Emirates Skywards Silver Jubilee - 25 Years Celebrating Emirates Loyalty Success (#717)

Dr. Nejib: Change management is so important.

Dr. Nejib: We do not deliver the program.

Dr. Nejib: Our touch points, people at the airport, on board, call center, they’re not part of Skywards as a team.

Dr. Nejib: They’re the ones who are, but they’re the ones who are critical to the experience that the members are going to be experiencing.

Dr. Nejib: How do we provide the best experience possible for our members?

Dr. Nejib: We need to be the custodian of that experience within the organization.

Dr. Nejib: We need to be the voice of the customer in the organization.

Dr. Nejib: Celebration is not just the exciting moments like that and taking them to a show, but it’s also recovering from disruption as well and helping them in moments of anxiety when they’re flying with their family, when they need all the support to make things happen.

Dr. Nejib: So being a customer advocate, being the voice of the customer, being the customer experience custodian, I think these are some of the basics that we sometimes need to go to.

Paula: Hello and welcome to Let’s Talk Loyalty and Loyalty TV, a show for Loyalty Marketing Professionals.

Paula: I’m Paula Thomas, the founder and CEO of Let’s Talk Loyalty and Loyalty TV, where we feature insightful conversations with loyalty professionals from the world’s leading brands.

Paula: If you work in loyalty marketing, join us every week to hear the latest ideas and insights for loyalty marketing specialists around the world.

Paula: Hello and welcome to Let’s Talk Loyalty and Loyalty TV.

Paula: Today is perhaps the most special and significant episode of our show for me personally.

Paula: Six years after I launched Let’s Talk Loyalty, I have personally hosted hundreds and hundreds of our podcasts.

Paula: So it’s time today for me to hang up my microphone and leave the hosting side of Let’s Talk Loyalty and Loyalty TV to our amazing global panel of Loyalty Marketing Professionals.

Paula: To celebrate the end of my hosting role, we’ve planned an extra special episode with the program where my love of Loyalty Marketing began, way back in the year 2000.

Paula: Today is also an incredibly special day for the Skywards program itself, which yesterday announced its silver jubilee celebrations, and an incredible 25 years of delighting Emirates passengers around the world.

Paula: For this special occasion, we’re also thrilled to be shooting on location for the first time ever.

Paula: So, as you will see, I’m sitting in Emirates Group Headquarters in Dubai, and I’m joined by Dr.

Paula: Nejib Ben Kheder, head of Emirates Skywards, who will share some of their strategies and successes over the last 25 years, as well as what lies ahead for this iconic programme.

Paula: I hope you enjoy my final episode as a host.

Paula: And don’t worry, I’m still here leading the show and the business to bring you even more loyalty marketing insights in both audio and video format in the months and years ahead.

Paula: From me, Paula Thomas, please enjoy my final episode as a host of our industry leading podcast and online TV channel.

Paula: Thanks to all of you for your loyalty to our content.

Paula: And I truly hope to stay in touch with all of you on LinkedIn and in person at loyalty conferences around the world.

Paula: Now on with today’s interview with Dr.

Paula: Nejib Ben Kheder from Emirates Skywards.

Paula: Dr.

Paula: Nejib, welcome back to Let’s Talk Loyalty, and for the first time, welcome to Loyalty TV.

Dr. Nejib: And Paula, welcome to our headquarters.

Dr. Nejib: So, very proud to be here on our 25th anniversary and sharing this moment with you.

Paula: It’s a very special moment.

Paula: I said it in the introduction.

Paula: Honestly, my love story with Loyalty started with Emirates Skywards, and here it is, the end of my hosting career, and it feels like we’re coming full circle.

Paula: So, thank you for letting us come on site.

Paula: Certainly very exciting for us.

Paula: There’s aircraft taking off in the background.

Paula: Yes, absolutely.

Dr. Nejib: Look at this, we made this all happen for you.

Paula: Amazing, totally thrilled.

Paula: Listen, we have an awful lot to talk about today, particularly your incredible milestone yesterday, 25 years, your silver jubilee.

Paula: Congratulations for 25 years of Emirates Skywards.

Paula: Let’s get into, I suppose, our conversation for our global audience.

Paula: As you know, we have a very special opening question, which we always ask you to prepare, and this is to give us a sense of you as a leader.

Paula: So we’d like to get an idea of what you like to read, anything non-fiction, and that has helped in your life, in your leadership style, or in your loyalty career.

Paula: So kick us off with the answer to the first question.

Paula: What do you love to read?

Dr. Nejib: Well, and thank you, thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk a little bit about my leadership.

Dr. Nejib: You know, I’ve always pride myself of being a transformation leader and taking on businesses.

Dr. Nejib: We loved about me being a loyalty imposter, obviously hasn’t coming into Skywards 10 years ago now, so I’m not an imposter anymore, hopefully.

