial incentive at the same time.

Tim: So it just feels like one of those systems that it’s a no-brainer and that I wish just more kind of companies structured their loyalty programs in a very simplistic way.

Tim: Yeah.

Tim: Versus the, like I said, these complex grocery screens I’m a part of, these coalition schemes which sometimes feel a bit too unwieldily versus the very simple ones you have.

Charlie: Particularly in the German market, which is one of the most advanced for coalitions and commercial models as part of those programs.

Charlie: So yeah, I can see why you might not have selected those as your favorites in preference to the simple models.

Charlie: What about your career and your history?

Charlie: Obviously, you’ve got a long and rich and varied career in CRM and loyalty marketing.

Charlie: What do you love about it?

Charlie: I’m sure our audience would love to know where you started and how you’ve got where you are.

Tim: Yeah, I mean, I think I was very fortunate early in my career that I just fell into an internship that happened to be at the time, unfortunately, no longer exists.

Tim: The biggest coalition loyalty scheme in Canada was called Airmiles.

Tim: It’s been rebranded since.

Tim: What I loved about it is that so much of the conversations that were happening in the workplace there were about, how do we generate more value for the consumer?

Tim: You’re taking it away from the profit conversation necessarily, obviously behind the scenes, everything is profit driven.

Tim: But even more so than that, in that first program, we were having all these conversations about, okay, how do we make sure that the way we’re talking to consumers, the way we’re looking at our consumers, we’re trying to maximize value for them.

Tim: A lot of the people at that company were also a part of the program themselves.

Tim: I think you also have that vested interest.

Tim: That’s something I’ve always loved about the CRM and the loyalty space, is you really are thinking about the relationship with consumers when a lot of the times, if you like the brand you’re working for, you are a consumer of that brand yourself.

Tim: From this first one, I went on to do one in the movie business, which was fantastic because I was going to meetings at Disney, I was meeting celebrities as we were pitching them on the value of, if a movie didn’t perform on the first weekend, you want to get more box office, you go to Disney and say, hey, we can promote Iron Man 2 with a loyalty program on the second weekend.

Tim: That was a really fun conversation to go into loyalty with.

Tim: Then things just developed from there.

Tim: When I moved over actually from Canada to Berlin, which is where I currently live, a lot of the conversation shifted because I wasn’t working on loyalty in the programs here anymore.

Tim: I wasn’t talking about points, I wasn’t talking about rewards, but I was really focused on, how do we build out that loyalty when we don’t necessarily have a loyalty program that we’re leveraging, but we’re really just focused on how can we actually just maximize that experience for customers.

Tim: I’ve really tried to focus on that in my career.

Tim: Again, as a user of these programs myself, I want to make sure I get the best out of it too.

Tim: I’m really invested in what that customer experience looks like.

Charlie: It’s really nice, isn’t it?

Charlie: That duality of the personal and the professional, a bit like when you say those programs that you admire professionally and then that you love personally.

Charlie: I think that’s one of my favorite things about loyalty as well.

Charlie: Whenever we get new joins at Mando, we’re the first ask is just, what loyalty programs are you a member of?

Charlie: Go and join a load more, try and use them and get a real feel for actually what the different mechanics are and the different gamifications that are coming out, the different types of rewards, and I think that really is invaluable.

Charlie: That’s definitely one of my favorite things about our sector as well, the fact that you get it in your personal life as well as your professional life.

Charlie: I recently sent all my team a note about Uber One because we all come into work on the train and I was like, oh gosh, they’ve got this new reward and benefit, work it out for you, but I think this will be worth everyone joining Uber One.

Charlie: Actually, it’s been lovely to see how many people are now signing up.

Charlie: Yeah, it’s really interesting, I think.

Charlie: It’s a great sector.

Tim: For sure.

Tim: I think it’s then when you’re working in these companies, you are the best guinea pig or the best example of how you can explore future benefits, ways you can improve it, because you should be the best representation of the consumer that you’re really trying to build that relationship with.

Tim: I love this space and I think this should be a conversation and an approach that everyone in every kind of role across all these companies should have, is always thinking about how do we improve loyalty for our customers.

Charlie: I think sometimes the only caution retail, I’d say as a strategist, is sometimes we know too much and we think about it too much.

Charlie: And it’s really important in our sector to remember that we are, you know, a nanosecond in somebody’s sort of busy lifestyle.

