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, the gentleman I am talking to today is somebody who’s been on my radar now for probably about a year or two, but I’m guessing he’s been on the radar for a lot more people for a lot longer than that, because his loyalty experience and credentials actually go back over 20 years.
Paula: So, I invited Crispin Rogers onto the show, specifically to talk about his new company, and that’s called For Good Causes.
Paula: But in fact, his experience goes back over 20 years, and I’m going to go through his background and bio, because there’s an incredible amount of expertise that we have access to on this interview this afternoon.
Paula: So, Crispin Rogers started his career, in fact, at Shell, and he was there for over 20 years.
Paula: So, he got a huge amount of loyalty and payment card experience with them, and that began when they sent him off on an assignment down to South Africa in 1997.
Paula: Now, after that, he was awarded a number of global roles, and the most relevant and exciting for us is, in fact, he was the very first global person in loyalty for Shell.
Paula: From there, he went on to run the loyalty and merchant analytics activity for Visa Europe for five years, and then did a spell of consulting with some incredible clients, such as Royal Bank of Scotland, for Shell themselves, for Voucher Cloud, and another loyalty startup called Bink.
Paula: Then, about three years ago, Crispin went on and created this new company called For Good Causes.
Paula: So today, I’m super excited.
Paula: We’re gonna be talking about his vision to bring an increased charity focus into the loyalty space.
Paula: The other key thing to note is that he applied all of this global loyalty experience into the Loyalty Magazine Awards, where Crispin, like myself, was a judge for about three years, and he did this until last year.
Paula: So with that fantastic introduction background, Crispin, welcome to the show.
Crispin: Thanks Paula, very good to be here.
Paula: Great, great, great.
Paula: So listen, as you know, Crispin, when we were planning for the call, I am starting all of these conversations with, I suppose, a sound bite and a statistic that we can all learn from very quickly.
Paula: And I’ve no doubt that, given what you’re working on at the moment, it’s gonna be a statistic about charity within loyalty.
Paula: So tell me, what is your favorite loyalty statistic?
Crispin: Yeah, so for me, it has to be the statistic that there’s seven billion pounds in unused points, miles and cash back in the UK alone.
Crispin: That’s seven billion, not million, seven billion.
Crispin: Now in the US, I shudder to think what the number is, but I’m pretty confident it’ll be north of $100 billion.
Paula: Oh my God.
Crispin: The reason I think that’s a stunning statistic is because to my mind, that’s money which is sitting around, not doing anybody any good.
Paula: Yeah.
Crispin: And for me, it really demonstrates the opportunity for us all in the loyalty space to make loyalty an even more effective marketing tool.
Crispin: And I say that because everything I’ve learnt over 20 plus years in this space has taught me that redeeming customers are good customers.
Crispin: So people who are using their points, tasting the benefits of the points.
Paula: Yeah.
Crispin: They will buy more, they will buy more often, they will attract less, they’ll think better of the brand, they’ll recommend more.
Crispin: And so on pretty much every measure we want to drive as marketers, it’s ticking the boxes to get the customers redeeming.
Paula: Fantastic.
Crispin: The other thing of course, Paula, is that the alternative to those points getting actually used will be one day, you’re gonna have to expire them.
Crispin: And that means you’ve dangled this carrot in front of the poor customer who’s facing after it until one day finds that there’s no carrot at all that’s been swiped away.
Crispin: And in our research we did, we found that here in the UK, more than half of people have experienced that.
Crispin: They’ve experienced points expiring, and not surprisingly, they don’t like it.
Crispin: In our research, I think it was 83% of people said they were either disappointed, annoyed or outraged, that their points were taken away.
Crispin: So that’s the context in which we set up For Good Causes, and what we’re trying to do is do some good with that value for everybody involved.
Paula: Yes, yeah.
Paula: And I love that point, Crispin, and it’s a really good mindset, and I don’t know how long it was ago that people really started to shift from, oh, they haven’t used their points, that’s fantastic.
Paula: We’re kind of getting away with not rewarding them, but clearly that has moved forward now to, as you said, making sure that people have the full kind of closed-loop experience to actually avail of those benefits.
Paula: So more than half, that’s a really good statistic, actually, I love those statistics as well, just to kind of go, I think I’m definitely in the outraged group, because if you give me something and take it away, then I think there’s probably…
Crispin: I’d invite everybody listening, try it out, if you ask your friends and family.
Paula: Yeah.
Crispin: If that 50% statistic holds, I’m pretty sure it will, and see what they think about that.
Crispin: We’ve all got stories to tell, haven’t we, about experiencing those things?
Paula: We sure do, Crispin.
Paula: Fantastic.
Paula: Great.
Paula: So listen, we’ll be dying to talk exactly about how For Good Causes works.
Paula: But before that, you’ve obviously done a huge amount of fantastic work in Shell, taking on their first global loyalty role.
Paula: So I can imagine that was an amazing opportunity, but with a huge amount of challenge.
Paula: So tell us exactly what was involved and how all of that worked out.
Crispin: Yes, so this is going back a while.
Crispin: This is going probably back to about 2004.
Crispin: And it started when I led a strategic review of all the loyalty programs across Shell, because they were on a big money saving exercise to try and streamline the business.
Crispin: And the question was asked of us, should we close all those programs down and save several hundred million dollars in costs going out for the programs?
Crispin: But actually, what we found was that, that sounds like a lot of money, but it was pretty clear that actually the value that those programs were bringing in was greater than the cost.
Crispin: Now that wasn’t the case for every program in the world we had, but it was the case for them in general.
Crispin: And so the powers that be at Shell brought the story and said, yeah, we understand that this has got, it’s adding value and it could add significantly more value still.
Crispin: And then Shell went global in 2005.
Crispin: I was tasked with taking on all the loyalty activities across actually 23 different countries.
Crispin: We had about 50 million customers, I think, at the time.
Crispin: And mostly those were managed schemes.
Crispin: So they were our own programs that we were running directly ourselves, but we also had half a dozen coalitions which many of your listeners will be familiar with.
