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, welcome to this episode of Let’s Talk Loyalty, which for me, I have to say, is very much a trip down memory lane.
Paula: So, as I mentioned to my guest, in fact, I used to work for the same company that she’s now working for.
Paula: And essentially, this is a lady by the name of Nicola Helfet, who is the Loyalty Programme Manager for an online travel agency based out of London called eBookers.
Paula: So, before we get into all of the background, I’d first of all like to welcome Nicola Helfet to Let’s Talk Loyalty.
Nicola: Thank you so much for having me.
Paula: Great, excellent.
Paula: So, as I mentioned in the introduction, Nikki, first and foremost, I worked in eBookers myself back in 2002, 2003, and it’s a long time before there was any loyalty programme.
Paula: So, I’ll be dying to get into what eBookers does in terms of loyalty.
Paula: And in fact, we’ll do maybe a bit of background on the company.
Paula: But before we do any of that, let’s first of all get into my usual first question, as you know, which is literally talking about my guest’s favourite loyalty statistic.
Paula: So, tell me, Nikki, what is your favourite loyalty statistic?
Nicola: Well, my favourite one, and I double checked, I think this is a US statistic, but I seem to recall reading something similar for the UK as well, which is that the average consumer is a member of 14.8 loyalty programmes.
Nicola: Of those, they’re active in around 6.5.
Nicola: So I think that really resonated with me partly.
Nicola: I mean, I’m obviously a loyalty professional, but I’m a loyalty nerd, so I do sign up to a lot of programmes.
Nicola: But I think even in general life, I know that one has a tendency to sign up to all sorts of different programmes, all sorts of different things.
Nicola: And I think more and more companies and more and more types of industry are starting to introduce loyalty programmes.
Nicola: And so that idea of the number of programmes that people are signed up to, the number of programmes that people have to sort of understand, get their head around, kind of get the mechanics of, I think, when you remind ourselves as loyalty professionals of all of the different schemes that people are busy seeing and busy participating in.
Nicola: It’s a really interesting one to consider.
Nicola: And then I think also on the flip side, there’s that side of how many they actually engage with.
Nicola: And the fact that we’re lucky if we’re one of the 6.5 that they are engaging with and active in.
Nicola: And I think that’s something that loyalty programme managers will definitely resonate with in terms of trying to keep your members active, as well as just having the members join themselves.
Nicola: Yes.
Nicola: So I think that that’s a really interesting one to kind of keep in mind.
Nicola: And in fact, I think I was almost impressed that it was as many as that on average, because that’s still quite a lot of us to be asking of consumers.
Nicola: But it’s one that I try and bear in mind when I’m trying to communicate, especially when you put changes to a programme, for example, or the onboarding process, and thinking about how many other things our customers have to think about and keep track of.
Paula: You’re absolutely right, Nikki.
Paula: Yes, and they’re not just thinking about loyalty programmes, obviously, either.
Paula: So it’s one thing to say there’s 14 programmes, but they’ve got lives to lead.
Paula: So you’re right, actually.
Paula: I often have that very clear, I suppose, concern about the ability to cut through and talk to people about something that matters to us, as you said, as professionals, but clearly is a drop in the ocean of their everyday life.
Paula: So I like that one.
Paula: So that’s a great one to get started with.
Paula: So tell us first of all then, Nikki, how did you get into loyalty?
Paula: Where did your loyalty career start?
Nicola: Well, it’s been a slightly windy journey across marketing to get here, really.
Nicola: And so I started off my sort of first real professional job was sort of in a very small company.
Nicola: We were six people and I was the sales and marketing department.
Nicola: And it sort of started off as more of a sales role.
Nicola: I’d done some sales experience while I was busy traveling after university.
Nicola: So I, but I’d taken lots of sort of marketing options in my business degree.
Nicola: I always knew that marketing was a sort of more creative and interesting side of business that I wanted to get into.
Nicola: So I took the opportunity to build that into a sort of sales and marketing role, get some experience.