Charlie: And actually, some of those really complicated programs to navigate, I think, would probably benefit from a step back and a sense of, you know, if I only had three seconds to think about this, is this, you know, is this the best program as opposed to, you know, 365 days of the year?

Tim: For sure.

Tim: Simple is better.

Tim: Simple is always better.

Charlie: Hopefully, hopefully.

Charlie: Which brings us on to Vinted.

Charlie: I mean, what an amazing brand.

Charlie: How lucky are you that you get to work on a brand that you love as much?

Charlie: I’m sure most of our audience know the brand.

Charlie: I’d be really surprised if they didn’t.

Charlie: But just for the few who might not, it would be great if you could explain to our audience what Vinted is, and then what you love about it, and why you think it’s doing so well at the moment.

Charlie: Yeah.

Tim: I mean, for those of you who don’t know Vinted, Vinted is Europe’s largest secondhand marketplace that is now also global.

Tim: So we’re live in the US and Australia as well, probably more in the future.

Tim: As a secondhand marketplace, basically what I mean is that as a buyer or a seller, you can come on, you can either sell your secondhand items or you can buy secondhand items.

Tim: We used to be primarily fashion.

Tim: That’s where we got our start, but now we are kind of a multi-category marketplace.

Tim: And I mean, I think that, look, there’s a lot of reasons why I think Vinted is doing so well as a brand.

Tim: I mean, I think one, obviously, everyone has a more kind of environmentally conscious kind of mindset these days.

Tim: And you see that the availability and accessibility to secondhand goods is increasing via a marketplace like Vinted, but to give credit to other marketplaces that exist out there.

Tim: But I think what Vinted does really well is, I think it’s really simplified the process.

Tim: So I think, you know, when you come on to Vinted, it’s a very easy interface to come in, to start either posting an item to sell or to kind of find an item you want to buy.

Tim: It’s something we use really actively within my household and within my friend group.

Tim: And I really, you know, before I joined Vinted, I was a heavy consumer.

Tim: I love fashion.

Tim: I was, you know, really buying things new.

Tim: And at a certain point, you realize, one, it’s costing you a lot of money.

Tim: Two, it has this environmental impact.

Tim: And three, you know, I think that when you actually go looking for these secondhand goods, there’s a lot of novelty in what you can find.

Tim: You know, it’s not like you go out to, and I’m a big shopper of somewhere like Uniqlo, but I mean, ultimately, you’re going to find the same things you go to Uniqlo every time you go, right?

Tim: And someone else on the streets also be wearing something from there.

Tim: But when you go into a marketplace like Vinted, you really never know what you’re going to find.

Tim: Someone’s selling something that’s been in their family for 100 years or some kind of, it’s like, I have a friend that’s into tape cassettes now and it’s like, where do you buy tape cassettes?

Tim: Exactly.

Tim: So it’s like, these are the kind of things and novelty you find on the site.

Tim: So I think something like this is really resonating across really all different target markets these days of this idea of just being more aware of your consumption and trying to find the novelty in the things you wear and the things you consume.

Tim: So I think we’ve really kind of had success for that across Europe and into North America now as well.

Charlie: That’s really cool.

Charlie: I mean, it’s such a great site.

Charlie: I remember when it launched and it was just such an exciting experience.

Charlie: And I think one of the things I love about it is the thrill of the chase and then the savviness of you got it.

Charlie: And there is that sense of, you know, it’s a very different emotional experience when it arrives in the post, you know, and almost the unboxing moment.

Charlie: You’re like, is it quite what I thought it was going to be?

Charlie: Isn’t it quite what I thought it was going to be?

Charlie: You know, you get a lot more emotional highs and occasionally the odd low as well.

Charlie: But yeah, I think it’s a fantastic proposition and it’s a regular in my house.

Charlie: And I think one of the things I’ve really observed is how cool it’s become.

Charlie: You know, like Vinted is cool and it’s perhaps cooler than some of the other marketplaces.

Charlie: And I think, you know, when you can say, I’ve got this on Vinted now, it has a bit of a cache in the British market.

Charlie: It helps you in those conversations and people want to know the story of where you’ve got it from.

Charlie: What’s been your favourite Vinted find?

Charlie: Have you got like a tape cassette story of your own?