Crispin: Things like MRs in the Netherlands and Canada, flybys in Australia and New Zealand, Trump in Norway, and BonusLink in Malaysia.
Crispin: So it was a really interesting mix of the benefits of coalition in those markets against equally the benefits of kind of driving your own future by managing programs.
Crispin: So that was on the loyalty side, sort of alongside the Pure Loyalty Play a couple of years in, I then took on the co-branded credit card propositions, which we were quite strong in.
Crispin: We had those in 19 markets with a global partnership with Citibank.
Crispin: That was also responsible for managing all the third party card exceptions with the likes of Visa and Mastercard and Amex and so on.
Paula: Well, that particularly I know was a huge business in its own right, Crispin.
Paula: So what were the kind of highlights around that?
Crispin: So I think if we look particularly at the loyalty space, which is perhaps the most relevant to the vote listening, this was, the context was this was the first time that Shell had tried to run its retail business globally, when for 100 years or so, it had been very proud of empowering local markets to run their own show.
Crispin: So there was lots of variation and differences across those 23 markets.
Crispin: And we had a fantastic period of being given that train set to play with, where we went through some centralization, standardization and improvement by really going after the economies of scale.
Crispin: But that touched a lot of different elements, which again, those listening will be really familiar with, but what was fascinating was doing it at global scale across so many markets.
Crispin: For example, if I just touched on a few of the things which we addressed and leave as we pulled, it started with how do you measure the health of programs?
Crispin: It’s so important that we very much tout in the loyalty space, don’t we, that we are a really measurable part of marketing.
Crispin: Well, if we claim that, we’ve got to do it.
Crispin: And so within one brand with many markets, we needed a consistent way to measure the health of programs and then to know whether are we improving or are things getting worse?
Crispin: So that was the first stake in the ground.
Crispin: There were then, if you consider all the different parts in the value chain of managing what was essentially a points-based, gift-based, MagStripe card-based program, we centralized all the gift procurement and distribution.
Crispin: So rather than each country buying their own gifts, which they had previously been doing, we standardized all of that.
Crispin: And not only the gift range itself, which went from over a thousand different products across the country to something like 200.
Crispin: So we would have 200 items we choose each year, and each market would select 80 of those.
Crispin: Big exercise in collaboration to get an optimal mix there.
Crispin: So we have maximum buying power.
Crispin: And they were then put into the standardized catalogs, which we would produce some 15 million or so a year.
Crispin: And everything was in huge scale.
Paula: It’s a full-time print job, nevermind anything else.
Crispin: It really was.
Crispin: And you didn’t want to have any typos in there.
Crispin: I can tell you that.
Paula: For sure.
Crispin: And then all of this, all of the gifts which we purchased then had to be stored somewhere for central distribution.
Crispin: So we had a massive warehouse in Northern Germany, the size of about four football pitches, where the TVs and the teddy bears and the cats and so on were all kept.
Crispin: It was a huge business.
Crispin: And then, so that was one side, which was a major exercise and a lot of headaches, but we saved a huge amount of money and improved the attractiveness of the programs in doing that.
Crispin: But we also looked at the way we managed our customer services.
Crispin: So we centralized that whole approach, multilingual customer service centers in Turkey and in Hungary at the time.
Crispin: And I know a lot of your listeners will be very much into the whole data piece, segmentation of data piece.
Crispin: We brought in Dunhumbi.
Paula: Okay.
Crispin: Very much on the top of their game.
Crispin: And to help us segment the data and start deriving some really actionable insights out of all of the data, which we then used for our direct marketing and CRM activities, which they supported with us.
Crispin: So that was a fun part.
Crispin: Maybe a less fun part was standardizing the approach to managing the balance sheet, again.
Paula: Equally critical.
Paula: In fact, probably the most critical.
Crispin: Probably the single biggest lever in terms of impact on short-term impact on the accounts.
Crispin: Just having a consistent way to managing dormant accounts, how to get points that are issued, how you manage points expiry, which we’ve touched on.
Crispin: The answer is extremely carefully.
Crispin: So all of those really were cost-saving elements, which we drove after.
Crispin: And then that earned us the license to drive growth.
Crispin: And so then we had some new markets we launched.
Crispin: We launched a premier tier V-Power Club, which lasted a number of years, sort of product-oriented or interest-orientated top tier.
Crispin: And some of the programs were being refreshed, and a number of significant new partnerships we brought on board and so on.
Crispin: So you can imagine across so many markets, there was great stuff happening somewhere around the world.
Crispin: That was terrific.
Crispin: It’s a wonderful company to work with as well.
Paula: I can imagine.
Paula: And I have to say, as I listen to you Crispin, what strikes me is that I’m actually quite envious because I’ve always said one of the reasons I like working as a consultant is because it gives me, as you said, kind of levers from one industry or one market that I can learn from and leverage for others.
Paula: So you literally had extraordinary global insights.
Paula: So all you need to do is really pay attention and really then you have access to the best possible solutions across every element of the value chain.
Paula: So an incredible opportunity.
Paula: Well done, you.
Crispin: No, it was a great opportunity.
Crispin: People have been asking me, are markets more the same or are they more different?
Paula: Yeah, tell us.
Crispin: Well, my perspective is they are more the same.
Crispin: So I mean, particularly if you’ve got a similar consumer broad base that is the intent of the program, then there’s a lot more similarity than there are differences.
Crispin: So you can build, and I think we’ve proved it in Shell, you can build out a core infrastructure to service the multiple markets where you’ve got 80% commonality, but you have flexibility for 20% important nuances and differences to address local market needs.
Crispin: So that’s my, I would say 80-20.
Crispin: There are people who tell me I got it wrong.
Paula: I know, yeah.
Paula: Well, I’m sure there’s plenty of debate always around those and marketeers will always insist, as I have done.
Paula: And I think particularly for us at Ireland, we would always say, we would often be thrown in with the UK in terms of marketing plans.
Paula: And we would argue strenuously for our at least 20% nuanced differences, be it on execution or communication.