Dr. Nejib: I know something about loyalty, and this is why I’m here to talk to you about it.

Dr. Nejib: But quickly on the books, and I was thinking about it just a few days ago, and then it struck me that actually there were three books, and I’m talking about the last 12 months alone.

Dr. Nejib: I’m avid actually reader of HBR, the Harvard Business Review, and a lot of my leadership got influenced somewhat by those readings.

Dr. Nejib: So I’m gonna take you back on a trip down the memory lane.

Dr. Nejib: So 2004, I read a paper on Blue Ocean Strategy, talks about how do you, it’s a growth strategy, and how do you take a business and look beyond the boundaries of the business.

Dr. Nejib: And Cirque du Soleil was one of the examples that they used in the book around the fusion of two businesses coming together and creating a new audience as well.

Dr. Nejib: So that paper was in 2004, and that shaped a lot my thinking around transformation.

Dr. Nejib: How do I take businesses, whether it was B2B in the days when I was with Sabre, or B2C when I ran Travelocity, or even B2C when I came here?

Dr. Nejib: And then if you think about Skywards and us taking the program from being a frequent flyer program into lifestyle program, some of that thinking and catering to a broader audience than we had at the time when we were in FFP, I think that a lot was shaped by that.

Dr. Nejib: Talking about 2004, but actually I reread the book.

Dr. Nejib: Not the, I mean, the white paper is where it all started, but I read the actual book, which was published, I think, in 2005, just a couple of months ago.

Dr. Nejib: And I have a copy here, Blue Ocean Strategy.

Dr. Nejib: So that’s my first book.

Dr. Nejib: The second one is about, really, in 2015, 16, I took the Skywards team on offsite and tried to, as we started the transformation, tried to build a little bit the character of the organization or the culture or the traits of the organization.

Dr. Nejib: And there were four words that came into mind in terms of how the Skywards mindset ought to be as we’re transforming the business.

Dr. Nejib: And that was resolve into having a clarity of purpose and trying to drive forward resilience.

Dr. Nejib: Because any airline would go through so much turmoil, but also actually loyalty programs as well.

Dr. Nejib: And how do we stay resilient, resourcefulness as well.

Dr. Nejib: As at the time we didn’t have a massive budget to work with, but we need to find a way to do things and to work with the rest of the organization to do it.

Dr. Nejib: And respect, because what makes Skywards successful is teaming within Skywards, but also the teaming outside Skywards as well.

Dr. Nejib: So respect is, and creating the trust is very important.

Dr. Nejib: And those traits are being inspired somewhat by a white paper that I read again in 2015 around leadership, driven by, as actually it was the Navy SEALs.

Paula: Oh, wow.

Dr. Nejib: And how leadership works for Navy SEALs.

Paula: Yes.

Dr. Nejib: And if you talk about resolve, resilience, resourcefulness and respect, this is part of what Navy SEALs do.

Dr. Nejib: And it happens that just a few weeks ago, I was talking to a friend who was going himself through a transformation and mentioned Navy SEALs, and he mentioned the book Extreme Ownership.

Dr. Nejib: And I didn’t know about the book.

Dr. Nejib: I’ve read the white paper, as I mentioned in 2015, that was published in HBR.

Dr. Nejib: And therefore, I went through the reading of the book.

Paula: More reading for you?

Dr. Nejib: Yeah, Extreme Ownership as well, and how US Navy SEALs lead and win.

Dr. Nejib: And it’s all about clarity of purpose and extreme ownership at all levels of the organization.

Dr. Nejib: And this was a validation of what we were doing.

Dr. Nejib: But since you mentioned I’ve been a long time as a leader, as you mentioned, so 35 years now in my professional journey, 10 of which Skywards.

Dr. Nejib: This summer, actually a few months even back, I started reflecting on my journey and thinking about…

Dr. Nejib: And I know you’re doing the same, you’re much younger than me.

Dr. Nejib: But reflecting on the journey and what’s that next stage of life is, the new purpose that we need to find in that, what they call the second stage of life.

Dr. Nejib: And this book is, I recommend it to anybody who’s going through the same reflective moments as I do.

Dr. Nejib: And it’s called From Strength to Strength.

Dr. Nejib: And it talks about coming out of your past as a strong leader and going into that second stage of life.

Dr. Nejib: And this is truly recommended.

Dr. Nejib: And it’s actually a recent book that’s been published.

Dr. Nejib: And it talks about finding success, happiness and deep purpose in the second half of life.

Dr. Nejib: So that’s from strength to strength.

Paula: Beautiful, beautiful.

Dr. Nejib: So here we go, three for the price of one, you ask it for one.

Paula: Totally.

Dr. Nejib: I couldn’t decide.