Charlie: Or are you like a classic kind of fashion buyer?

Tim: Yeah, I wish I could say I was that cool that I had tape cassettes, but unfortunately I’m not.

Tim: You know, I got this pair of shoes that’s like a really old pair of New Balance shoes that were like a vintage, like released in like the mid 90s, like you couldn’t find them anywhere.

Tim: And someone posted them just for like 20 euros, trying to get them out of the closet, and I thought, these are amazing.

Tim: And it’s these kind of things, as you said, it’s like I started as a buyer on the Vinted side, and this is what I loved about it is this experience now of when you go shopping, it’s you see a lot of the same, there’s not novelty to it, but then you browse through Vinted and everyone’s going to go, oh wow, like I have never seen anything like this, or this is such a unique find.

Tim: And, you know, to your point, I do think that not to call out any names, but like a marketplace like eBay, it maybe has this more older kind of style to it.

Tim: It’s maybe a different kind of purpose, but I think what I love about Vinted is, it really has been embraced as, you know, not only a marketplace that’s good about generating income for people that maybe are looking for that secondary income, but yeah, just this kind of like, as you said, thrill of the chase and thrill of the find.

Tim: So I think it’s like, we love how people have really embraced Vinted and kind of made that brand their own in some ways.

Charlie: Yeah, it’s very cool.

Charlie: I mean, so I’ve got two teenagers that most of our listeners hear about, as well as The Pug.

Charlie: The Pug does not shop on Vinted, but both my teenage sons, my 14-year-old in particular for his birthday, actively wanted cool kind of clothing items that we found, lots of Stussy, and brands I used to wear in the 90s.

Charlie: I was like, oh my God, they’ve come full circle.

Charlie: And we were hunting them out on Vinted, and I swear some of the things were originals from the 1990s.

Charlie: I was like, I’m sure I remember my friends in that top.

Charlie: And so that was a lovely experience as a mom as well, kind of going through that.

Tim: For sure, for sure.

Tim: I think, and this is my approach to it now, I try to, like in every facet of my life, it’s like I’ve got multiple nieces and nephews.

Tim: And now when I’m going back to Canada, bringing them some gifts, it’s like go to Vinted first.

Tim: And it’s like, okay, what kind of interesting things can I find them?

Tim: I messaged my family about, do you want anything off this clothing side, off Vinted to bring back?

Tim: So I think it’s now, especially that it’s multi category, it’s amazing to see how it’s really encompasses, like a full life cycle of someone, looking at their items and saying, I don’t need my old phone, I want to buy a new outfit, I want to get something that’s for the season.

Tim: So I think we really appreciate how people embrace this in all facets of their lives.

Charlie: That’s so different.

Charlie: I think when I used to live abroad and then come back to my family, it was always, or vice versa, they always wanted tea bags and marmite.

Charlie: It was classic British things from the supermarket, where I would love them to have wanted me to go shopping.

Charlie: What about loyalty at Vinted?

Charlie: So Vinted doesn’t have a traditional loyalty program as such.

Charlie: There’s no name, there’s no classic mechanic, there’s no points.

Charlie: But you are really focused on building real loyalty through CRM and engagement with your customer base.

Charlie: I’m sure there’s lots of brands in that position.

Charlie: I think should I or shouldn’t I have a program is a big question.

Charlie: At the moment, certainly on the conference circuit, how do you manage loyalty at Vinted and what does that actually mean to the business?

Tim: Yeah.

Tim: So I think I’ve talked about this before at other conferences too, is that I think sometimes a loyalty program is really pasted on top to almost mask the deficiencies or the shortcomings of what the product or the experience really is providing to their user.

Tim: So for us, I think instead of having a loyalty program that we think would potentially divert resources away from making the platform as good as it can be for our users, loyalty to us just means that for someone like you or your teenagers that maybe want to sell something, loyalty to us is you come onto the platform, you can either have success selling something or be able to find the items you want to buy as easily as possible and removing as much of that friction as possible.

Tim: So I think what you see across the company is when we talk about loyalty, we put the customer kind of first in that, okay, a loyal customer for us is someone who has a lot of success selling or has a lot of success finding the items they want to buy.

Tim: But you were a bit more unique as a marketplace and that most other marketplaces actually focus more on the buyer side experience, we actually focus most on the sell side experience.