Nicola: And I then moved over from that role after a few years to, I went from a company of six people to Sainsbury’s, which is our second biggest supermarket chain in the UK.
Nicola: And obviously a lot of your listeners will be familiar with the Nectar programme and obviously Sainsbury’s is the main partner of that and now owner of that.
Nicola: So it was a bit of a contrast going into a big company.
Nicola: And my role was in fact in content.
Nicola: I used to do printed content and I managed all of the recipe cards, the free magazines in store.
Nicola: I love that.
Nicola: And then when Sainsbury’s stopped doing printed content, I was sort of needing to find another role.
Nicola: And it was right before Christmas, there weren’t a lot of people busy leaving and leaving vacancies.
Nicola: One of the roles that was available was working on the Nectar programme.
Nicola: So, staying in the marketing department and doing sort of targeted communications is very much a sort of CRM role, but for Nectar promotional events.
Nicola: So I used to work on things like their double up events, their kind of swipe and win, their sort of earn and burn promotional side of things.
Nicola: And that got me into the world of loyalty and CRM.
Nicola: So it was a slightly sort of random jump really.
Nicola: It wasn’t particularly calculated and planned, but I think once I got into the loyalty world, understanding how interesting it is, I think it’s an area of business and of marketing that’s got a really interesting mixture of the commercial side of things, a kind of customer psychology and the psychology of buying behavior and incentivization along with creativity, with communications.
Nicola: I think it’s a really great industry to be in in terms of the mixture of different skills.
Nicola: So I really enjoyed it.
Nicola: And I’ve stayed within the kind of CRM side of things.
Nicola: My following role was in the AA, so the Automobile Association in the UK.
Nicola: I think your American listeners will know there’s AAA is the equivalent, but there’s some different versions around the world.
Nicola: And that was working on membership in CRM.
Nicola: So again, there was the CRM and communication side of that, but very much with a loyalty element in a very different context.
Nicola: So moving from supermarkets, which is very much the kind of heartland of points and loyalty, to something that’s much more, it’s almost the sort of insurance side in the AA, as well as sort of breakdown cover has financial services and car insurance and things.
Nicola: So it was moving from classic loyalty into the industry that’s sort of the hardest and notoriously most difficult to create loyalty because doing that kind of, you’ve got a once a year renewal cadence.
Nicola: It’s not something that people are engaging with every week and seeing value in every week or every day, in some cases, with grocery.
Nicola: And trying to get that sort of engagement with the brand in the sort of 364 days of the year where they’re probably not interacting with you or you’re probably not crossing their mind.
Nicola: And for people that break down, they renew, because generally they see the value and also they have a good experience.
Nicola: We were good at that.
Nicola: But for people that don’t, how do you instill loyalty and get them when it comes to their renewal time of year to want to reengage with the brand and stick with us?
Nicola: So that was an interesting kind of different aspect of loyalty that built my sort of more rounded view, I think, of loyalty as a whole.
Nicola: And then an opportunity came up with Expedia Group in travel, which obviously is the other kind of really big core part of the loyalty industry.
Nicola: So I feel like I’ve got a bit of a trifecta of grocery, of travel and of financial services.
Nicola: So it was an interesting and really sort of cool opportunity for me to then look at another very different aspect of loyalty with travel and this Plus Loyalty Programme, which is the one that we have at ebookers, which is part of Expedia Group.
Nicola: And it was an interesting programme and meant that I’ve sort of now been heading that up for about three years now and had a really great time in doing so and learning about travel and travel loyalty and all sorts of great stuff.
Paula: Wonderful.
Paula: Well, we’ll get into talking about the programme, of course, Nicky, and I suppose just for listeners, a couple of things I wanted to pick up on that you mentioned.
Paula: There’s actually quite a lot of listeners in the US as well.
Paula: So they may be less familiar with Nectar.
Paula: So that I suppose for those listeners or anyone who’s outside the UK is a hugely well-respected coalition programme.
Paula: So incredible expertise and very much run, I suppose, independently of the individual partners.
Paula: So I can imagine you got a phenomenal amount of experience working for someone like Nectar.