Dr. Nejib: I think they all influenced me, influenced my thinking a lot.

Dr. Nejib: But yeah, here we go.

Paula: And beautifully explained, like honestly, Nejib, for me, as you said, you know, it is a transformational moment.

Paula: So very inspired by your leadership and taking that time to step back and think about exactly what is important.

Paula: There’s so much in what you said, like I think we could do a full episode just on those books.

Paula: Because certainly from my team, for example, things like resolve and resilience that you’ve talked about and extreme ownership at every level of an organization.

Paula: Honestly, I couldn’t have said it better.

Paula: I think everybody looks to the leader to have all of the answers.

Paula: I’m always pushing my team.

Paula: I’m like, please come with your answers.

Paula: I want to know what you think rather than me.

Paula: I don’t have all the answers, you know, so lots to be reading.

Dr. Nejib: Absolutely.

Paula: Great.

Dr. Nejib: I invite you to do so.

Paula: Indeed.

Paula: Yeah.

Paula: And I think our audience knows, of course, that we do put links to all of those books in the show notes.

Paula: And we have a dedicated page on our website now as well.

Paula: We can link to the books.

Paula: So if anybody wants to look them up.

Paula: So that’s amazing.

Paula: So let’s get into talking a little bit then.

Paula: You mentioned a decade in Loyalty.

Paula: And you did confess that the first time you came on our show, you did feel like a bit of an imposter, which I was blown away by because I was intimidated going, this man is amazing.

Paula: So how does it feel to be a decade in Loyalty?

Dr. Nejib: Well, as I said, now I can get over this imposter syndrome and just say I know something about loyalty.

Dr. Nejib: Fascinating word for me.

Dr. Nejib: When I think talked a few years back, I was just talking about the fact that it’s an intersection of customer experience, data and digital.

Dr. Nejib: And these are all the areas where I feel very comfortable in.

Dr. Nejib: You know, as I said, worked in Travelocity where we had all this whole B2C engagement.

Dr. Nejib: I come from a technology background, so digital is important for me.

Dr. Nejib: And data as well, as you know, I’m a PhD in operations research and data is the foundational for me from an education perspective to start with.

Dr. Nejib: So loyalty brings these three together.

Dr. Nejib: And for me, it was truly, it’s been a ride that I’ve enjoyed.

Dr. Nejib: I’ve learned a lot from the team.

Dr. Nejib: And obviously, starting to contribute as well myself, with some ideas, etc.

Dr. Nejib: So, it’s also a fertile ground for innovation.

Dr. Nejib: So, as I said, it has been really anything but a very dull journey.

Paula: Okay, yes, I like that.

Paula: A fertile ground for innovation, actually.

Paula: It’s one of the values of our show.

Paula: As you know, it’s all about education and inspiration.

Paula: But always what I’m looking for is what innovation has been happening.

Paula: And I certainly want to talk to you about that specifically today.

Paula: So, you do have 25 years as a program.

Paula: And for anyone who doesn’t know, I was working in Emirates way back in that time.

Paula: That’s why I fell in love with loyalty.

Paula: And there have been so many evolutions, I suppose, strategic changes that you’ve made.

Paula: So I’d love to just ask you, you know, if you were to cherry pick a few things that you believe have driven the incredible milestone you just announced yesterday, 37 million members, the largest international airline loyalty program in the world outside of the US and China.

Paula: So incredible achievement.

Paula: So what would you point to as the key propositions that’s driving that success?

Dr. Nejib: Yeah, sure.

Dr. Nejib: I mean, we’re blessed to be part of Emirates and to be in Dubai.

Paula: Yes.

Dr. Nejib: Obviously, these two play a role as a magnet for people to join the program.

Dr. Nejib: So I would just say, you know, they made my job very easy.

Dr. Nejib: But and truly, you know, it’s the Emirates, the experience that people have that really connects them emotionally back to the airline.

Dr. Nejib: And therefore, the program is a way for us to materialize or, you know, for that connection that they have.

Dr. Nejib: Dubai plays also a big role and we’re becoming, you know, more and more like a loyalty currency for Dubai itself, rewarding both residents and telling from the traffic.

Dr. Nejib: You can most probably see that Dubai is growing as a city.

Dr. Nejib: A lot of people are now moving here.

Dr. Nejib: So, rewarding residents, but also rewarding visitors as well, because, you know, the Skywards currency itself is global by nature and therefore caters also to those visitors who are coming here as well, rewarding them for interacting with all the retailers, etc.

Dr. Nejib: here in Dubai.

Dr. Nejib: So, I would just say these two were, as I said, you know, components of the growth, if you will.

Dr. Nejib: But from a program perspective, Paula, you’ve been at the forefront when we started a few years back.

Dr. Nejib: So, 2000 was when we started the program.

Dr. Nejib: It was mostly a frequent flyer program.