Tim: So really loyalty for us is to say, okay, if you want to sell a pair of shoes that you’ve had for 20 years in your closet, how do we make sure you get the fastest sale by also maximizing your profit?

Tim: As long as we keep that in focus and I think we try to improve the customer experience and through our communications, also give tips, make sure there’s practical advice for how someone could do that.

Tim: If you can do that successfully, then loyalty comes because you’ve removed the friction and you’ve fulfilled the requirements that the person had when they actually came to Vinted to begin with.

Charlie: It’s like, well, I really enjoy hearing you talk about it because I’m a big advocate for loyalty programs, obviously, given what I do for a living, but I think it’s a really interesting way of thinking because what I hear when you’re talking is all the principles that we would put into a loyalty program and all the customer experience focused in the customer focus, but almost the program is not having a program so that you have that core simplicity.

Charlie: I think that in itself is quite a revolutionary take on a loyalty program because you are doing all the things that a program would do and thinking in the way that a program would think, but without an actual program architecture on top of it.

Charlie: I think personally, I’ve really enjoyed thinking about that for our clients that we work with at Mando, but also in the industry.

Charlie: I think it’s quite an interesting model because I think lots of brands that perhaps don’t have a program, also don’t have that way of thinking.

Charlie: I wonder if maybe you’re introducing a new, almost hybrid model of a loyalty program without a program, versus that model of don’t think like a loyalty program and also don’t have one.

Charlie: It’s a really interesting approach, I think, to loyalty.

Charlie: What does it mean to the business?

Charlie: Because I think one of the things that we will talk about a lot with our guests is about how loyalty crosses every component of the business, and every team, and every function.

Charlie: I know you have a lot of that as well.

Charlie: What does what you do mean to Vinted and to your colleagues across your various functions?

Tim: Yes.

Tim: First and foremost, I think Vinted is a very product-focused organization, so they take the lead on really helping us to find, okay, what is the core experience for users and how do we drive that loyalty?

Tim: I think what we typically see in our organization when we’re talking about loyalty is that every product team, every organization with the company, we have our goals for, we want to make sure that you as a list are successful if we put that at the very beginning of it, and then you have all the different facets of what that means.

Tim: Let’s say, for example, you come on and you need to be able to understand, okay, how should I price my product so that I can sell it as quickly as possible while maximizing profits?

Tim: Well, that’s one product team.

Tim: How do I choose which photos I’m going to upload?

Tim: What are the best type of photos?

Tim: Well, that’s an entirely other team.

Tim: How do I make sure if I’m in the process of selling something, there’s some questions going back and forth or there’s some escalation that happens where support needs to get involved.

Tim: These are two other teams.

Tim: I think what we really tried to do across the organization is say, what does a loyal customer look like for us?

Tim: If we say a loyal customer is someone who sells quickly, achieves as much profit as possible, then how do we make sure that at every point of friction where loyalty could be impacted, we have the team thinking about how they solve that specific issue.

Tim: It even comes back to us because my main area is CRM, communications.

Tim: Then when we see where there’s a gap that maybe product can’t fill, where maybe it’s, yeah, we need to be the ones to step in to educate a bit more to tell people.

Tim: The classic example I give is, if you want to sell books, it’s actually more advantageous for you to post multiple books at once because actually people buy books in bundles.

Tim: If you just post one book, people probably won’t buy it.

Tim: If you book multiple, people will make a bundle and sell it, and we see that 100 percent of the time.

Tim: And so, it’s giving these little bits of information and making sure that all the teams are thinking about loyalty, but approaching it in their kind of unique mandate.

Tim: I think that’s how we kind of try to approach loyalty as a topic across the company.

Charlie: That’s really nice.

Charlie: It’s a really lovely way of thinking again.

Charlie: I really like that laser focus on how do we make this experience as good as it possibly can be, as friction-free as it can be.

Charlie: I’ve sold stuff on a lot of the different marketplaces, and actually, I would say Vinted is probably my favorite.

Charlie: Obviously, if I was interviewing the other marketplaces, I’d say the same thing.

Tim: I’m joking.

Tim: I wouldn’t.

Charlie: I’m notoriously honest.

Charlie: What about success?

Charlie: Obviously, you’ve got lots of different teams in this world.

Charlie: As you’ve said, you’ve got the CRM space.

