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: This episode is brought to you by Epsilon, and their award-winning People Cloud Loyalty Solution.
Paula: Epsilon is now offering my listeners access to the Forrester Maturity Assessment, a 10-minute quiz that will help you assess your loyalty program across six key areas and receive recommendations on how to improve your approach.
Paula: For more information and to take the quiz, visit emea.epsilon.com forward slash letstalkloyalty.com So welcome to the latest episode of Let’s Talk Loyalty.
Paula: And today I am delighted to be talking to an award-winning loyalty program from a company that has a couple of incredible statistics.
Paula: First of all, I was looking at things like market capitalization.
Paula: I was looking at things like retail footprint.
Paula: And I was also, as I said, looking at the Loyalty Magazine Awards and seeing this brand coming up at left, right and center.
Paula: So first and foremost, Shell is a company that will be known to, I’m sure, absolutely every single listener.
Paula: The company is operating either directly or indirectly in about 80 countries worldwide, with loyalty programs in 21 of those countries.
Paula: Now, obviously, the world is a big place and a very different place.
Paula: So I’m really happy to be talking to Pavel Los, who is actually the Global Loyalty Program Manager for Shell, to talk us through all of the various exciting programs that Shell runs around the world.
Paula: So first and foremost, Pavel Los, welcome to Let’s Talk Loyalty.
Pavel: Good afternoon, Paula.
Paula: How are you today, Pavel?
Pavel: I’m all right.
Pavel: It’s great to be here.
Paula: Great, great.
Paula: And I should first of all compliment you on your loyalty to Shell.
Paula: I see over 20 years working in the business.
Pavel: Indeed, indeed.
Pavel: It’s been an interesting journey.
Pavel: I started in Shell 20 years ago.
Pavel: I actually started as a marketing support to a local loyalty manager.
Pavel: And through various roles in Shell, either locally, regionally, I was in London, based in London, Capri Airs, managing them back in Prague.
Pavel: And I am from Prague, originally based here in Prague, back home again.
Pavel: I was the marketing manager for Central Eastern Europe.
Pavel: And now just recently, kind of you see this as a closing loop.
Pavel: I came back to loyalty and I’ve been since early 2018.
Pavel: I’m the global loyalty manager.
Paula: Well, listen, congratulations on that.
Paula: It’s just an incredible story.
Paula: I don’t think I’ve spoken to anyone actually who’s just got 20 years consistently working through loyalty in different roles.
Paula: So loads to share.
Paula: Pavel, as you know, I always start the show really just to educate the listeners as much as possible with a couple of wow statistics.
Paula: And I know you have some amazing insights from all of your work around the world.
Paula: So first and foremost, let’s start talking about what are your favorite loyalty statistics?
Pavel: I mean, you hit the nail on the spot.
Pavel: The amount of data and statistics is often very overwhelming.
Pavel: But I say ultimately, we are in commercial roles and our job is to generate revenue for our shareholders.
Pavel: So I can’t really talk about anything else than commercial value or value per customer.
Pavel: We know that our most engaged loyalty customers spend four to five times more than loan loyalty customer.
Pavel: And they on average generate significantly higher annual margin, right?
Pavel: And that that annual margin is the statistics that I’m interested in about.
Pavel: I can’t obviously talk about the actual number, but I assure you it is high enough to generate interest within the company.
Pavel: And loyalty is an impact on some of the softer metrics like brand preference, and our loyalty customers prefer the Shell brand more than twice than the regular other Shell users.
Pavel: I do have one specific statistics that I find quite interesting.
Pavel: 63% of our customers never visit more than two sites, two petrol stations.
Pavel: Which just proves that our business is very much location based.
Pavel: We are a location based business.
Pavel: Where the site is located, that primarily drives the success of the site.
Pavel: And those 63% of customers who never been to more than two sites, I also see this as an opportunity.
Pavel: Because it is our opportunity to help these customers when they are traveling, when they are in their unfamiliar territory, to find Shell branded site easier.
Pavel: And that’s where we need to be even more smarter than we have been in the past.
Paula: I love that you see that as an opportunity Pavel, because I think the number you gave to me before we came on air was 45,000 retail sites around the world.