Dr. Nejib: I would say up to 2015.

Dr. Nejib: So, that 15 years was mostly focusing on people who are flying, so they’re earning through flights and they’re burning mostly on flights.

Dr. Nejib: The change that we made in 2015 and going back to this Blue Ocean strategy in terms of catering to a new audience, because at the time, basically, we were catering the top 3% of our membership.

Dr. Nejib: Mostly the premium members who can collect miles through flying, etc.

Dr. Nejib: As you know, we’re an international carrier.

Dr. Nejib: We have a lot of infrequent travelers as well.

Dr. Nejib: For whom the program was not very attractive, if we will.

Dr. Nejib: So, all that long tail of people who are flying with us once a year, once every other year, we’re not talking about the Dubai residents, we’re obviously talking about people in the UK, in the US, etc.

Dr. Nejib: And you know, our larger space is actually in the UK now, hovering around 5 million members, and US is around 4 million members.

Dr. Nejib: I mean, here in UAE, we have 2.3 million members.

Dr. Nejib: So, just tell you that we’re really by design and international, and that’s again, at the image of the airline itself.

Dr. Nejib: So, how do we become relevant to all these members and stay connected to them throughout?

Dr. Nejib: We expanded a lot our partnership ecosystem, and our relevance came through our partners mostly, and in particular, our everyday partners.

Dr. Nejib: And it’s not just the credit cards that we have in certain strategic markets, but it’s also your retailers and et cetera.

Dr. Nejib: So, in the UK, the Bister Village, for example, here, thousands of retailers that we have on programs like Skywards Every Day, et cetera.

Dr. Nejib: In the US, we have Skywards Miles Mall.

Dr. Nejib: We have that actually in five strategic countries where people can just interact with e-commerce retailers and earn and burn miles as well.

Dr. Nejib: You know, in the US with the likes of Macy’s, with Bloomingdale’s, with all the big retailers.

Dr. Nejib: So the ecosystem of partners have grown tremendously and that had made us relevant.

Dr. Nejib: So we’ve democratized the earn somewhat by allowing people to earn more, but we also democratized the burn.

Dr. Nejib: So we introduced around 2015, 2016, cash plus miles as well, as a way for people to, from the first mile they earn, they can actually redeem it to get a discount, quote unquote, on a ticket.

Dr. Nejib: And that has grown in popularity, and we just say 25% of the burn transactions today are actually cash plus miles, which allows you access to any flights, any cabin, any day.

Paula: Amazing.

Dr. Nejib: Yeah, so that made it also attractive for people from a burn perspective, and therefore people who have less than 10,000 miles, and a lot of people who have less than that, can actually use that 10,000 miles and convert them to, you know, around $100 to just get the discount on a ticket.

Dr. Nejib: We have a lot of people who actually interact with the program, as I meant 25% of the burn transactions are cash plus miles transactions.

Paula: Amazing.

Paula: And I love that because, you know, we’ve often talked about the 80-20 rule in business and in marketing, but you’re saying 97% versus 3% in terms of the relevance way back then.

Paula: And I confess actually, because when I was looking back, I joined Skywards or rejoined, let’s say, in 2014.

Paula: I was still living in Ireland at the time.

Paula: So to your point, I didn’t really have enough opportunity to engage with Skywards.

Paula: And then I started to fly back to Dubai and I was like, you know what, I really need to get at least something for this travel.

Paula: But I wasn’t really fully engaged and then this morning actually, I got your amazing email, again, celebrating the Silver Jubilee and I was told, talk about personalization, I have personally earned over a million Skywards miles.

Dr. Nejib: Congratulations for being a Skywards millionaire.

Paula: Thank you.

Paula: But I’ve also redeemed 95 percent of them.

Paula: So there you go.

Paula: The relevance is there.

Paula: I’m definitely not a premium traveler, still in economy most of the time, of course, aspiring to all of the upper classes.

Dr. Nejib: Hopefully a few upgrades.

Paula: Along the way.

Dr. Nejib: Yes.

Paula: I have absolutely.

Paula: I have absolutely had upgrades.

Dr. Nejib: That is the most sought after redemption as well.

Dr. Nejib: Even in terms of miles redeemed, 40 percent of the miles redeemed are on upgrades.

Paula: Are they?

Paula: Honestly, yes.

Dr. Nejib: We do one upgrade a minute.

Paula: Oh my God.

Dr. Nejib: Yes.

Paula: That’s incredible.

Paula: My husband’s traveling next week.

Paula: I set the auto upgrade for him.

Paula: So we’re really hoping, again, the flights are packed.

Dr. Nejib: You know, I know, I know.

Dr. Nejib: But, you know, the nice thing about about our policy is that we allow upgrades up to being on board.

Dr. Nejib: You could do it at check-in.