Charlie: But what does success look like in terms of loyalty at Vinted?

Charlie: Can you measure it without a program?

Charlie: How does that work?

Charlie: Or are you more beholden to overall business metrics?

Tim: I think what we tried to tie to is the business metrics.

Tim: But I think the business metrics themselves really hint towards the loyalty experience of the customer.

Tim: So when we think about across the different teams, what are the different metrics we’re looking at, we are looking at things like, okay, how quickly can someone go from registration to listing?

Tim: How quickly can someone go from listing to selling?

Tim: How quickly can a buyer go from searching to buying the item they want?

Charlie: Interesting.

Tim: So when you think and look at those business metrics, ultimately a lot of those things do drive how much revenue and profit comes out of the platform itself.

Tim: But at the same time, they also speak a lot to the customer experience.

Tim: Because if we are looking at, say, the time between listing to selling, and we’re optimizing for that, naturally to be able to optimize for that, you really have to remove those friction points at all those different steps I mentioned.

Tim: If we’re doing that, then really what we’re seeing is that customer experience is getting better.

Tim: So I think this is also another trap I’ve seen companies fall into where they say, okay, we need to have really dedicated loyalty metrics we’re looking at to make sure that we’re driving loyalty as a business.

Tim: But a lot of those actually core metrics that you’re probably are still tracking, or maybe you aren’t tracking because you’re not focusing on customer experience.

Tim: But if you are just looking at metrics that focus on customer experience, not necessarily like loyalty program metrics or dedicated loyalty metrics, you probably will achieve the same thing.

Tim: So for us, it’s like we really try to focus on these core metrics, on sell through rates, sell through timing.

Tim: And I think if we optimize those, we feel like we can get a loyalty customer out of it because ultimately, again, it’s better for them.

Charlie: Nice.

Charlie: I spent a lot of my career working in quick service restaurants actually.

Charlie: And it was one of the things I think that has stayed with me since then, because speed of service was so important in that industry.

Charlie: And actually, it was the dominant metric.

Charlie: And anything we did in the marketing, promotions, loyalty space, couldn’t interfere with how quickly an individual could get their burger and fries.

Charlie: And actually, if possible, had to make it quicker and better and faster.

Charlie: So that’s a really interesting thing to see in a sort of a classic retail environment.

Charlie: I wonder how many of our audience listening have got those kind of metrics.

Charlie: I’d be surprised.

Charlie: I think most would probably have customer satisfaction and MPS, but maybe not those sort of key kind of customer experience metrics.

Tim: But, you know, it’s interesting for us because it’s like you say customer MPS, but it’s like if we looked at our customer MPS, what would a lot of their comments point towards exactly these things I just mentioned?

Tim: They would say, okay, I can’t sell this fast enough.

Tim: I’m having problems with the upload process or our support service is not fast enough.

Tim: And all those things are core key business metrics for us that point towards loyalty anyways.

Tim: Right?

Tim: So it’s like, you know, you just have to kind of keep the perspective of, okay, how do I make this again as frictionless for the customer as possible?

Tim: And then probably you don’t need these other kind of loyalty metrics that are sometimes vanity metrics.

Charlie: Yeah, that’s very cool.

Charlie: What about trends that you’re seeing in the industry?

Charlie: Because I think, you know, measurement and metrics is always a hot topic.

Charlie: When we were out in Amsterdam, we obviously saw some really interesting actuarial presentations, which really surprised me, thinking about applying actuary principles to loyalty measurement.

Charlie: And that kind of made me sit back in my chair.

Charlie: I thought that was one of the most interesting presentations at that conference.

Charlie: But there was a lot on trends as well.

Charlie: What kind of key trends are you keeping your eye on?

Charlie: What do you think we should all be looking out for?

Tim: Yeah, I think one of the big ones, which I think I hinted at at the start of the talk here was simplicity.

Tim: So, you mentioned that in Germany, it’s true, we have these big established coalition loyalty programs that are quite mature.

Tim: But I’ve actually seen that some of the grocers, which I guess is the main thing I interact with on the day to day, a lot of their loyalty programs have trended towards simplicity, so making it a lot easier to understand, okay, do I have a discount for this?

Tim: Do I not?

Tim: Am I getting points for it?

Tim: Just maybe highlighting, okay, these are your five items you could buy today that would be on discount if you went and got them.