Crispin: So I’m glad there’s some.
Paula: Yeah, great, great.
Paula: So from Shell, then to Visa Europe Crispin.
Paula: So tell us about working on the payment side of things.
Crispin: So yeah, very different space.
Crispin: And in a way, this was me being poacher turned gamekeeper because it was part of my job within Shell to go around and argue with the likes of Visa.
Crispin: That was why the cost was so high.
Crispin: In the end, of course, we kind of sold for that.
Crispin: And with the similar thing in the States.
Crispin: But what was fascinating there was it was a super time to join when Visa Europe, as it was at the time, was just getting more comfortable about opening up the rich resources they had in terms of the data they were sitting on.
Crispin: So driving insight and value out of it.
Crispin: Historically, they had been understandably extremely cautious and making sure it was all tightly kept under lock and key.
Crispin: The CEO at the time said, no, no, we can keep it secure and under lock and key, but there’s no reason why we shouldn’t get those assets working for us.
Crispin: So we brought in an outfit called Beyond Analysis.
Crispin: It was a super analytical company from folk that were actually exed on Humvee and we started working with them on what was a lovely rich data set, something like 14 billion transactions a year, I think we had.
Crispin: And in the UK, as an example, they have 97%, I think it is, of all debit card transactions.
Crispin: And knowing how much we are in the UK now, the third most cashless society in the world because we’re using contactless.
Paula: Great.
Crispin: Mobile and so on.
Crispin: So there’s a massive, ever-growing data set there of information about exactly which shop you bought in, at what point, through what channel, what time of day, what day.
Crispin: And the brands that you bought in can be segmented into categories.
Crispin: And in fact, you can infer other things about the brand in terms of affluence or geographic location or there’s so many indicators.
Crispin: I think we had 190 or something additional indicators on top of the actual hard data points around date and channel and so on.
Crispin: And so this started building out a really interesting data set and segmentation to understand not what people do, but what they actually do.
Paula: Yes.
Paula: And what I’m picking up Crispin there, again, some of the fantastic companies I’ve worked for have really struggled to get the level of insight and analysis.
Paula: But it sounds like in every instance, if you really want to do it well, then the likes of the Dunhumbi or Beyond Analysis, who I hadn’t heard of previously, these kind of companies, it’s obviously worth investing in getting third party specialists in terms of really understanding the asset you have.
Crispin: I would be a big fan for that, I say.
Crispin: And similar to what you were saying earlier on around how you enjoy consulting, getting the best.
Crispin: So too, in this kind of specialist niche area, it’s very hard to recruit and retain the very best analysts working in your one particular area.
Crispin: So I’ve found great that.
Crispin: Definitely.
Paula: Great.
Crispin: So for us, that was then the platform then.
Crispin: The idea was that that was actionable insight.
Crispin: So there was an aspect of sharing that with retailers, giving the retailers some value back for the new copies they were paying out.
Crispin: So in addition to just enabling a transaction, what could we provide back to retailers so they could understand their business better?
Crispin: But then the real actionable elements we were then building out were bank and market propositions around card-linked offers.
Crispin: So this is where, with your payment card registered, that obviously allows us to track and determine which retailers you’re buying in.
Crispin: And we were layering on offers from those retailers, retailer-funded offers, targeted and segmented and so on, that leverage the insight and segmentation and help drive the right behaviors as far as the retailer was concerned.
Crispin: And relevant offers as far as the consumer was concerned.
Crispin: So we were busy building that out in the five years I was there.
Crispin: UK, Poland and Ireland, and I know they’ve since taken that on.
Crispin: And I see that market still growing.
Crispin: There are several other players that have come to the market since.
Crispin: And I think that will continue to be a growth area for Loyalty.
Crispin: It’s a different sort of loyalty.
Crispin: There’s not points based loyalty, but it does have the benefits of being card linked and being reliant on any payment card.
Crispin: So I think that’s, again, is one to watch all over the world, in fact.
Paula: And certainly from my perspective, the magical words you used there is around kind of proven behavior change, because fundamentally, like we’re all in business at the end of the day.
Paula: So, you know, while investing these, you know, maybe hundreds of millions of dollars in platforms, programs, and teams to build things out, and to be able to kind of drive things that are commercially valuable and to prove that at the other end, I think is extraordinary to witness as well.
Paula: So then we’re coming on to the current company, and this is the really big idea, Crispin, and I’m dying to hear how long it was, you know, percolating around, you know.
Paula: I’m sure there was a spark of inspiration, and the brand that you’ve created, I love, obviously For Good Causes.
Paula: So tell us, why have you set it up and kind of what are you trying to achieve with it?
Crispin: So the For Good Causes was, yeah, it has been a while in the making, and the germ of the idea probably came to me about five years ago, perhaps.
Crispin: And it’s just 18 for a while before…
Paula: Always does, it takes time.
Crispin: But then we brought it to life about three years ago before the company, and then Steve Wiltz, my co-founder, came on stream, and we built out the team around that.
Crispin: And what it is attempting to do is to address the needs that I’ve seen all over the world in the businesses I’ve been involved in and the conferences that I’ve been into, which is many all over the world around loyalty.
Crispin: And wherever I go, there’s been two things in particular that keep coming up as issues which we all wrestle with in the industry.
Crispin: Firstly, there’s this idea of the Pareto Principle, the 80-20 rule.
Crispin: The top 20%, and sometimes it’s considerably less, is actively involved in the program.
Crispin: But then you’ve got a long tail of massive customers who are fairly disengaged and not particularly involved or interested.
Crispin: I know I very much enjoyed Mike Atkins’ podcast with you a week or two ago.
Paula: Oh, it was brilliant.
Crispin: He touched on this and said, what about the 80%?
Crispin: And he’s absolutely right.
Crispin: That’s a lot of human beings.
Paula: Yes, valuable human beings.
Crispin: So on the one hand, you’ve got this burrito thing.
Crispin: There’s a long tail of disengaged customers.
Crispin: And on the other, even for those that are engaged, it’s something we all wrestle with, is that the engagement is typically very transactional.