Dr. Nejib: You could do it on board.

Dr. Nejib: So if there’s a seat available, you know, you’ll get it for our members.

Dr. Nejib: Yes.

Paula: Amazing.

Paula: Talk to you about the mindset.

Paula: You were, you know, telling me before, you know, we got here today that you’re proudly an old fashioned loyalty program.

Paula: And I thought for, again, our global audience, this is a really important principle.

Paula: I think a lot of people who watch our show are under commercial pressure to deliver bottom line revenue from the P&L, the loyalty P&L.

Paula: And you’ve been able to maintain, I suppose, your positioning and your focus as a business tool, first and foremost dedicated to the members, and seemingly also deliver the P&L piece.

Paula: I mean, I don’t know the details, but talk to us about the mindset of the program.

Dr. Nejib: It’s all about striking the right balance.

Dr. Nejib: But first of all, I mean, in my ultimate respects for all these programs also have set up their own P&Ls and they’re demonstrating value back to their mother organizations, to the airlines as well, in terms of how much they’re contributing.

Dr. Nejib: Some of these programs even valued more than the airlines themselves, as you know, in the US.

Dr. Nejib: So I said, again, I’m very respectful of their positioning, what they’re doing, et cetera, and how they’re contributing to their mother airlines.

Dr. Nejib: Again, blessed here to be part of an airline that has had been profitable throughout its journey.

Dr. Nejib: We’re also celebrating the 40th anniversary of Emirates, except for the COVID years.

Dr. Nejib: The airline has been extremely profitable, and we had the record profit last year as well, and double digit margins, which is sometimes something that is very difficult, as you know, for airlines to perform at that level.

Dr. Nejib: So, we don’t have that commercial pressure.

Dr. Nejib: The pressure that comes to us is to really create a level of engagement with members, creating the connections so that we can…

Dr. Nejib: I mean, it’s a very competitive world out there, despite our products being very superior, but continue, the loyalty program plays a big role.

Dr. Nejib: It’s the third most important factor in people choosing Emirates.

Dr. Nejib: It’s important for us to just create a loyalty program that gets people to fly, that gets people to have Emirates on top of their mind when thinking about traveling.

Dr. Nejib: And again, I’m not talking about the audience here that sees Emirates around, and then they’re pretty loyal, maybe sometimes by nature.

Dr. Nejib: We’re talking about the global audience that we’re catering to.

Dr. Nejib: Our members come from 190 countries.

Dr. Nejib: So we’ve got to be able to create that connections with all the members, including the infrequent travelers that fly with us once a year, once every two years on a long haul.

Dr. Nejib: We need to be top of mind that the program plays that role.

Dr. Nejib: So the KPIs, I don’t know, you love having me talk about KPIs.

Paula: Always.

Dr. Nejib: That we’re really driving to is our contribution to the commercial revenue.

Dr. Nejib: So how much do the members contribute in terms of the total commercial revenue?

Dr. Nejib: 54%.

Paula: Wow.

Dr. Nejib: So that’s pretty incredible.

Dr. Nejib: So it just tells you the connections that we have between the commercial and what we’re doing.

Dr. Nejib: If you go online, it’s 63%.

Paula: Wow.

Dr. Nejib: Yeah.

Dr. Nejib: So a lot of people who interact with us online are actually, you know, Skywards members.

Dr. Nejib: So that’s, and our members contribute to yield that is 66% higher than non-members.

Dr. Nejib: Again, those are important stats.

Dr. Nejib: I mean, the other one that we look at, and I know we proud ourselves for being the largest, 37 million members, 190 countries, but truly, what we go, what we look for is the level of engagement that we have.

Dr. Nejib: How many active members that we have, and that become our obsession in the past two, three years.

Dr. Nejib: And we have targets set, you know, specific targets to the team.

Dr. Nejib: So today, really, the engagement is growing twice as much as the acquisition itself.

Paula: Wow.

Dr. Nejib: Now, from acquisition, just maybe one start on the acquisition side.

Dr. Nejib: In the first year of the program, we had 76,000 members joined the program.

Paula: Okay.

Dr. Nejib: That’s what we do now in one week.

Paula: Wow.

Dr. Nejib: So we have about 78,000 a week.

Paula: Yeah.

Dr. Nejib: So we actually have seven to eight members a minute joining the program.

Dr. Nejib: So that’s the rate at which, but I think, you know, our job is to ensure that first, they’re engaged with the program, active, staying active.

Dr. Nejib: And second, that they’re engaged with the airline as well, and driving the commercial revenue for the airline.

Dr. Nejib: So I would say, you know, like, of course, we have, as I said, a very, very rich ecosystem of partners.

Dr. Nejib: And we get paid good money from these partners.

Paula: Yes.