Tim: I love that because I feel like we trended a lot in blowing up these programs where it was a coalition, and there was multiple partners, multiple different ways to earn, different ways to burn, different earn rates, different burn rates, and it just became really unwieldy.

Tim: Now, I feel like the trend is constricting a little bit to say, okay, this was probably bad for the customer experience, let’s go a bit more simple.

Tim: So I think that’s one.

Tim: And then I think the second thing is you’re starting to see AI kind of play this role a little bit of that.

Tim: When I go into the grocery store, I feel like I see the personalization starting to get a lot better, to get a lot more responsive to what I’m doing.

Tim: I think it’s still nudging in directions where, I understand there’s the business kind of motivation behind it, but I’m like, oh, this feels a lot more well-informed than it was before.

Tim: So I think you’re starting to see that behind the scenes play into things a little bit.

Charlie: Yeah, I think we are starting now sort of finally to see the testing come to execution.

Charlie: I feel like we’ve had a lot of experimentation, a lot of dipping our toe in the water, and actually now some of those brands and programs are being brave enough to actually kind of do it at scale.

Charlie: Not always getting it right.

Charlie: I’ve had some very interesting recommendations from some large British programs that will remain anonymous on this podcast.

Charlie: But you understand where they’re coming from and how the data led to that recommendation.

Charlie: So it’s really interesting to see in 12 months.

Charlie: I’m sure it will be seamless.

Charlie: What about some of the biggest challenges you face?

Tim: Yeah.

Tim: I think on our side, as the platform has grown, and so now we are a platform that is, like I said, multi-category, we’re available in multiple countries.

Tim: I think you see kind of this difficulty of, okay, what is the most impactful thing we can do for the customer in this moment?

Tim: Because now we have so many different levers we can pull, and you have so many, also, I would say competing business interests that we have to keep in mind.

Tim: So it’s not only anymore that we want you to come on and look at fashion, it’s maybe we want you to go and explore what books is like, or maybe we want you to list homeware.

Tim: And so I think the biggest challenge we face right now is trying to make sure that we keep the customer in the center of things and balance what our own business priorities are against what’s best for them.

Tim: Because maybe someone that we’re talking to does not want to hear about Pokemon cards as something they should list because it’s a huge collectible.

Tim: And there’s so many nuances to this where we have to have the right data, talking to the person at the right time, this classic CRM loyalty stuff, while also making sure we say, okay, no, let’s not talk about Pokemon cards.

Tim: It doesn’t make sense for this user.

Tim: And so I think this kind of ability to say a million different things to a customer at that moment in time when you’re interacting with them and finding that balance is the biggest thing we’re kind of struggling with right now.

Charlie: Yeah, I think that’s a common challenge across lots of brands, actually.

Charlie: We’re very privileged at Mando.

Charlie: We work on a large number of programs and increasingly we are seeing cross-sell and up-sell come in as loyalty objectives.

Charlie: And I think one of the things we then have to balance and work with our clients to balance is, well, what’s loyalty and what’s selling?

Charlie: And actually, are we trying to make their experience better, or are we trying to hit our numbers?

Charlie: And actually, how do we strike that fine line?

Charlie: And I think that’s something that a lot of our audience who are listening at the moment would be interested to look at, you know, keep a close eye on Vinted’s approach and how you balance that balance.

Charlie: What about the most important lessons you’ve learned?

Charlie: This is always one of my favorite questions.

Charlie: And sometimes people kind of go into, you know, big life lessons at this point.

Charlie: But, you know, in loyalty in your career, in life, and, you know, moving from one country to another, what are some of the most important lessons you’ve learned that you think our audience should know?

Tim: That’s a tough one.

Tim: I think I would say transparency.

Tim: I think that’s been like the common thread that I’ve carried through.

Tim: And I think probably kind of established the most when I moved to Germany, where they are very direct people communicating in a very direct way.

Tim: And I think you see that not only from the personal side if I experienced that, but also in the professional side, is I think there’s so much to be said, especially coming from a country like Canada, where I think we are a bit overly polite and don’t necessarily say what needs to be said.

Tim: Sometimes to our customers, sometimes to each other, is this idea of like, it’s better to get the message out there, communicate it transparently.