Paula: And as you said then, into the insurance space, almost with the AA, it’s less sexy, let’s say, and then obviously ending up in the hospital.
Paula: So I think we share a passion for travel.
Paula: I mentioned to you as well as e-bookers, I also worked in the airline business, but I think what I always loved, Nicola, about e-bookers was, first of all, I know it was the very first online travel agency in the UK.
Paula: I was re-reading back on my history and established what, 1998?
Nicola: Yes, that’s correct.
Paula: Incredible.
Paula: And a couple of acquisitions along the way.
Paula: And as you said, now part of the Expedia group and there’s other brands within that group, but I know we’re only going to talk about e-bookers today.
Paula: But as I said, certainly back in 2002 and 2003, there was no talk of loyalty when I worked with e-bookers.
Paula: And I suppose at the time it had come to literally just educating consumers about the opportunity to book flights online, which I know is very different to the business that you’re running now.
Paula: And I know you also, by the way, inherited the loyalty programme.
Paula: I don’t think you built it yourself, but it looks like a really clear and effective programme.
Paula: So I’d love to just, maybe if you don’t mind, just talking through what the value proposition is of the programme, just so that listeners can get a sense of what ebookers is actually doing in the loyalty space.
Nicola: Absolutely, yes.
Nicola: And I think it’s a really great programme that I’ve been lucky enough to inherit.
Nicola: So I’m definitely mindful of that.
Nicola: It’s a really simple and really generous programme.
Nicola: And I think that’s what really makes it stand out in the marketplace.
Nicola: And what really stood out to me as an auto professional is finding that it was a great one to be able to take the reins on.
Nicola: So our programme is called Bonus Plus.
Nicola: It’s essentially got a sort of an earn and burn underlying element.
Nicola: And then there are tiers.
Nicola: So a kind of tiering proposition on top of that.
Nicola: So what’s really great about it, and one of the sort of main selling points, I think for us in the world of loyalty, kind of coming back to that idea of customers having lots of different loyalty programmes to have to understand and keep track of.
Nicola: I think it’s simplicity is one of its strongest things.
Nicola: And from a loyalty professional perspective, having something that’s simple to communicate, obviously is really helpful too.
Nicola: So customers earn a sort of a monetary amount of credit, as opposed to being points that they then have to understand the value of and convert in their heads to a monetary amount.
Nicola: So I think that kind of, we do a lot of the maths for people, and I think that is something that customers appreciate.
Nicola: So you earn as a percentage of your booking.
Nicola: So for example, on flights, you earn 1%.
Nicola: So 100 pounds on a flight, you’d earn one pound in bonus class.
Nicola: And we obviously operate in different markets as well across Europe.
Nicola: So in Swiss, France, for example, it’s the same in Switzerland, obviously Euros for a lot of our points of sale, including Ireland too.
Nicola: So it’s literally sort of displayed right next to your booking amount of the amount you will earn in bonus class is, you know, two Euros 50.
Nicola: And I think that that’s something that is really helpful for us in terms of having our members really understand the value that they’re getting.
Nicola: So there’s a 1% earn on flights.
Nicola: We do 2% on packages and 3% on hotel standalone bookings.
Nicola: And then we also have higher earn rates in our app.
Nicola: So two, three and 5% respectively.
Nicola: And to kind of be encouraged by customers to engage on our app platform.
Nicola: And the app offers lots of other great bits of functionality that are really helpful reminders and alerts and things.
Nicola: So once our members, particularly the more engaged members that are traveling and booking a lot, get the value of the loyalty programme in the app, they also get lots of other benefits when they engage with us on that platform as well.
Nicola: So there’s no redemption floor, which is another really great part of our programme.
Nicola: So if you’re booking three hotels in a row, you can take the earnings off the first booking and take that off the second booking and get the redemption right away, which I think is another great feature.
Nicola: And obviously, I know that that’s something that we as loyalty professionals talk about a lot, is the redemption and it’s that moment of truth when people get the value of the programme.