Paula: So if I’ve only been to two, I’ve got another 45,000 to find on your app or whatever.
Paula: So well, best of luck with that.
Paula: Oh no, it’s brilliant.
Paula: No, I absolutely love it.
Paula: And as I said, I did an episode recently with the Loyalty Magazine Awards, and we both attended that event online this year.
Paula: How did you enjoy it?
Pavel: I must say the magazine has done a brilliant job.
Pavel: Brilliant job, it was a fun event, obviously in these difficult times, a virtual event, but you could see the excitement around people gathering in the small rooms and having a side chat.
Pavel: And the actual announcement was very exciting.
Pavel: And obviously I’m proud.
Pavel: We managed to won three awards, been shortlisted for fourth one.
Pavel: So I take this year as a very successful year.
Paula: Absolutely, Pavel.
Paula: So the one that I thought we should maybe start talking about is Loyalty Redefined.
Paula: And this is for Shell Go Plus, which is the UK program.
Paula: And I suppose plenty of people will be familiar with maybe the previous program, which was the Drivers Club.
Paula: And I think from my research, it had about a million and a half members already.
Paula: So I can only imagine the amount of work that went into redeveloping something, literally, I think strategically, repositioning it is, I think, what I saw coming through.
Paula: So is that why it’s one of the loyalty redefined?
Paula: And maybe you can tell us about Go Plus as a program.
Pavel: So indeed, Shell Go Plus in the UK is our first type of a scheme, which I call this a point free scheme, where we don’t issue points.
Pavel: The amount of work, this was a multi-year project, going to get this off the ground.
Pavel: It did replace the previous Shell Drivers Club in March last year.
Pavel: And Shell Go Plus is a visit-based scheme.
Pavel: So where customers get benefits just by being a member, just by using a card either in their mobile phone or a plastic card, a typical plastic card, they get a customer gets a discount on a range of refreshments from the Jamie Oliver range, discount on car wash, discount on Costa coffee and others.
Pavel: And then after kind of a 10 qualifying visits and those qualifying visits might be a few purchase, might be purchase in the shop, they get a reward that they can use towards their future purchase.
Pavel: And then we treat them through various offers and surprise and delight offers along the way on the journey.
Pavel: So it is a bit surprising methodology for customers.
Pavel: But we see a good take up.
Pavel: Those customers who participate, they certainly like it, they spend more money, they visit sites often.
Pavel: And our job now is to kind of keep expanding this, creating the reach.
Pavel: Unfortunately, the COVID crisis did not help us.
Pavel: So we put a bit of a break on the entire process, but we are very well in a place to restart and run the show continuously.
Paula: Yeah.
Paula: And I can imagine it being a multi-year program, Pavel, because I think first and foremost, the decision to remove points, I can only imagine the amount of debate that must have gone on internally.
Paula: So I want to ask you about that after this.
Paula: But also, I suppose what I really love about the program is it’s a shift from the pure fuel focus and into the store.
Paula: So from a commercial point of view, which is the point you opened with, we’re here to drive profitability, returns for our shareholders.
Paula: So I think that’s a very brave decision.
Paula: It sounds so easy, it sounds so obvious, but actually Drivers Club had a huge legacy and amazing brand awareness and obviously massive loyalty.
Paula: So tell me, because I really hear a lot of pride in your voice when you say about going point free, tell me about the journey to making that decision.
Pavel: Well, the decision’s been tough and to large extent, this has been a brave decision with no data, right?
Pavel: So with this, I take my hat off to our senior management who’s been willing to take or put the bet on this.
Pavel: I think it’s fair to say that at this moment, this is the only market where we run this scheme as a visit base, and we need to make sure that we prove to the business that this is indeed the way forward because that decision has not been taken very lightly.
Pavel: But exactly as you say that one of the key drivers for introduction of Shell Go Plus was indeed expanding the offer beyond just fuel.
Pavel: We have been historically a fuels retailer.
Pavel: We understand that where we want to position the companies is being a mobility retailer where we help our customers, irrespectively what their mobility needs are, whether they fill up with fuel, whether they charge their EV vehicles, whether they use any other alternative fuels, but also they’ve got their needs when they are on the road as people, right?