Tim: Maybe it’ll ruffle some feathers, maybe it won’t be received by the customer or by a partner, by a friend as nicely as you would hope, but it’s better than keeping the message unsaid.

Tim: I think it holds true for the marketing world as well, and the loyalty world as well.

Tim: It’s maybe you don’t want to communicate that a change is happening, maybe you don’t want to be as transparent about how the program experience or the product experience is changing.

Tim: But I think leaving those things unsaid ultimately hurts you more because nothing stays hidden forever.

Tim: It’s better to just be transparent about it, own the consequences and deal with them upfront.

Charlie: I think especially in the world of AI and social media that we’re now in, I think if you are running a program and you do make a big change, then it’s much better as exactly as you say to be upfront and communicate about it.

Charlie: One of my pet peeves is when a program devalues, but pretends they have increased the value or they’ve improved the benefits or improve the perks.

Charlie: We recorded a podcast recently with the roast with Carly and Adam, it’s an Australian proposition about how they can roast what loyalty doesn’t do as well, as well as celebrate and toast what loyalty does do well.

Charlie: That was one of the things that we really debated on that episode about the importance of upfront communication and honesty.

Charlie: I think when it’s done well, it can be brilliant.

Charlie: There was a really good example.

Charlie: In Britain, we have a program called Octa Plus, which is from Octopus Energy.

Charlie: I recently got some fantastically written communications, which I’ve shared broadly, telling me that I was too savvy in the loyalty program and I had secured too many of the free coffees.

Charlie: Personally, flattery gets you everywhere.

Charlie: I’m quite proud of myself.

Charlie: I’m quite savvy here.

Charlie: I’ve managed to work the system, which given my job, I really should be able to do great.

Charlie: I’ve got lots of free coffees and they said, actually, we just need to distribute our rewards budget across everybody.

Charlie: Now, rather than that, every Monday, you can have a chance to spin to win for an item.

Charlie: The first week I did it, I got a free bakery item from Lidl, and then I got a coffee from Gregson the second week.

Charlie: I thought, this is a really smart way of communicating, because you’ve said what you’re going to do, you’ve told me why, it makes sense.

Charlie: It was very humanly written, and then you’ve executed it reasonably well afterwards.

Charlie: I’m a fan of a Lidl pretzel, actually, so I was quite happy with my Lidl pretzel.

Charlie: But yeah, it’s a really interesting thing, I think, and the days of hiding changes are long gone, particularly for a brand like Vinted.

Tim: Yeah, of course.

Tim: I think at the end of the day, what a lot of programs and companies kind of underestimate in these scenarios, which they shouldn’t, is that your customers will know all of this.

Tim: It’s like we are, as you said, we’re all part of these programs.

Tim: We all understand, like the coffee example I gave.

Tim: I know for the fact that when I have my sixth free coffee, if I go ask for the larger coffee, I will get that one free as well instead of just getting the smaller coffee.

Tim: So if you think you can pull these things over on a customer, you can’t because they figured out all the nuance to it.

Tim: So I think it’s beholden on companies and the people that are working at these companies to understand that ultimately you are protecting the relationship between the company and the customer and the loyalty they have.

Tim: And so you should just be transparent about any change and be upcountable upfront to them.

Tim: And yeah, given your octopus scenario, it’s like it doesn’t have to be bad, right?

Tim: You can always make changes and do it in a positive way.

Tim: So it’s all about how you kind of approach that relationship and how much you value their loyalty.

Charlie: Yeah, I completely agree.

Charlie: And well done, Octopus Energy.

Charlie: That was a change well handled if you’re listening.

Tim: I should appreciate this.

Charlie: I should probably send it to them.

Charlie: Yeah, well done.

Charlie: Thank you very much.

Charlie: What about any new ideas and innovations that you’ve seen?

Charlie: It might be something that you’ve done at Vinted that you’re particularly proud of or something you’ve seen in the market that you saw somebody else did that you thought was really good.

Charlie: Any kind of top examples you’ve seen recently that everyone should go and hunt out?

Tim: I mean, I don’t know if I can think of any top examples from the market, to be honest, and I mean, I think from a Vinted perspective, I think we’re investing a lot in AI, which I know is the routine normal thing for everyone to say these days.

Tim: But what I think I really appreciate, how we’re investing in AI, and good examples of how we’re doing it is, again, from the simplicity angle.