Nicola: And so rather than having to collect thousands and thousands of points to be able to eventually hope to get a redemption and possibly never reach that, you know, I think that often plays into that.
Nicola: The sort of six and a half other loyalty programmes that people are members of and aren’t active in.
Nicola: I think that’s often part of what creates that scenario.
Nicola: So the fact that people can save up and we get people that, you know, making lots of bookings and get a really big balance and then they can book, you know, a whole weekend away in an ice hotel and it’s entirely paid for using their bonus plus credit.
Nicola: But you can also sort of see the value right away if you like.
Nicola: And our redemptions are on hotel bookings.
Nicola: So it means that often it plays into that more sort of treat element of things.
Nicola: So, you know, we often talk about the reward as being it can be quite functional and just money off.
Nicola: But often when people are doing, for example, booking their business travel, perhaps, or a mixture of business and leisure, they then want to book a really nice, you know, sort of five star hotel for a long weekend, perhaps.
Nicola: And they can use their redemption against that.
Nicola: And it starts creating a bit more of a kind of emotional value to them in that respect.
Paula: Wonderful.
Paula: Well, I mean, I think the first thing to pick up on is it’s incredible to see that the app bookings get double on flights, as you said, 2% instead of 1%, and then 3% and 5% on your packages and hotels.
Paula: So I always love actually, even when I work for clients, I love when there’s a single minded objective for loyalty, which is, you know, let’s encourage people to behave in this way, rather than asking them to jump through too many hoops.
Paula: So I think, as you said, there’s a lot of clarity of thinking from the business coming through there.
Paula: And, you know, I can’t imagine what the breakdown is.
Paula: But, as you said, I’m sure you’ve got plenty of business travellers and they might be tempted to book on, you know, just on the normal website.
Paula: But obviously, if they’re going to get twice the rewards, they’ll go straight for the app.
Paula: So that sounds super exciting.
Nicola: Absolutely, absolutely.
Nicola: And it means we get a lot more engagement in the loyalty programme.
Nicola: It encourages a lot of engagement from customers that are generally more engaged with us as a brand.
Nicola: So I think that’s really great that we sort of give more reward on that kind of behaviour.
Paula: Absolutely.
Paula: And I suppose, as you think through the travel journey as well, like it seems so straightforward to book all of your travel at your desk, maybe back at home or in your normal kind of working environment.
Paula: But then I guess when you do get to your destination, it’s even more important to have your travel agency on your phone so that you can connect with anything that you need to check on.
Paula: So I can kind of see the longer term thinking as well, because there’s a better service opportunity when you can be with the consumer because they’ll always have their phone with them, obviously, when they go.
Paula: So that makes an awful lot of sense as well.
Paula: And I know I did ask you, but again, for the sake of listeners, it is obviously an online travel agency, as I said at the beginning, Nicky.
Paula: But you don’t issue any cards, I know, even though it’s digital.
Paula: Sometimes some programmes do feel that’s important in the hotel or travel industry.
Paula: But I know you have tiers.
Paula: So tell us about some of the tiers that you have.
Nicola: Yes, so on top of the basic earn-burn sort of side of things, we have our three tiers.
Nicola: So entry level is silver, which is when people sign up and then they can progress to gold and to platinum.
Nicola: We do that based on the number of room nights that they’ve stayed with us.
Nicola: So once members reach gold, they unlock some of our first level of benefits.
Nicola: So we do things like reimbursements, we use the loyalty currency to offer reimbursements to things like luggage charges, or some of their data roaming charges, things like that that they incur whilst they’re traveling.
Nicola: So they can then get that back into their accounts of bones plus credit.
Nicola: And obviously, because we work in a currency amount with our credit, then it’s much more straightforward for them to understand the value proposition of that.
Nicola: So we give reimbursements.
Nicola: We also offer perks and benefits at our VIP access hotel programme.
Nicola: So within Expedia Group, we have, I mean, the numbers rising all the time, but it’s, I think, last I knew was around about 6,000 global hotels and properties that are within our VIP access programme.