Pavel: I have got my personal needs.
Pavel: I need a cup of coffee.
Pavel: And as a matter of fact, I need multiple cups of coffee in a day, or get a glass of water or a bottle of water, get my refreshments, get a sandwich along the way when I travel.
Pavel: So all of those needs are now captured as a part of the CVP.
Paula: Yeah, and I guess I suppose what I’m wondering Pavel is, you could easily have done that extension into the retail side, still using points.
Paula: So can you share with us why you felt that it was important to move away from the points type structure?
Pavel: I think UK specifically, I can only see UK as probably one of the, or if not the most advanced market or loyalty markets.
Pavel: And we simply felt that in this market, we need to bring a revolutionary change as opposed to evolutionary change in order to succeed long term.
Paula: Nice.
Paula: That’s a big statement, revolutionary rather than evolutionary.
Paula: I can again imagine the internal debate.
Paula: So well done you.
Paula: So we will watch with interest.
Paula: And again, as we said, you already have the loyalty redefined award.
Paula: So clearly the judges for the loyalty magazine were impressed.
Paula: And the next one I wanted to ask you about is your work in China.
Paula: And you won for this particular program, the best loyalty program of the year, as well as the best new loyalty launch.
Paula: So, you know, from a marketeers perspective, first of all, hats off to you, because they’re the ones everybody wants to win.
Paula: So tell us about what’s happening with Shell in China.
Pavel: So this is an interesting, interesting case, because as a matter of fact, in China, the scheme is called Shell Clubsmart, as our traditional schemes in many of the other markets.
Pavel: The offer is also very traditional.
Pavel: Customers simply collect points, then they accumulate points and they can use the points towards a selection of gifts or towards a discount on a shell site on their purchase.
Pavel: So from that perspective, nothing really surprising.
Pavel: I think the biggest difference in China and what is making this program stand out is the integration with the WeChat platform in China.
Pavel: So as we know, WeChat is the ever-present digital platform for our Chinese customers.
Pavel: And we’ve been able to really tap into the inner bolts of the channel and really integrate our loyalty in WeChat.
Pavel: And that’s how our customers are interacting with the scheme.
Pavel: And that’s what’s making this successful.
Pavel: And we keep signing up hundreds of thousands of customers basically every single month.
Pavel: So the scheme in China continues to fly.
Paula: And I’m assuming you have probably quite a sizable team in China, Pavel, would that be fair to say, in order to localize to a market that, let’s be honest, is very different from what you’re doing in the UK and US?
Pavel: Oh, the team is not huge.
Pavel: This is where the power of an international company comes in place, right?
Pavel: So we have used our resources and pooled our resources to actually make this happen.
Pavel: I have a team member who is in my global loyalty team right now, who was actually at the time of preparation, who was based in China and helped to launch this.
Pavel: And she helped to put this in place successfully.
Pavel: She’s done a brilliant job.
Pavel: She’s here now using the experience and helping other markets to go on that similar journey.
Pavel: I think it’s also fair to mention that in China, obviously the market landscape is slightly different to other markets because we cooperate with local joint ventures.
Pavel: So we need to get the JVs on board.
Pavel: We need to, in a way, sell it to them, make sure that they understand the CVP and they have their own loyalty, small loyalty teams.
Pavel: And with that, we kind of pool the resources and make things happen for the customer.
Paula: I think the next part, really, that’s interesting for me, Pavel, is you mentioned that you’re doing a lot of work with nature-based programs.
Paula: So carbon offset type concepts.
Paula: And this is, again, something we see coming through in so much consumer research, and just in general, I suppose.
Paula: And maybe pre-COVID, it was more of a concern for consumers because we didn’t have to deal with our personal health.
Paula: I suppose the planet’s health was our top concern.
Paula: But obviously, as an energy company, it’s a super important topic for you.
Paula: So how do you manage to build loyalty through these type of value propositions?
Pavel: Indeed.
Pavel: So we as a company have announced our commitment to be carbon neutral by 2050.
Pavel: And we need to make sure that this does not become just a commitment on a PowerPoint or in a press release.