Tim: So things like, okay, if you’re going to sell a book, you can now scan the code on the back and it’ll fill in all the details for you.

Tim: Or it’s like if I say, and I get this all the time from my girlfriend, I took a picture of this girl walking down the street and I said, you probably shouldn’t have done that.

Tim: She said, yeah, I know, but she was wearing these shoes and I wanted to know if they were on Vinted.

Tim: Now it’s like you can actually take that image on Vinted, do a search and see if the shoes exist.

Charlie: That’s amazing.

Tim: Which is fantastic because this was one of the big pain points we had from users all the time is, how do I discover these items?

Tim: I think these are the kind of innovations that at least we’re investing in, where again, we are thinking of AI application in the context of how do we do good for the customer, how do we reduce friction for the customer?

Tim: I don’t have any examples from other things out there.

Tim: I think that’s a great one.

Charlie: Personally, that would have been amazing.

Charlie: I went to CarFest last year and there was this girl in this fantastic dress and it was feathers, and it had sequins all around the bottom, and I was going to Ibiza with some friends and I thought, I really want that dress.

Charlie: I had to bash my way through the crowd, go up, do the whole embarrassing British, tap on the show.

Charlie: I’m so sorry, you’ve got the most beautiful dress, you look amazing.

Charlie: Would you mind telling me where it’s from?

Charlie: She was like, I got it from ASOS.

Charlie: I was like, that’s amazing.

Charlie: It was last season.

Charlie: Though I then had to go through all the marketplaces to try.

Charlie: Anyway, I did find my amazing disco chicken dress, although I can only get it in blue and she had it in orange.

Charlie: It took me ages.

Charlie: I was like, my goodness, the ability to have, I would have asked her permission, obviously, but to take a photograph and then just upload it and go, that would have been amazing.

Charlie: That would have saved me hours.

Charlie: That’s a brilliant application.

Charlie: Please do more like that.

Tim: I think this is the kind of thing we’re investing in.

Tim: Because again, always keeping the customer relationship, removing friction for the customer in mind.

Tim: I had a pair of shoes that I took a photo of a guy wearing five years ago and I actually uploaded that photo just recently when we uploaded the feature, and I found the shoes on Vinted.

Tim: So it’s like these little delight moments like this, I think it’s also what we really want to achieve for the customers because, again, I’m also a part of the company being like, guys, why can’t we have this?

Tim: I really want this feature.

Tim: So-

Charlie: I love that actually.

Charlie: I think those delight moments, I know we’ve talked a little bit about trends that we’re seeing in the industry, but I think that’s one of the big ones as well.

Charlie: Programs really focusing on how can I create little moments of magic as well as those big hero, big headline reward programs.

Charlie: But almost that gamification, duolingo streak, all that like, oh wow, I’ve got it.

Charlie: How do you bring that in is another big trend and great that you’re using AI to do it.

Charlie: I’m thrilled.

Charlie: I’m going to think about what else I need to get, actually, because I’m going again.

Charlie: Maybe there’s another dress for this year, but I need to start hunting out.

Charlie: I will always ask permission before photographing random people on the street.

Tim: Yeah.

Tim: I said to my girlfriend, in Germany especially, you should.

Tim: Yeah.

Charlie: You got to be careful.

Charlie: Well, look, that was an absolutely fantastic episode.

Charlie: What a brilliant brand and a fantastic approach and some really lovely fresh thinking, actually, which is no surprise from a brand like Vinted.

Charlie: I’m sure some of our audience might have some questions for you.

Charlie: What’s the best way for them to reach out to you, Tim, if they can’t get in, they don’t have got your contact details at the moment?

Tim: Yeah.

Tim: You can find me on LinkedIn.

Tim: I’m always happy to knowledge share with people about loyalty and CRM and people topics.

Tim: And yeah, I mean, I think also always happy to chat about Vinted.

Tim: As you said, it’s fantastic brand.

Tim: I’m so fortunate to work for it.

Tim: And so fortunate to also have a lot of fans of Vinted worldwide at this point.

Charlie: Oh, it’s great.

Charlie: Well, look, thank you so much for today’s episode.

Charlie: I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Charlie: And all that’s left for me to say is thank you and goodbye from Let’s Talk Loyalty and Loyalty TV.

Tim: Thank you so much for having me.

Tim: It was a pleasure.

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