Dr. Nejib: These monies support us getting the inventory from our revenue optimization colleagues so that you get the upgrades, you get the, you know, you get the classic rewards as well.

Dr. Nejib: I mean, to your point earlier, you mentioned you’re one million milers, but, you know, you’ve you’ve you’ve redeemed 95% of it.

Dr. Nejib: I’m pretty sure the 95% were probably on flights, upgrades and classic rewards.

Paula: Yeah.

Dr. Nejib: And that is the case.

Dr. Nejib: So we continue to have 90% of the redemption is on flights between cash plus miles, classic upgrades, classic rewards and upgrades.

Dr. Nejib: By the way, on classic, you know, we’re the loyalty program of both Fly Dubai and Emirates.

Dr. Nejib: And we just launched classic rewards on Fly Dubai.

Dr. Nejib: And we’re hoping to have upgrades also come into the mix.

Dr. Nejib: As you know, Fly Dubai has also now a very nice business cabin as well.

Dr. Nejib: And we have a lot of members who fly on Fly Dubai that would love to have that opportunity to upgrade as well.

Dr. Nejib: So that is in the works as well.

Dr. Nejib: Emirates and Fly Dubai coming together, more than 200 destinations.

Paula: Unbelievable.

Dr. Nejib: So it offers the world.

Dr. Nejib: And if you include all our airline partners, and we know we’re very picky sometimes to work with certain partners, we’re not in an alliance ourselves.

Dr. Nejib: We have, I think we cater, we provide access to 1,400 destinations.

Paula: Wow.

Paula: Perfect, perfect.

Dr. Nejib: So that’s part of staying relevant, etc.

Dr. Nejib: But again, the obsession is around engagement, around commercial engagement, and around being top of mind with our members, creating that emotional connection.

Dr. Nejib: And then, you know, the partnership money is for us to be flown through so that we can support members getting into these flights and into these rewards much faster.

Dr. Nejib: Again, democratizing the earn and allowing people to have access to a reward.

Dr. Nejib: You know, in loyalty, the moment of truth is truly the reward moment.

Paula: Absolutely.

Dr. Nejib: And you’ve got to make that happen.

Paula: Every time.

Dr. Nejib: One more stat for you.

Paula: Okay, go.

Dr. Nejib: I know you love this.

Dr. Nejib: Please.

Dr. Nejib: So today, 50% of the miles are earned non-flights.

Paula: Really?

Dr. Nejib: 50%.

Dr. Nejib: When we started again, you know, 25 years ago, there was not even have that opportunity.

Dr. Nejib: But today, 50%.

Dr. Nejib: One more stat is 66% of the miles for upgrades come from non-flights.

Paula: Wow.

Dr. Nejib: And 85% for classic rewards.

Paula: My goodness.

Dr. Nejib: So the program has changed totally from as it’s catering to the 2-3% into catering to a much broader audience that collects their miles through other means.

Dr. Nejib: But we need to make sure that we’re obviously commercially viable and that we can get this inventory from our revenue management colleagues by also getting the right amount paid for by the partners, et cetera.

Dr. Nejib: But again, this, it allows to just create that flywheel of loyalty to get it to spin faster.

Paula: Yes.

Dr. Nejib: So what used to be, you know, you get one reward every 2-3 years, you’re getting the reward every year, that creates the loyalty.

Dr. Nejib: And we go like that.

Dr. Nejib: So that’s really the purpose of us having all these partners that we’re creating, its relevance, and it’s also helping members to get to the reward faster.

Paula: Absolutely.

Dr. Nejib: I’m too talkative.

Paula: No, I love it.

Paula: Absolutely.

Paula: No, genuinely, Nejib, I mean, for me, flywheel is one of the most powerful words in our industry.

Paula: Somebody else, I remember, used it once before, and it really did focus my mind.

Paula: To your point about resolve earlier, if we can get the flywheel moving, absolutely, the momentum just builds.

Paula: And that’s what I feel like.

Paula: That’s what’s happening.

Dr. Nejib: That’s what I call the moment of truth.

Dr. Nejib: The moment of truth.

Paula: Absolutely.

Paula: And as you said, if I’m traveling four times a year and I can get my cash plus miles, there’s four redemption opportunities.

Paula: So even if I don’t really focus too much on, oh, how much is this one costing me?

Paula: It doesn’t really matter.

Paula: I’m getting the value.

Paula: I feel like it’s for free.

Paula: So off I go and build our emotional loyalty.

Paula: Honestly, we’re very easily pleased.

Dr. Nejib: We have other ways to do emotional loyalty, but we’ll get to them maybe later on that we’re very proud of as well.

Paula: Okay.

Paula: Yes.

Paula: Yeah.

Paula: Talk to us about that, actually.

Paula: I know you’re very proud of the experiences.

Dr. Nejib: Absolutely.