Pavel: So we are taking a number of different initiatives, a number of steps to help to not only offset the carbon from our operations, but also help our customers.
Pavel: So to help them to offset the creation of the carbon through the use of our products.
Pavel: So one of the ways that we have introduced in the Netherlands and in the UK is an opportunity for our customers to drive carbon neutral.
Pavel: We do this by introducing a scheme as a part of the loyalty offer where customers can drive carbon neutral by protecting and replanting forests.
Pavel: So in the UK whenever customers use the Shell Go Plus app or card or key fob, for each liter that they fill up, we’ll offset those carbon emissions from the purchase that they make.
Pavel: And we then partner with local organizations and plant forests and replant forests or protect forests.
Pavel: And we offset that carbon that way.
Pavel: And similarly, in Netherlands, customers can basically use their points to offset their carbon footprint.
Pavel: So we see this as one of the ways to reduce the carbon footprint of not only the company, but also the customers using our products.
Pavel: And this will become one of the standard norms in the schemes as we go forward.
Paula: Absolutely.
Paula: Yeah.
Paula: And I suppose we all talk a lot about building emotional loyalty rather than transactional loyalty.
Paula: So it sounds like that that’s actually going to do all of that.
Paula: Because at the end of the day, yes, we all want our rewards and whatever they, you know, what shape or form they take.
Paula: But actually, I think more and more, and perhaps accelerated by COVID, as we’ve talked about.
Paula: In fact, on this show as well, people are becoming more conscientious and questioning their values a lot more.
Paula: So it certainly sounds like something that you see expanding into more of your markets.
Paula: Is that fair to say?
Pavel: That’s absolutely, absolutely true.
Pavel: I can’t talk about the speed and how quickly we’ll be able to do this, obviously.
Pavel: But the critical piece in all of this is to make it easy, easy for customers and frictionless to participate.
Pavel: Yeah.
Pavel: Because we don’t want customers to take any extra force to be able to participate.
Pavel: So the easier and simpler the customer experience is, then the more successful the offer will be.
Paula: Absolutely.
Paula: Are you quite advanced around, down that journey, Pavel?
Paula: Or would you say it’s early days just to get a sense of how mature it is?
Pavel: Well, I think the entire sustainability agenda of us as a Shell group of companies is quite advanced.
Pavel: We do a lot of activities.
Pavel: So this is quite high on the agenda.
Paula: Okay, yeah.
Paula: I can imagine.
Paula: Yeah, yeah.
Paula: And I’m sure, as you said, it’s one thing to start with it as a vision from a leadership team.
Paula: It’s another thing to execute.
Paula: And again, particularly in 45,000 retail sites, as we talked about, it’s not a small project.
Paula: Brilliant.
Paula: The other big subject, and we’ve talked about this before together Pavel, I saw you doing a great speech in London last year, and the subject of coalition programs inevitably comes up.
Paula: And Shell has obviously amazing opportunities to join or not join coalition programs around the world.
Paula: What is your view on being in a coalition as I suppose the key category that most coalition programs are really chasing?
Paula: So I’m sure you get invitations in every single country.
Paula: Tell us your thinking on coalition.
Pavel: Yeah, so I think that the theme of coalition has been discussed so widely, right?
Pavel: So it’s often a conflicting views from various parts of the coalition on the KPIs.
Pavel: And that often creates a bit of a challenge in the creation of the coalition.
Pavel: We are part of coalitions in Netherlands, with Airmiles, Canada, with Airmiles, in Bonusling, in Malaysia.
Pavel: And these schemes do have their own place.
Pavel: I’m not doubting those at all.
Pavel: We’ve been partnering with these for so many years that this has become part of our DNA.
Pavel: And we need to continue.
Pavel: We need to continue work with this.
Pavel: I would probably refer to one of your not-so-recent podcasts with Brian Person, from the former CEO of Loyalty One, right?
Pavel: She’s the operator of Airmiles in Canada.
Pavel: And I must say, I loved his definition as a loose coalition of brands.
Pavel: And this is where the future, this is where I see the future of these coalitions.