Crispin: It kind of lacks in any depth or emotional aspect.
Crispin: And I think if anything, over the last five years, I think that’s gotten more so.
Crispin: I think there’s been a greater drive to just comparison against financial value and discount.
Crispin: And I think we’re drifting into more discount mode, which is more like the US type model.
Crispin: And I think we need to be wary of that as an industry.
Crispin: So those two things combined leads to what we talked about earlier, that half customers don’t use their points.
Crispin: They sit there doing nothing, then they’re expired.
Crispin: And that is actually making customers less loyal, not more loyal.
Crispin: And the brand is missing out on that significant uplift that they could be getting by the customers really tasting the benefits of the program, which is of course what the programs are designed to do.
Crispin: So, yeah, so you asked where the idea came from.
Crispin: So there I was sitting on these significant programs with huge budgets.
Crispin: In my home life, I’m involved with a couple of small local charities.
Crispin: And it just struck me as odd one day that there I was managing spreadsheets and budgets with very many notes on the numbers we were dealing with.
Crispin: And then in the evening, I’d be sitting in a cold room and worrying about how we’re going to pay the electricity bill for the little charity that I’m involved in.
Crispin: And it just struck me as there must be a way that we can connect these two worlds because there is such a depth of feeling and emotion on the charitable side, and yet then so much need, and there’s such a hunger for engagement coming from the loyalties.
Crispin: I mean, what I have observed over the years is that where brands do have a charitable element to their program, historically it’s been very limited.
Crispin: So it might be that they have got a favorite one or two charities, and they’ll say, you can do all these things with your points, and there’s a bit of an afterthought, or you can give them to these one or two charities, which is good, but this was the key insight for me.
Crispin: As human beings, we’ve got this incredible capacity for caring and for being generous, and for looking after each other and for caring what happens on the planet.
Crispin: We have that side to us, all of us, and yet the things that we are particularly passionate about and care about are very personal to us.
Crispin: It depends on what’s happened in our own life experiences, what’s happened to our loved ones or to those around us.
Crispin: So you can’t tell people what to care about.
Crispin: So that was kind of the aha moment that come on in this digital world, there must be a way of bringing these things together.
Crispin: Let’s turn the whole engagement model on its head.
Crispin: Let’s address the lack of often meaningful engagement in many loyalty programs and give people the opportunity to get behind what they really care about by supporting that with their loyalty points or miles or cash back.
Crispin: Let them donate to the charity of their choice of choosing.
Crispin: And in the UK now we are enabling that to over 14,000 different charities.
Paula: Oh my God.
Paula: I didn’t even think there would have been 14,000 charities in the UK, Crispin.
Paula: That sounds an incredible amount.
Paula: Do you really think it’s important to have that many for people to choose from?
Crispin: So our experience says that it is absolutely, yes, that is vital.
Crispin: If you’re going to a customer’s opportunity to support the thing which they care about, then the choice is very wide because there’s loads of fantastic stuff going on up and down the country and around the world.
Crispin: Charities doing really remarkable work.
Crispin: The stuff which is important to life things, right?
Crispin: Which is why it puts me out of bed and I’m energized to be doing this.
Crispin: So we’ve been live with several big brand partners already.
Crispin: That includes we’re live with Vertifone, we’re live with QuidCo, we’re live on Sodexo and Perkbox and Lloyds in their employee benefit programs.
Crispin: And already we’ve seen the proof that people will, when given the choice, they will choose from a wide variety of different causes.
Crispin: So we’ve seen over 1300 charities receive funds through us already.
Crispin: And that’s just getting faster and faster.
Crispin: So in August alone, people donated to over 850 different charities.
Crispin: And that range from the very, very large and well known national and international brands.
Crispin: In this country, the big ones are Cancer Research UK and Macmillan, Alzheimer’s Research UK and SPCC World Wildlife Fund.
Crispin: There’s all these very, very large and well known ones.
Crispin: And sure enough, they do attract a lot of donations.
Crispin: But equally, there’s equally a great number of very wide range of local or specialist charities, whether that’s local hospices, those are the organizations which look after the elderly and those actually close to passing on in this country.
Crispin: Local hospitals to schools and preschools to churches and R&LI stations, which is those outfits which look after those in distress at the sea.
Crispin: Local RSPCAs, which is the animal welfare.
Crispin: So many different animal charities.
Crispin: I can’t begin to tell you them.
Paula: We love animals, for sure.
Crispin: We love animals here in the UK.
Crispin: I’m sure most markets do, but here we see a huge range of cats and dogs, all the different breeds and types of dog you can imagine.
Crispin: People want to donate their points to donkey sanctuaries and to hedgehog welfare places, and they want to protect the snow leopard and the black rhino and whales and dolphins and bird life and butt life.
Crispin: I could go on and on.
Paula: And bees and all sorts.
Paula: You’re right.
Paula: You are right.
Crispin: People care enough about those things.
Crispin: Each person’s got their…
Crispin: They’ll have reasons for why they’ve got those passions.
Paula: Yeah.
Crispin: And so, you know, so it’s been fantastically exciting and fun to see all the different charities that people care about enough to donate the value of points and miles.
Crispin: But again, putting back on our Marxist hat, what this is doing is really hitting some key targets for any good loyalty program.
Crispin: We talk about, don’t we?
Crispin: We want emotional engagement.
Crispin: We want personalization.
Crispin: We want localization.
Crispin: It’s got to be digital.
Crispin: It’s got to be mobile first.
Crispin: Well, actually, to be honest, almost by coincidence, this core idea really helps address all of those things.
Crispin: And we’re finding that as we engage brands to offer this on their programs as a redemption option, we’re finding people get excited to different degrees.
Crispin: Brands have got different interests, but of those things I’ve just mentioned, there’ll be at least two that people will say, now, that’s interesting.
Paula: Yeah.
Paula: And certainly because I’ve been watching your journey over the last year or two, as I mentioned, Crispin, I can hear and see both the amount of word of mouth marketing that you’re getting, which I’m always saying has to be a critical factor in any marketeers toolkit.