Nicola: And so whenever members who are gold or platinum tier check in at those properties, they get extra perks and benefits.
Nicola: So they’re labelled on our site, then you book them.
Nicola: And it can range from things like meal vouchers, spa credit, room upgrades for platinum.
Nicola: So that’s one of our sort of platinum benefits, as well as whatever the kind of value add perk that they get is where they’re available.
Nicola: So where there is an upgradable room that is free at the property when they check in, then they can get upgrades on that as well.
Nicola: So we also have some benefits that aren’t across all of our markets, but in the UK and Ireland, we also offer free airport lounge passes.
Nicola: So once members reach gold, they get one each year and once they’re platinum they get two.
Nicola: So that means that they can also experience extra luxury, extra perks whilst they’re traveling.
Nicola: It’s a really popular benefit of ours and really incentivizes people to want to maintain their tier.
Paula: Wonderful.
Paula: Yeah, I was looking at your benefits and I was thinking actually, before I had a lounge pass, like I really dismissed it, but now that I have a lounge pass, I can do that all day.
Nicola: Once you’ve done it, you don’t want to go back.
Nicola: It’s a slippery slope definitely.
Paula: It’s easy to get spoiled, eh?
Paula: And just because you mentioned the other European countries, Nikki, so how many countries in total is ebookers operating the loyalty programme in?
Nicola: So we are in seven different markets.
Nicola: We have actually a small brand that’s part of ebookers group that’s under the Mr.
Nicola: Jett brand in Sweden.
Nicola: So we have Mr.
Nicola: Jett rewards as the programme in Sweden.
Nicola: And ebookers, we’re in six markets under bonus plus as the loyalty programme and under ebookers as the brand.
Nicola: So the UK, Finland and Switzerland are our main biggest ones.
Nicola: But also we operate in France, Germany and as you of course, you know, Ireland as well.
Paula: Of course.
Paula: Yeah.
Paula: And I was telling you before we came on air that we did a huge amount together.
Paula: So at the time, Dublin was the European headquarters for ebookers in terms of both the call centre and actually just in terms of e-commerce.
Paula: And I was thinking about it, actually, again, a bit of nostalgia when you were mentioning about, you know, showing the benefits alongside in that booking journey, because I think, again, as digital marketeers, anything you can do to drive what I know ebookers used to call, I don’t know if they still use this term, we used to call it the look to book ratio.
Paula: But do you still use that term?
Paula: Maybe more on the business side.
Nicola: Yeah, I don’t think we do.
Nicola: I think we sort of have a, we would certainly recognize that, but I don’t think we use that terminology for it.
Paula: Okay, there you go.
Paula: So I’m showing my age now, but certainly yes, when e-commerce was a child, I think there was, yeah, there was a whole piece around driving conversion, which again, you can see the simplicity of that thinking coming through there, and very powerful.
Paula: The other piece I really wanted to get a sense of, Nicky, was, I suppose, the KPIs.
Paula: What do you measure in terms of the overall programme?
Paula: And what is it, I suppose, that keeps you up at night?
Nicola: So I think probably the most important KPI that I look at and give most attention to is around active members, which obviously having talked about people becoming inactive in loyalty programmes, is something that is a really important one for me.
Nicola: So the number of active members within our group is really important.
Nicola: I think also probably what we call transaction penetration, so the number of bookings on our site that are made by members versus non-members.
Nicola: And that’s one that I think is probably a more important indicator in terms of the business context, because numbers of active members is very much sort of dependent on a broader landscape of the number of bookings that we’ve got.
Nicola: But when you look at, you know, there’s sort of context to that.
Nicola: Whereas when you look at the transaction penetration, it’s a representation of what the loyalty programme specifically is driving within that.
Nicola: So I think from a sort of loyalty perspective rather than perhaps a more commercial perspective, that’s a really important one for me.
Nicola: But I also look at things like just the numbers of earned transactions that we’ve got and in particular the number of earned transactions.
Nicola: So the numbers of redemptions that we’re seeing.