Pavel: We need to, those coalitions need to find a way to reinvent the chemistry between the partners so that those partners, those different partners create the partnerships and create a all-around customer friendly CVP, which then also delivers benefits to the various and even even benefits to the various partners.
Pavel: I think those loose coalitions of brands, we will see, we will see the rise of those.
Pavel: If nothing else, our work with Fuels Reward Network in the US is a great example of this.
Pavel: So we have been partnering with multiple brands, and it’s not a closely linked coalition that nobody else can get in, but it is a clear win-win partnership between those two or many other brands who deliver value to end customer.
Pavel: And both of the brands are actually benefiting from this.
Pavel: So that’s what I see, see coalition schemes going.
Paula: I love it.
Paula: And again, I love the fact that you have the strategic perspective globally, because I think what many of us have is a country-specific view.
Paula: I’ve got most of my practical experience in Ireland, to be honest, so very hard to evaluate what to do in new countries.
Paula: But I know we often see that in the US, it’s a country that doesn’t really have a classic coalition.
Paula: But I think the point you made to be before, Pavel, or maybe it was when you were speaking, but I remember thinking it is sometimes the level of how mature the market is, or how mature the coalition is.
Paula: So if it is a clear market leader and is a core part of consumer culture, like in Canada, then of course you want to be part of it because it’s super powerful.
Paula: But if you’re interested in a new country, for example, and nobody’s got something, then why would you get into the complexity, I suppose, of tying yourself up too much?
Paula: Is that a good summary?
Pavel: Indeed.
Pavel: I think that’s a very good summary.
Pavel: And we do have a few markets where we are, as a matter of fact, talking to various coalition setups.
Pavel: They are not necessarily coalition that I run a loyalty scheme, can you connect?
Pavel: No, these are enterprises that try to bring multiple partners under one umbrella.
Pavel: And the moment we are, I think there are a couple of principles that we try to enforce when we are entering these coalition discussions and negotiations.
Pavel: One, if nothing else, one, the most important one is the ownership of data and the usage of data and access to data, access to reporting.
Pavel: So once that premise is met, then we can advance in the next stage of the negotiation.
Paula: And you mean exclusive ownership of the data or shared ownership of the data?
Pavel: Well, if this is a customer who is visiting Shell, I want to know about that customer.
Pavel: I want to make sure that I can freely and easily talk to him or her and have an access to that customer.
Pavel: And if there is any sign of a barrier to access that customer, then to me, that’s a showstopper.
Paula: Yeah.
Paula: Alarm bells immediately.
Paula: It’s at stage left, huh?
Pavel: Yeah.
Paula: But I think you’re right, actually.
Paula: And Brian Pearson did use the term partnership rather than coalition.
Paula: And something I have learned, Pavel, I don’t know about you, but I’ve negotiated many partnerships over the years, as listeners will know.
Paula: And to me, as soon as it gets into we’re going to need like a 50 page legal document to cover all of the ins and outs, then I get bored and I’m like, oh my God, this is if I can’t keep up with the legals, then the customer is definitely not going to.
Paula: So lose partnerships give you the flexibility to say, look, we’re all well-intentioned.
Paula: We all want to make this work.
Paula: So let’s do our best.
Paula: So good.
Paula: So loose partnerships all around.
Paula: Brilliant.
Paula: The last two questions I wanted to ask you, Pavel, were around, I suppose, first of all, your team.
Paula: You did mention somebody before.
Paula: So I’d love to just get a sense of the scale of your, I suppose, direct team.
Paula: And then, you know, maybe just also just have a quick chat about KPIs, because really keen to see what you focus on with, again, your kind of global perspective for the Shell brand.
Pavel: So team, I mean, it depends on what perspective we take, right?
Pavel: So my direct team is actually very small.
Paula: Okay.
Pavel: I’ve got, in total, seven of us as a global loyalty team.
Pavel: But we do act as a classical subject matter expert.
Pavel: We support our markets to run the schemes, to extract value from the scheme, to help them to evolve to CVP.
Pavel: And then we use all of the data to inspire the rest of the organization to harness the power of loyalty.
Pavel: So my direct team is relatively small.