Paula: But also, I suppose, massive kind of publicity on big mainstream channels.
Paula: So it’s obvious you’ve really hit on something.
Paula: And I think you articulated it well there just by saying, you can’t tell people what to care about.
Crispin: No, I could.
Paula: It’s critical.
Crispin: And we were fortunate enough through some contacts to find some influencers, actors and so on, sports people, who were willing to video themselves in support of what we’re doing.
Crispin: Because they’ve got some concern, some cause which they are passionate about and want to put in support.
Crispin: So we’re very excited about that.
Crispin: It is something that has got energy because that’s the fact that we’re all human beings and we all care.
Crispin: And so here’s a vehicle that we can get behind and it’s a fresh thing.
Crispin: And the charities love it.
Crispin: They love the fact that there’s a new source of revenue because they’re having a tough time of it.
Crispin: They are struggling to continue to raise the funds they need.
Crispin: So they love seeing innovation.
Paula: Absolutely.
Paula: So do you think Crispin, then, is this part of an overall trend that I suppose listeners need to be really tuned into?
Paula: So again, we all have charitable intentions, but it sounds like there’s something even bigger going on.
Paula: Is that true?
Crispin: I think it is absolutely true.
Crispin: And you’ve only got to see all of the noise there is around sustainability and the school driven going on strike and so on.
Crispin: There is, without doubt, a large movement.
Crispin: There is a change in the zeitgeist, if that doesn’t sound too pretentious.
Crispin: There is.
Crispin: People are realizing, I think, since the, for me, since the 2008 financial crisis, when there was a groundswell of opinion that, okay, greed isn’t good anymore.
Crispin: You know, this isn’t good enough.
Paula: Yeah, it’s not working.
Paula: Something’s got to change.
Crispin: Brands have got to do more than just make money.
Crispin: And so, especially, you know, driven, embarrassingly for us oldies, driven by the younger generation.
Crispin: The questions are being, what are you doing as a brand to contribute to global sustainability, to support local communities, to help lift up those in need around the world?
Crispin: And so, you know, I think that is a macro movement around the world, which is an opportunity actually for us as marketers, also as people, to get behind and help drive forward.
Crispin: And as I say, it’s especially the younger generations, millennials, Generation Z coming up now.
Crispin: They’re not just saying, this is important.
Crispin: I need to know the brand I work for.
Crispin: I need to know what their values are and what they’re living up to those values.
Crispin: Do they align with mine?
Crispin: But even the brands they’re buying from, where’s this come from?
Crispin: What are they doing in the supply chain?
Crispin: So absolutely, I think it’s a trend.
Crispin: I don’t think it’s been the one that spotted it.
Crispin: And in fact, there are already some super examples of loyalty programs with CSR dimensions to them out there in the market.
Crispin: I’ve got a little dog at home here, and I’m very much a fan of Pets and Pony.
Crispin: They have the charity lifelines aspect to their program, whereby each time you swipe your card or give your card details over, they will make a donation to some or several hundred local animal charities up and down the country.
Crispin: Little donations each time, but £11 million donated so far.
Crispin: That’s going to make a big difference to those.
Paula: It adds up, doesn’t it?
Paula: Yeah.
Crispin: Marks and Spence, another one with their Sparks program.
Crispin: It’s just a penny a transaction, every time you swipe your Sparks card, and the penny goes to a choice of 10 charities that they list there.
Crispin: £6 million donated so far.
Crispin: And so, as you said, it does add up.
Crispin: Perhaps just another couple of interesting reference points.
Crispin: I think the Co-op has done a super job with their membership program.
Crispin: What I love there is that they’ve got a 5% return to the consumer, and there’s a 1% element to a very local charity, which has chosen to help the local staff, as I understand it, help choose what that very local charity would be.
Crispin: So something for the customer, something for the community.
Crispin: Equally, there’s Looking Further Afield, so it’s not just in the UK.
Crispin: This is happening.
Crispin: I think there’s a lot, there’s a lot going on in the UK, but in India, there’s the Points for People program Brian Almeida is leading, next to some development work in India through the Tata Trust, which is super.
Crispin: And I think possibly the godfather of all of these, I think, is the MySchool MyVillage MyPlanet program in South Africa.
Crispin: It’s been going for 20-odd years.
Crispin: It started just after I’d left South Africa, in fact.
Crispin: And I know some of the people involved in setting that up.
Crispin: And so they raised one of the schools for charities and environmental organizations.
Crispin: And I think actually they were pioneers in leading the way and showing that you can bring brands and charitable work together.
Crispin: You can bring effective marketing and effective fundraising together for the benefit of everybody.
Crispin: So, yes, I honestly do think this is a rising trend and I think there’s a really strong business rationale to be involved with this.
Crispin: It’s also a great thing to be involved in as human beings and it’s the right thing for us to be doing.
Paula: Absolutely.
Paula: And I love that Crispin.
Paula: And there’s a couple of points I’d love to pick up on.
Paula: I hadn’t appreciated the subtlety of Marks & Spencer’s doing a penny per swipe, as distinct from a penny per transaction, because maybe historically you might have just said, okay, let’s just do it based on transactions.
Paula: But it is a business at the end of the day, and we do need to drive swipe rates.
Paula: So there’s an added incentive for both parties to make sure that that data is being captured, which I really love.
Paula: And just when you mentioned that program down in South Africa, I may well have been at the same talk as you there in London at the Loyalty Surgery when that was being presented a couple of years ago.
Paula: And again, it blew my mind.
Paula: And I actually have one of the people involved coming on to this podcast in about two weeks’ time.
Paula: So we’re going to do a dedicated show as well around the MySchool MyVillage MyPlanet.
Paula: So I think there is definitely, you know, on both sides, we’re all connecting to something a bit greater, you know, than what we’ve been doing maybe just transactionally in the past.
Crispin: Yeah, exactly so.
Paula: Great.
Paula: So tell me then with all of those kind of case studies, what’s different in terms of how you set up the company in terms of For Good Causes?