Nicola: Because as you know, as we know, that redemption side of things, that moment of truth is so important when it comes to building that loyalty and that relationship with the member.
Paula: And obviously, you know, as we’ve talked about before on this show, you know, behaviour is being impacted, particularly in travel with the current pandemic.
Paula: So have you done anything within the loyalty programme as a result of COVID-19?
Nicola: We have.
Nicola: And it’s actually something that has been a really interesting thing to have to think about as a loyalty professional, particularly in the travel world, like you say.
Nicola: And there’s been a lot that’s done across the industry.
Nicola: It’s something that obviously I think we’ve all been keeping a very close eye on in terms of looking at trends and looking at what kind of different companies and different sectors are doing as well.
Nicola: So for example, air miles and flights versus hotel chains versus OTAs, I think they’re kind of different considerations for each area.
Nicola: So we have been looking to mitigate with members.
Nicola: I think one thing that I have been really mindful of, I think as a sort of marketing professional as well as a loyalty professional is understanding not only what we do, but how we communicate it and when we communicate it.
Nicola: Because I think in a time like this, it’s important to think about the customer and think about what’s on their mind, what’s important to them.
Nicola: And I think my approach has been that probably in the midst of the worst of things, and I think in particular when we consider the fact that we’re also in lots of different markets.
Nicola: So, you know, the crisis has hit different countries at different times and in different ways and with different levels of seriousness.
Nicola: To make sure there’s a sensitivity around what we do and when we communicate things and what’s at the top of our customers’ minds.
Nicola: I think there was a lot of pressure, I think within the industry and within marketing as a whole for lots of companies to sort of be seen to be doing something right away.
Nicola: And I think it depends on the loyalty mechanics as well of kind of some of the structures of the programme that’s more important to communicate more quickly.
Nicola: So for example, with our loyalty credit, each amount of credit that is earned has a 12-month expiry.
Nicola: So people have points expiring or sort of credit expiring in phases depending on when they’ve earned it.
Nicola: I think there are some loyalty programmes where there’s a sort of rolling expiring date and your entire balance expires at once.
Nicola: So I understand that with certain programmes, I think the approach needs to be different based on sort of the implications of the structure of the programme.
Nicola: So I think for some of those programmes, if people’s full balance was expiring and they couldn’t travel, they couldn’t book, I think there was a different need to sort of try and mitigate for that right away, the way that our programme is.
Nicola: For me, it felt like it was the wrong thing to jump too quickly into something that was probably not our customer’s biggest concern at the time.
Nicola: I think from everything that’s going on, and you obviously need to be mindful of the fact that some people will have been very ill themselves, will have close family and friends that have been very ill or worse.
Nicola: Is the fact that a proportion of their loyalty credit is going to expire and they can’t use it on their highest list of concerns?
Nicola: Probably not.
Nicola: And so I think it can come across the wrong way if you communicate the wrong message at the wrong time.
Nicola: So what I’ve been mindful of is trying to take action when people’s mindset is right for it.
Nicola: So as we’re sort of beginning of June now, we’re coming into a time where in most of our markets, the worst of things is hopefully over.
Nicola: It seems like the worst of things is over.
Nicola: And also in terms of things like travel restrictions, those are being lifted a little bit.
Nicola: People have the ability to at least start thinking about travel, booking travel, you know, they might not be traveling for another few months or another year.
Nicola: But the mindset around wanting to start to plan, to travel, to potentially go and see family, it’s becoming a bit more of a reality now.
Nicola: And so it feels to me more sensible to mitigate for things like points expiring when people weren’t able to make any bookings or certainly couldn’t confidently make any bookings without knowing what was going to happen, what restrictions were going to be in place.
Nicola: I think, you know, taking a look, understanding to the customer that we see that you’ve missed out on something that you’ve earned and you shouldn’t have missed out on because of what was going on and making sure that we mitigate that.
Nicola: So, you know, give them more time to use that credit when they have the ability to actually do so.
Paula: I like that, Nicky.
Paula: It’s very quietly reassuring.