Pavel: Then we have local market colleagues, our loyalty champions.
Pavel: So we have anywhere from one person to five to ten people, kind of eight teams, obviously, depending on the size of the market.
Pavel: Our job is to help them to their job.
Pavel: Or the role of my global team is to help the local teams to do their job smartly and efficiently and help them to educate.
Pavel: And it was great to listen to your recent podcast with Loyalty Academy.
Pavel: Because we’ve just agreed with Loyalty Academy.
Pavel: And I was extremely pleased that over 60 people from the extended global Loyalty team have actually signed up to Loyalty Academy and will be participating in following their learning journey.
Paula: Well done.
Pavel: That’s a huge…
Paula: Yeah, amazing work.
Paula: Brilliant.
Paula: Yeah, I love to hear that.
Pavel: That’s one of our part of our role is to help the local teams and educate them.
Paula: Yeah, yeah.
Paula: Wow.
Paula: Phenomenal.
Paula: Well, I mean, just seven people, but the fact that they’re subject matter experts.
Paula: Yeah, that’s amazing.
Paula: And you used the evolved the CVP as the key objective.
Paula: And I guess you advise on the evaluation piece as well.
Paula: Do you in terms of the return on the loyalty investment?
Paula: Is that part of that team?
Pavel: Absolutely.
Pavel: I sometimes use the analogy of a car manufacturer, right?
Pavel: So we’ve got, our job is to design the car, design the loyalty scheme so that it drives properly.
Pavel: We’ve got our IT teams and technology teams and technical teams who then develop or bring the actual solution to us.
Pavel: But they give it to market and market is the driver.
Pavel: And then our role is to help to use the data from the scheme to drive the car, drive the scheme at the optimum performance.
Pavel: Not too fast, but not slow.
Pavel: And at the right level, keeping the right direction, keeping the right space, right pace.
Pavel: So some of the metrics and obviously the value of the scheme comes from generating dollars.
Pavel: And we are a commercial enterprise.
Pavel: We need to provide solution to our customers so that they are happy.
Pavel: And they are happy to spend their precious money with us.
Pavel: And that’s ultimately the role of Loyalty.
Pavel: We measure by penetration.
Pavel: So that’s how many customers actually use the cart on a site, and either penetration on transaction, penetration on the total fuel volume, penetration on the total NFR spend, and it’s a kind of a mixture of metrics.
Pavel: Obviously, the actual fuel volume and spend is important.
Pavel: The size of membership base, active customers, what’s their activity rate, how many of these customers are contactable, because we know the moment the customer is contactable, we can talk to him, we can engage him, and the moment we can engage with active customers, we know from data that they spend again, and that the margin we get from them is bigger.
Pavel: And then there are financial contributions, KPIs, basket size, the actual generated margin, something that we call a defendant business.
Pavel: So how much we would lose if we did not have the scheme.
Pavel: So kind of a defendant volume.
Pavel: What would we lose if we closed the scheme?
Pavel: So these are some of the more detailed metrics that we’ve got in place as well.
Paula: I think my favorite of all of those Pavel is the contactable one.
Paula: Because I think everybody has that, but I’m not sure if it’s always on the list of KPIs.
Paula: I think we do tend to get more concerned with things like penetration and the size of the base.
Paula: But the size of the contactable base, you’re absolutely right, is a very specific insight, which gives you so much more power.
Paula: So I love to hear that coming through.
Paula: Wow.
Pavel: Absolutely.
Pavel: I think the contactability is one of the most critical ones, because you can grow new customers.
Pavel: And we’ve had a number of challenges in the past where we grew the schemes, but actually we did not collect the right contact details or not the right consent details.
Pavel: And at that moment, it’s a passive achiever, that that customer is a passive achiever, can participate, rides the boat, but we can’t actually serve him the good meal.
Pavel: So I’d like to know about that person, I’d like to know how much he or she spends and then talk to the customer itself to serve the right relevant offer, which resonates with the customer.
Paula: Wonderful.
Paula: Wonderful.
Paula: Well, on that note, Pavel, I have to say, I’ve asked absolutely everything I’ve been dying to ask you for at least a year.