Crispin: So I think in a nutshell, what we’re trying to do is just take it all a step further.
Crispin: Nudge it that bit further on.
Crispin: So we’re all about providing the ultimate in-charity choice for consumers across as many programs as we can reach.
Crispin: And that’s initially here in the UK, but in due course across as many markets that we can reach as well.
Crispin: So what I would love, my dream is that one day it will be the norm that, of course, you can donate your points and your miles to the charity of your choice.
Crispin: Why should you not be able to do that?
Paula: Everywhere, with every point you have, even though there’s only one left, it will be donated.
Crispin: Quite right.
Crispin: And this is very much a global game.
Crispin: I know you’re really focusing on the global aspect of loyalty in this podcast, which I think is terrific.
Crispin: Again, with my background, you wouldn’t be surprised to hear me say that.
Paula: Exactly.
Crispin: You really do recognize.
Crispin: And what we’re finding is as we engage with brands, the brands have got footprints in many markets.
Crispin: And so this resonates across all the markets.
Crispin: The issues are the same, as I mentioned earlier, that loyalty programs are facing.
Crispin: So I think this is going to be a very significant part of the loyalty landscape generally.
Crispin: We want to help stoke those fires further.
Crispin: And although the vision is, I think, I hope one day it will become a norm, those that are adopting this first, I think, are really going to reap the most benefits.
Crispin: Perhaps just one other thing to touch, how much I hadn’t mentioned.
Crispin: So another thing which we are working hard on is as much as we’re engaging brands to encourage them to put this wide charity choice into their redemption option, we’re also engaging with the charities, the large ones directly and the whole raft of small ones digitally.
Crispin: And say, look, this is an opportunity for you.
Crispin: You’ve got a part to play as well.
Crispin: There’s no cost to them being on this program.
Crispin: But what their task is, is to spread the word.
Crispin: So they need reaching out to their supporters, using the marketing reach effectively that they have of their passionate and strong supporters to say, here are the ways that you can support us.
Crispin: And in so doing, that’s obviously a terrific opportunity for brands to extend their reach about the messaging they want to get across that there’s an app that does this or their program enables this, or even as a promotion next month, addressing, providing these opportunities to raise funds for charity.
Crispin: So we’re trying to kind of pull together the needs of brands, the passions of consumers, and the reach that charities have got to support the great work they do.
Crispin: Guess what would be unique about us?
Paula: My God, you’re a very busy man.
Paula: But already I can think Crispin, like I have a number of friends again who have fundraising responsibilities.
Paula: So definitely, like I already know that this show is going to be sent on to a couple of my own people in my network who definitely, as you said, need new ways to raise funds.
Paula: So if there’s anything that this show or any of my network can do to spread the word, I definitely will make sure that we do that.
Paula: So yeah, I love the fact that it’s ticking all these boxes.
Paula: Brilliant.
Paula: So just one thing I wanted to ask as well though, Crispin.
Paula: A lot of customers or clients I suppose I’d be talking to would say, maybe we shouldn’t be using points.
Paula: Is that a model that people are getting tired of?
Paula: There are some that are moving to maybe offers and they’re talking about customer experiences.
Paula: And in fact, I’ve done most of my loyalty work is kind of partner negotiation.
Paula: Of course, a number of different programs.
Paula: So do you think, is there still an opportunity, given that trend?
Paula: Can they still work with you in terms of For Good Causes?
Crispin: Yes, absolutely.
Crispin: So, I mean, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been asked where the points programs are dying.
Crispin: And it always reminds me, I think it’s Mark Twain who said, reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.
Crispin: Same thing you could say about the demise of loyalty points.
Crispin: You know, I’ve been there for 15 years.
Crispin: I think the reports of the death of points are greatly exaggerated.
Paula: They’re not going anywhere.
Crispin: They’re not.
Paula: We need them.
Crispin: The reason is that having this currency to incentivize people that tracks their behavior and gives them an incentive to shift it to the behavior you want, a little micro-value at an affordable level, that’s an incredibly effective tool, as everybody listening will know, to use when it’s done correctly.
Crispin: But what that doesn’t mean is that it’s the only way to engage customers, especially now in our new digital mobile first world.
Crispin: And I’d also say that there are certain sectors which lend themselves much better towards points than others.
Crispin: So recognizing that, I think you’re talking to something here.
Crispin: I think that we’re likely to see more non-points-based programs going forward rather than less.
Crispin: But I’m sure there will continue to be new points programs and the existing ones will continue to grow and evolve.
Crispin: But recognizing that, yes, in For Good Causes, we’ve got a proposition which we put under the general headline of kind of surprise and delight rewards that would be suitable for those non-point-based programs.
Paula: We talk about surprise and delight certainly in every program that I work on, but in your context, it sounds fantastic, but it can be quite expensive.
Paula: So what do you exactly mean?
Paula: Is there a business case around it or what are you meaning?
Crispin: Yes, absolutely.
Crispin: There is a business case around the surprise and delight rewards, by which I mean the provision of unconditional rewards targeted to individual consumers.
Crispin: And I can best illustrate it with the journey that I went on when I was at Shell around our CRM strategy.
Crispin: I mentioned that we brought Dunhanby in, we started exploiting the data in the nicest possible way to work out to whom we should be connecting, communicating at what point.
Crispin: And where we started there was to target the direct marketing activity to lapsed customers.
Crispin: To me at the time, I thought that sounds very sensible because…
Crispin: Makes sense, yeah.
Crispin: If they’ve lapsed, then any volume coming back through is going to be incremental.
Crispin: You can count all that margin as incremental.
Crispin: Thank you very much.
Crispin: Should be easier to provide a positive ROI.
Crispin: And when you’ve got constrained budgets, that seems like a good idea, a way to spend your money.
Crispin: The problem is that there’s a reason that customers have lapsed, and they are invariably going to be the least responsive to communications that you send.
Crispin: So our experience back then was, and we’re talking 15 years ago, but our experience was that response rates and ROI were pretty low, not very exciting.