Dr. Nejib: Absolutely.

Dr. Nejib: And we’ve done 48 events in collaboration with our corporate communication.

Dr. Nejib: You know, we have a big portfolio of sponsorships that allows us to have access to certain experiences, whether in sports or in culture.

Dr. Nejib: So those 50 miles have been, 50 million miles were redeemed on Skywards exclusives, which provides you with access to some of these events through either, you know, just one normal price or base price that you pay, or through a bidding mechanism.

Dr. Nejib: Yeah, the bidding mechanism is very interesting.

Dr. Nejib: It’s actually in one of the infographics that we have released yesterday for the 25th anniversary.

Dr. Nejib: The largest bid came for the US.

Dr. Nejib: Open this year.

Dr. Nejib: And what a final that was, you know, with Sinner and Alcaraz.

Dr. Nejib: So it was worth the 745,000 miles that one member in the US.

Paula: Oh my goodness.

Dr. Nejib: One premium member in the US redeemed for two seats for the finals.

Paula: Wow, my goodness.

Dr. Nejib: He’s happy, we’re happy.

Dr. Nejib: And you create that emotional loyalty because, you know, those tickets were hard to get.

Paula: Yeah, for sure.

Dr. Nejib: And of course, there was a big price on them.

Dr. Nejib: But we’ve and also we offer these members also when they’re going to this type of events, you know, access to the VIP treatment, access to our hospitality suite, which is like none.

Dr. Nejib: And so, yeah, all of that works very well.

Dr. Nejib: So I said 48 events.

Dr. Nejib: How about we’re doubling that this year?

Dr. Nejib: Because we’ve signed with, you know, with Coca Cola Arena here in Dubai.

Paula: Fantastic.

Dr. Nejib: So we have, you know, nearly 50 events that we will have members in our own hospitality suite, you know, custom hospitality suite with, again, food and drinks and et cetera.

Dr. Nejib: But, you know, cozy, you know, watching.

Dr. Nejib: In a couple of weeks, Russell, I think Russell Peters is coming, for example, one of my favorite comedians.

Dr. Nejib: So it’s going to be there.

Dr. Nejib: So we have this, you know, people can redeem opportunities.

Dr. Nejib: It’s actually about every week there’s an event, a sports event as well.

Dr. Nejib: I think they have basketball tournaments.

Dr. Nejib: They have comedians coming in with Dubai Comedy Week, I think, and there’s others, of course.

Dr. Nejib: And it caters to a lot of, you know, and we’re so diverse here in Dubai, so it caters to everybody.

Dr. Nejib: You know, we’ve got Bollywood present here with that deeper police coming as well for, you know, the nostalgic people like us.

Paula: Yes, I know, Air Supply, one of my favorite bands coming in January.

Dr. Nejib: Yeah, so it’s, yeah, so the Coca Cola Arena is playing actually a good, good role for us to engage with people nearly on a, on a weekly basis now.

Paula: Yeah.

Dr. Nejib: Yeah, so.

Paula: Okay.

Paula: Wow.

Paula: So much going on.

Paula: You’re a busy, busy man.

Paula: And I know this year actually you’ve had an even bigger priority as well, which is very much behind the scenes.

Paula: But again, very interesting for our global audience.

Paula: The actual technology that underpins a program, of this scale, and you’ve just swapped and changed and replaced and transformed it.

Paula: So first of all, congratulations in getting that job done.

Dr. Nejib: Thank you.

Paula: Given that there’s a lot of our audience, we’ll have to think about going through a project like that at some point.

Paula: I don’t know when, but what advice would you give to people if they are running a successful program again, building the proposition all of the time, but in the back of their mind, they know our technology probably needs an upgrade.

Paula: So what would you say to them?

Dr. Nejib: First of all, you wouldn’t have seen the smile on my face in June.

Dr. Nejib: There was a lot of anxiety.

Paula: I’m sure.

Dr. Nejib: But I had a very strong team that I could rely on for this implementation.

Dr. Nejib: By the way, it was the release one.

Dr. Nejib: We have a release two coming maybe in a couple of years.

Dr. Nejib: We’re working on that, multiple drops.

Dr. Nejib: So it’s not going to be a big bang as well.

Dr. Nejib: We’ve decided to just go and just do it in multiple phases, bringing new functionality.

Dr. Nejib: We’re right now running two platforms at the same time.

Dr. Nejib: So this syncing is very critical and that’s one of the things we’ve tested very thoroughly.

Dr. Nejib: So truly, I’ll tell you, the success of it is collaboration.

Dr. Nejib: Whether it is with the partner that we’ve chosen, IBS, or with our internal IT.

Dr. Nejib: It helps that I came from IT.

Dr. Nejib: I was even CIO at the same time as I was at Skywards for a couple of years.