Paula: Is there anything else you wanted to comment from your side in terms of your own journey with loyalty?
Pavel: I think loyalty as an industry goes through an interesting period now.
Pavel: We have seen through the probably weirdest year ever for all of us, we have seen the increasing importance of loyalty.
Pavel: And many brands do see this as well, because we know that loyalty scheme is able to protect some of the revenue, even in these difficult times.
Pavel: And we have seen this clearly in our results.
Pavel: We’ve seen that loyalty members, that the spend of our loyalty members declined significantly less than the others.
Pavel: And that’s important to keep in mind.
Pavel: So, we are in that period where loyalty is on the on the top of attention for many, many, many stakeholders, many brands.
Pavel: And we need to use this to educate the entire industry.
Pavel: I think there is room to grow.
Pavel: The number of trends that I see, when we talked about points and the importance of points, I think they will stay with us for a long period.
Pavel: But I think what’s going to be more important is the actual benefit rather than the points and the experience of redeeming points.
Pavel: So, the experience will be more and more important.
Pavel: It matters if I get the toaster in an ugly, ugly plastic bread, or whether I get the toaster in a beautiful package than a handwritten thank you note.
Pavel: So, it matters.
Pavel: But there are some trends that I kind of see.
Pavel: It is the decreasing importance of the actual points.
Pavel: I think the instant gratification, that’s going to be more important than that.
Pavel: That’s what we are doing with Shell Go Plus in the UK, and it proves that that’s the right step in the right direction.
Pavel: The customer experience will need to be frictionless and integrated across many other touch points.
Pavel: We talked about the usage and ownership of data.
Pavel: I mean, that’s going to be more and more important.
Pavel: And I think in order to succeed, brands need to, and marketers need to learn how to collect data and use them properly from multiple data sources for the benefit of a customer.
Pavel: I think there is one piece that, and we talked about partnership, partnerships a bit as well.
Pavel: I think it will be worth probably a podcast on its own is the increased use of loyalty data in communication and advertising to pretty much optimize the advertising spend.
Pavel: I think this is an opportunity that I think some brands are already using, but this is a trend that I think will be more and more important.
Pavel: Why would you spend precious advertising dollars on those who are already with you?
Pavel: Because you know about them.
Pavel: So the use of loyalty data in communications and serving the right targeted communications, the right customers, I think will be more and more important.
Paula: Yeah, yeah.
Pavel: So I think loyalty is going through a high times on top of the interests of many, many brands.
Pavel: I think it’s an opportunity to grow.
Paula: Absolutely.
Paula: And actually, what I really love Pavel is every time I hear anybody from Shell talking about loyalty, and in fact, I’ve interviewed Crispin Rogers, who I’m sure you know from his many years in Shell as well.
Paula: Yes, of course.
Paula: But what I love is that there’s such a belief and a commitment to loyalty as a structured marketing tool and with a very commercial expectation.
Paula: So it’s respected in the company and that doesn’t always happen because I’ve certainly gone into companies where it’s just seen as a cost line.
Paula: So the fact that you guys are earning that respect and you’re able to prove exactly what you’re driving and defending, to use the term that you mentioned earlier, I think is a huge credit to you.
Pavel: Thank you very much.
Pavel: We are on that journey and the inspiration for the rest of the company.
Pavel: Indeed, it’s a super important role that we need to play.
Paula: Wonderful, wonderful.
Paula: So listen, I’m going to sign off now.
Paula: So I just want to again say thank you to Pavel Los, Global Loyalty Program Manager for Shell Worldwide.
Pavel: Thank you very much.
Pavel: It was great to be here.
Paula: This show is sponsored by The Wise Marketeer, the world’s most popular source of loyalty marketing news, insights and research.
Paula: The Wise Marketeer also offers loyalty marketing training through its Loyalty Academy, which has already certified over 170 executives in 20 countries as certified loyalty marketing professionals.
Paula: For more information, check out thewisemarketeer.com and loyaltyacademy.org.
Paula: Thanks so much for listening to this episode of Let’s Talk Loyalty.
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Paula: Of course, I’d love your feedback and reviews, and thanks again for supporting the show.
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