Crispin: Now, the next step we did was the people at Dunhumbi, super smart, really on the ball.
Crispin: And they looked at the data and they spotted that customers, when they lapse, they don’t go from being super loyal to falling off a cliff and suddenly disappear.
Crispin: They drift away, they fade.
Crispin: And because of that, they said, we can build you a little system that will track each individual customer and provide you with an early warning signal that says based on purchase pattern data, we’ve got an expected purchase pattern.
Crispin: These ones are a bit late, these ones are very late, these ones are on time.
Crispin: We’ve got to track it like a system.
Crispin: Well, I thought it was really cool to do that.
Crispin: Off we went, and we did, sure enough, we found that the response works better and the return on investment was better.
Crispin: And then we were sitting going through the results, and I was sitting there thinking, something’s just not right here.
Crispin: So hang on a minute.
Crispin: Actually, why are we waiting for customers even to start showing these signs of lapsing and then incentivizing them to come back?
Crispin: Why aren’t we incentivizing and rewarding customers for doing what we already are wanting them to do, which is to be loyal and buy lots from us?
Crispin: When they’re behaving as best customers, why shouldn’t we be going after them?
Crispin: The historical answer previously being, well, they’re doing fine anyway, so why do we need to waste time on them?
Crispin: Well, we shifted some budget into that, and sure enough, we saw much better response rates, much higher return on investment.
Crispin: In a way, not surprising on the response rates because these were the most engaged and involved customers with the brand, so you kind of expect them to respond.
Crispin: Perhaps the return on investment was surprising, and there were several reasons we’ll be uncovered eventually for that.
Crispin: The first was that if we gave them a conditional offer, say, if you buy this extra time, then you’ll earn these extra points.
Crispin: What we found invariably, and I’m sure again, your listeners will recognize this now, is that people didn’t just scrape along and just meet the target.
Crispin: They tended to completely smash the target.
Crispin: So instead of just filling out one more time, they would fill up three more times, or buying 50 more liters, they’d buy 150 more liters.
Crispin: So there was actually really strong responses and therefore very good incremental margins flowing through.
Crispin: And so then, along with the answer to the original question, but back to the surprise and delight thing, that kind of took that to the next level again.
Crispin: And to say, well, hang on a minute, instead of just giving a stretch offer, what if we just provide customers unconditional thank you type rewards?
Crispin: And personally, I love this idea of kind of generosity marketing.
Crispin: The generosity marketing, be the one as the brand, be the one that takes the first step towards being generous.
Crispin: The customers are already rewarding you because they’re buying from you regularly.
Crispin: And watch that customer’s positive reaction when you give them something unprompted.
Crispin: And watch their purchase patterns and their brand admiration and their recommendation and so on.
Crispin: And another way of putting this, I think it was Terry Lee who said something similar to this years ago around this sort of idea was you really got your loyalty culture right in the company when what you mean by loyalty is not the customer’s being loyal to you, but you being loyal to the customer.
Paula: Yeah.
Crispin: Then you’ve got that.
Crispin: That’s a customer-centric approach to running your business.
Crispin: And so, yes, surprisingly, is there a strong business case?
Crispin: I really think there is.
Crispin: And we’re playing into that space to say, let’s add a new dimension to that aspect.
Crispin: So we’re offering, rather than something for immediate consumption like a coffee or a muffin or sausage roll, lovely as those things are.
Crispin: Why don’t we put into that mix a gift card token that the customer can use to support the thing, the cause that they really care about most in all the world, and let them choose where they want to put that value and let’s see their reaction.
Paula: Lovely, lovely.
Paula: And I’ve one personal example of surprise and delight.
Paula: What I know for a fact, though, is we didn’t have the kind of data or access.
Paula: We didn’t have the analytics that you’re talking about there Crispin.
Paula: So I’ve talked before about when the three mobile phone network bought the O2 network in Ireland.
Paula: And at that time of transition, we were keen to just let them feel the love and the strategy that you’ve just labeled for us there, which I really like the term generosity marketing.
Paula: We did it by virtue of having to, and without being able to even do that business case, we just knew, again, intrinsically as human beings, these people are bearing with us at quite a difficult time in our company’s evolution.
Paula: So let’s just give something back to them.
Paula: So I love that you did that.
Paula: But I guess we were always challenged on the budget.
Paula: So people were like, well, how much more can you expect from your customers?
Paula: What kind of behavior should we be driving if we’re going to invest in rewards?
Paula: So what would you think in terms of the capabilities of how loyal you can make your customers be?
Crispin: So here is the fascinating thing, which actually was the bridge between my time at Shell and my time at Visa, because we were into this whole concept.
Crispin: And really going after best customers and saying, well, how far can you push them?
Crispin: And whatever we tried, they always met it.
Crispin: They always exceeded our expectation for how much more.
Crispin: Wow.
Crispin: Brilliant.
Crispin: There just seemed to be this endless headroom.
Crispin: So when I went to Visa, and actually I went to Visa because we were at Shell, I was starting to explore with them, can we answer the question as to why this is the case?
Crispin: And what we found looking at all those 14 billion transactions was true, not only of Shell, not only of the fuel sector, but it was true across every retail sector that we looked at, which basically all of them.
Crispin: What you found was that a brand’s best customer was still buying probably as much again from their competitors.
Crispin: So you and your brand are thinking, these are my best and most loyal customers because they’re buying the most and the most frequently from me.
Crispin: The payment data, which allows you to see spend outside of your brand, not just within your brand, demonstrates that as a norm, and the range is sort of 30 to 50 by depending on sector.
Crispin: And of course, some brands do better than others, but by and large, there is a quite surprising amount of headroom.
Crispin: Your loyal customers are probably not that loyal.
Paula: Wow.
Crispin: But it is true.
Crispin: And it’s an exciting thing to say because it means that your best customers do love you.
Crispin: They’re buying a lot from you, but they’ve got more to give.
Crispin: Invariably, there is more.
Crispin: In general, across the segment, there’s loads more.