Paula: And I haven’t really thought about it, you know, in terms of, as you said, there’s just so much going on for people.
Paula: They might have lost jobs.
Paula: They might have lost loved ones, as you said.
Paula: So, you know, as businesses again, it’s tempting to jump in with them with solutions, but may not be appropriate.
Paula: But as you said, hopefully now in the coming months.
Paula: In fact, I even saw today I was looking at the Maldives are talking about opening up as well, which, you know, was exciting for me because I love to dream about traveling all over the place.
Paula: So really nice to see all of that.
Paula: And then I suppose that the last area I really wanted to cover off is beyond ebookers, I suppose, just in general.
Paula: As you said, you’re, you know, a busy loyalty professional working and living in one of the most exciting, I think, loyalty markets in the world.
Paula: So I know you mentioned a couple of other programmes that you’re a fan of just, I suppose, as a consumer.
Paula: So maybe just, would you mind just telling us about any other programmes that you admire or tend to follow?
Nicola: Absolutely, and I think in the last few years in particular, loyalty has become, and certainly in a market like the UK that’s quite a mature market in this space, it’s become really exciting because I think there’s been a bit of a push from companies, whether they’re revamping loyalty programmes or whether they’re launching new ones.
Nicola: I think there’s been a bit of a trend away from the very classic just earn points, burn points.
Nicola: And there’s a lot of, I know you have a lot of discussions every week about this and a lot of discussions in the industry about, you know, are points dead or, you know, is earn and burn just kind of dead and tired?
Nicola: And I don’t think it is, but I think that there certainly has been a sense of lots of companies wanting to do something different.
Nicola: And so that’s been really exciting because it’s brought out a lot of really interesting ideas.
Nicola: So people have tried to be really creative about the mechanics, about what sorts of things that they can reward, what kinds of rewards they offer.
Nicola: So I think some of the kind of more out-the-box ones are the ones that I particularly like, or those that have a bit of a twist perhaps.
Nicola: But I also do, you know, I do still like an earn and burn.
Nicola: And obviously having worked on Nectar for many years as well, you know, I’m particularly fond of, I’ll always have a bit of a soft spot for Nectar and engagement in Nectar.
Nicola: I think one that always comes up about the UK is Boots, just because it’s a very generous programme and it’s very simple to understand.
Nicola: Fundamentally, it’s points, so it’s quite simple.
Nicola: But some of the more interesting ones that I really admire, I think TK Maxx have quite an interesting one, their treasure programme.
Nicola: And that rewards based on number of transactions, so it’s not around spend.
Nicola: And one thing I quite like about that, which I think a lot of points programmes, you have a bit of a trade-off on, is there’s no elitism around just rewarding people that have a lot of money to spend.
Nicola: And particularly in the Bear Miles, where you have to be often in that top 20% that we know give us the top 80% of our revenue, but it is only the better off and the better off and those that are less, notice less the level of the awards compared to someone that’s perhaps not in that very, very high spend bracket.
Nicola: So I think programmes that were based on number of transactions, I think it’s a bit of an indicator of share of wallet and engagement in the brand.
Nicola: And it’s also something that kind of democratises loyalty a bit better.
Nicola: They also have sort of, it’s more of a surprise and delight mechanic in terms of the rewards.
Nicola: So you have a selection once you reach a certain number of transactions, there’s a choice of rewards that you can pick, but they’re not sort of necessarily always the same or always going to be the same each time you reach that threshold again.
Nicola: So they do some interesting things that give that element of choice and they do some surprise and delight stuff.
Nicola: They sent me a nice box of lint heart shaped chocolates on Valentine’s Day.
Nicola: Just because.
Nicola: And you know, so there are nice things like that that they do.
Nicola: So I think that’s one.
Nicola: And even just the fact that the programme is called Treasure and it’s all around treasure seekers.
Nicola: And I think that really links with the mindset of people that shop at TK Maxx, which I have to confess I do a lot.
Nicola: Is that kind of finding something that’s different, that’s a bit of a gem that you won’t find everywhere else and not everyone else is going to have.