Crispin: And so, that changes the way that we look at our customers and look at our best customers and say, actually, let’s go deeper here.
Crispin: Let’s see how much we can just keep pushing this on.
Paula: Yeah.
Paula: Well, I can see why you would be attracted then into the payment side and into Visa, as you said, Crispin.
Paula: And to go back to one of my previous lives, we would have called that what you’re calling headroom, we would have just called share of wallet.
Paula: But again, we never had access to the data.
Paula: So, if you can partner with, whether it’s a payment card or whatever, to get access to how much more is there that we can drive in terms of behavior, how much more of the wallet can we capture?
Paula: There’s probably an unprecedented amount of opportunity there from the way you’re describing it.
Crispin: I think there is, yeah.
Crispin: It’s all done in baskets, so you can’t see any of your direct competitors.
Crispin: It was a basket of five, I think.
Crispin: And it is worth, there have been big brands out there, probably already engaged, but it is worth talking to the schemes.
Crispin: They’ve got incredibly rich data, and they’re keen to start sharing that back now, much more than they ever have been, I think.
Paula: Wonderful.
Paula: So listen, we’re coming towards the end, Crispin, and I can’t believe how many more questions I still have for you, but I don’t think we’ll get to them all today.
Paula: So I’m going to ask you just, I suppose, a couple of final ones and hope that we can bring you back on the show.
Paula: I know you have a huge amount of expertise that you’ve talked about in terms of evaluating programs and standards and health checks.
Paula: So I will ask you maybe to do that at another time.
Paula: But I did want to give you an opportunity to talk about other tools as well as loyalty point donation facilities.
Paula: So you mentioned that to me in a previous conversation.
Paula: So I just thought I’d give you a chance to talk about that before we wrap up.
Crispin: Sure.
Crispin: Yes.
Crispin: So we’re all about finding new ways for people to donate to charity and unlocking new sources of funding.
Crispin: Loyalty Points is really our lead story and is the big story.
Crispin: But there are some other really interesting pockets, one of which is around the gift card market.
Crispin: So again, the digital gift cards, I know that will be relevant to many of your listeners as they’re being incorporated into loyalty program redemption options.
Crispin: But in the UK, I was surprised to find that that gift card market is big.
Crispin: It’s about six and a half billion pounds in the UK.
Paula: Good Lord.
Crispin: Huge.
Crispin: And it splits 50-50 between consumers buying it for each other and business moving it to incent their customers or their staff.
Crispin: So we have just announced that we are now offering charities the option to work with us to be able to get customers to donate any unwanted gift cards to them, to the charity.
Crispin: So we are turning unwanted gift cards, and of course, we’ve all again experienced that.
Crispin: UK’s gift cards are from brands that aren’t convenient for you or you’re not particularly keen on or that you’re never quite going to get.
Crispin: And so here’s a way that you can, rather than that sitting in your cupboard until they’ve expired, is something you can do to give that away.
Crispin: And there’s probably around 300 million pounds of unused cards again a year in this country, which we want to give the opportunity for people to donate to.
Crispin: So we’ve just launched that.
Crispin: And alongside that, just in time for Christmas, we’re offering charities the chance to promote a gift card mall where again, customers can do what they want to do, which is buy gift cards for their family and friends.
Crispin: And at no extra cost, a proportion of that will be a donation to their favorite charity.
Crispin: So, yeah, that’s one thing.
Crispin: And then the other, which could have some relevance for the audience here actually, I mentioned earlier that the UK is now the third most cash to society in the world, because we’re all using our accounts and so on.
Crispin: That hits charities, because charities have relied on cash in the past as their main source of getting money from consumers.
Crispin: Barclays reckoned that 80 million pounds was lost last year as a result of people not carrying cash.
Crispin: So the challenge is that charities have been dependent on cash, and they’re not in the main, they’re not well equipped to keep up with new forms of taking digital and card payments.
Crispin: So we’ve created an express mobile donation service that allows charities, but also retailers for the charities they’re supporting.
Crispin: To print QR codes on any collateral, so it might be in catalogs or magazines.
Crispin: We’re actually out with the Aspinal Foundation at the moment with Sainsbury’s magazine, where customers can scan the little QR code with their phone.
Crispin: They make an express donation using Apple Pay or Google Pay.
Crispin: Some, they make the donation from their card in their Apple Pay wallet, say.
Crispin: And in the Aspinal example, there’s a competition that you can win a couple of nights at one of their fabulous conservation centers with a glass wall joining the tiger, where the tigers are kept, so you can literally wake up with the tigers next to you.
Paula: Wow.
Crispin: So, yeah, so that’s another aspect, which we’re using infrastructure we’ve built out to enable people to use their phones to make donations speedily, and to allow retailers and brands to engage their customers, all their staff with a way to support their brands too.
Crispin: So that’s what the charity will be, what they have to sponsor.
Paula: Well, my goodness, Crispin.
Paula: Well, I mean, certainly I’ve clearly drunk the Kool-Aid.
Paula: I was already a fan of the company before we started the conversation, but I’ve learned a huge amount on today’s conversation.
Paula: I think there’s key messages there that the audience are absolutely going to love, whether it is infrastructure to build charity into their overall propositions, or really just kind of reaching out to you, whether it’s a charity or a brand.
Paula: I really think there’s massive interest in what you’re doing.
Paula: So will you maybe give us an idea, what’s the best way to get in contact with you if somebody does want to explore opportunities with you?
Crispin: So you can, very welcome to email me directly, crispin.rogers at forgoodcauses.org, or you can find me on LinkedIn, of course, and I’ll be delighted to chat with anyone about this space.
Crispin: I have a passion for it.
Paula: Clearly, clearly, and I’ll make sure that’s in the show notes as well, just to make sure we get the spelling and everything right.
Paula: But as I said, Crispin, I’d really love to get you back on the show again to talk about all of your other areas of expertise.
Paula: But for now, I just want to say, well done, you’re doing incredible work.
Paula: I’m a huge fan and thank you for joining Let’s Talk Loyalty.
Crispin: Thank you, Paula.
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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