Nicola: And so I think that the sort of branding of that is really cool.
Nicola: So I’m a fan of that one.
Paula: Wonderful.
Paula: Great.
Paula: Well, you’ve picked up on a couple of ones there as well, Nicky, which, as you mentioned, Boots is one that I think globally is particularly well respected.
Paula: And as you said, it’s partly because of the generosity of the programme.
Paula: And I know it’s a 4% reward rate on that one because everyone talks about it.
Paula: But also, again, just because Boots, you know, certainly in Ireland was one of our biggest pharmacies as well.
Paula: I think it was just at the point of sale, there was such a great experience that every single person at the till would make sure they ask you about the Boots Advantage card.
Paula: So I know for you guys as an online operator, it’s probably harder to have that same experience.
Paula: But as you said, it’s going through every single transaction.
Paula: But I think it’s something that we talk about a lot again as loyalty professionals to say, okay, how often can we remind these customers that we genuinely want to care?
Paula: And as you said, the whole treasure positioning of TK Maxx, that sounds like a gorgeous programme and one I’ll definitely have to check out next time I’m in the UK.
Nicola: And in fact, the interesting that you mentioned Boots as well, because coming back to the app conversation, the Boots app on their Advantage card proposition is really a lot more generous than in store.
Nicola: So over and above the basic 4% earn, they do lots of coupons and lots of much more generous coupons, I find than the ones that you get just printed out as a sort of coupon until printed out when you’re in store.
Nicola: So I think again, they obviously have that element of rewarding customers that are much more engaged with the brand and doing that kind of app based up weighting of rewards.
Nicola: So I think they do that really well too.
Paula: Great.
Paula: Well, I’ve learned a lot, Nicky.
Paula: Now, I have to say, I certainly didn’t know that Boots did anything special in their app.
Paula: I knew Ebookers did because you told me about it already.
Paula: But I really do like the strategy that you guys are using for the Ebookers programme.
Paula: So I’ve certainly learned loads.
Paula: I think it’s a very exciting journey that you’re on.
Paula: Is there anything else that you wanted to mention before we wrap up the show?
Nicola: I think it’s just echoing the fact that it’s a sort of interesting time for loyalty.
Nicola: I think loyalty is something that we as professionals often think about in a very sort of transactional and commercial way because obviously we work in businesses where that’s part of it.
Nicola: And I think it will be really interesting over time with some of the new mechanics that are coming out.
Nicola: And I think obviously also with COVID and the way that kind of customer behavior is changing and customer lives are changing, I think it’s going to be interesting to see how different brands and different industries react to that and also how customers react to the part that loyalty plays in that.
Nicola: And I always feel that there’s sort of transaction, we talk a lot about emotional loyalty in the industry and you’ve got that kind of transactional loyalty, which is the very much functional carrot.
Nicola: And then you’ve got that kind of, is that customer a true lover of the brand, advocate of the brand?
Nicola: At what point does that kind of point of the self actualization that is, you know, somebody who is truly loyal to a brand who loves the brand.
Nicola: And I think that perhaps the way that a lot of brands respond in this current climate is possibly going to dictate what the kind of next generation of true brand loyalty looks like.
Paula: Absolutely, Nicky.
Paula: Well, I mean, I think you made the point really well earlier already.
Paula: You know, it’s not the first thing on people’s mind, given the pandemic that that is going on.
Paula: But it’s very important to be around for people need you.
Paula: And I think you’re only now going to start emerging and showing people exactly what ebookers is all about.
Paula: So, yeah, I just want to say it’s been super interesting and very fond memories for me, as I said, for 18 years ago from my ebookers days.
Paula: So just want to say, Nicola Helfet, thanks a million from Let’s Talk Loyalty.
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, both online and in workshops around the world through its Loyalty Academy, which has already certified over 150 executives in 18 countries as certified loyalty marketing professionals.
Paula: For more information, check out www.thewisemarketeer.com and www.loyaltyecademy.org.
Paula: Thanks so much for listening to this episode of Let’s Talk Loyalty.
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