Dr. Nejib: So I’m the only one to blame by the way, because we signed the deal at the time as I was CIO.

Dr. Nejib: So that’s extreme collaboration.

Dr. Nejib: And I’m not, somebody has to take it seriously, truly, because if the business is not 100% engaged and driving this, IT relaxes sometimes.

Dr. Nejib: They have different priorities that are coming their way.

Dr. Nejib: So you’ve got to be there day in, day out, showing why you’re doing it, why it is important for the business, why it is a very important enabler.

Dr. Nejib: Technology is in our day or age, in our days, is extremely important as an enabler for the business, especially if we talk about being digital.

Dr. Nejib: You’ve got to have that technology working for you.

Dr. Nejib: And to bring the level of agility that we need, I mean, Chris, our old system, 25-year-old legacy system, has served us very well.

Dr. Nejib: But we grew to a point where we tripled in size in the last 10 years, that it couldn’t take anymore, I think, the growth that we were witnessing, both in terms of members, but also in terms of partners.

Paula: Okay.

Dr. Nejib: You know, with Chris, it would take us 12 to 18 months to onboard a partner.

Paula: Oh, my goodness.

Dr. Nejib: Because of all the integrations, etc.

Dr. Nejib: With the new system, we’re hoping that that will translate into becoming more like 12 weeks, 12 to 18 weeks for us to be able to bring a partner on board.

Dr. Nejib: So that level of agility that we need is important.

Dr. Nejib: But again, the success of that first release, which some execs were just asking me, because there were no glitches that I was hiding something.

Paula: Yeah.

Dr. Nejib: I’m sure you have instant devised your members so that they cannot speak up.

Dr. Nejib: No, everything went well.

Dr. Nejib: Why?

Dr. Nejib: Because you’re also thoroughly testing.

Dr. Nejib: I mean, the whole planning and execution going back to Navy Seals is this whole planning, precise execution.

Dr. Nejib: So you just, precise execution.

Dr. Nejib: You have also, I would just have to tell you, because this is so important for us, change management is so important.

Dr. Nejib: I’ll tell you why.

Dr. Nejib: Because we do not deliver the program.

Dr. Nejib: Our touch points, people at the airport, on board, call center, they’re not part of Skywards as a team.

Dr. Nejib: They’re the ones who are, but they’re the ones who are critical to the experience that the members are going to be experiencing.

Dr. Nejib: So it is very important for us to have them also part of this.

Dr. Nejib: And we’re talking about 17,000 touch points that had to be trained on the new system.

Dr. Nejib: So the whole micromanagement, the macro learning that we’ve created, et cetera, to manage this whole transition, was extremely important.

Dr. Nejib: So change management is important.

Dr. Nejib: Extreme collaboration is important.

Dr. Nejib: And precision, what I call precision execution and thorough planning as well.

Dr. Nejib: So those three ingredients are very important.

Paula: Amazing.

Paula: I guess it goes back to your extreme ownership and that idea and a credit card.

Dr. Nejib: But across, extreme ownership in this case, Skywards, IT and then our partners, IBS as well.

Dr. Nejib: I forgot one other element.

Dr. Nejib: We also had all the partners lined up to move from the old system to the new system.

Dr. Nejib: And just imagine bringing all these partners within a three or four weeks, I think, timeline.

Dr. Nejib: So that also had to be done in precision and everybody had to collaborate with us.

Dr. Nejib: So driving all of that is again planning, planning, planning, execution, execution, execution.

Paula: Absolutely.

Paula: And you have thousands of partners as you said.

Dr. Nejib: So, yeah, not an easy task.

Paula: Not to be underestimated.

Paula: Absolutely.

Dr. Nejib: Much more relaxed now.

Paula: I can see that.

Paula: I remember a couple of conversations earlier in the year and it was always, yeah, no, we have a transformation.

Paula: Let’s just wait.

Paula: So and I’ve never had to lead an RFP.

Paula: I’ve never had to lead the technology side of a program, either in terms of securing one for the first time, choosing it or replacing it.

Paula: So again, thank goodness.

Paula: As you said, you’re here relaxed, comfortable.

Dr. Nejib: It’s an open heart surgery.

Dr. Nejib: I’m just telling you.

Dr. Nejib: I’ve done so many of them when I was in technology myself, but I’ll just tell you, this is the mother of all.

Paula: It is.

Dr. Nejib: On the loyalty simply because it has so many touch points.

Paula: Yes.

Dr. Nejib: And it can actually destroy your whole experience with your members, right?

Dr. Nejib: We could not afford having people going to the airport, not being able to get their upgrades.

Dr. Nejib: So all of these things were worked out.

Dr. Nejib: We had manual processes as work around processes that are prepared.

Dr. Nejib: You had people trained at check-in and yeah, knock on wood.

Dr. Nejib: Hopefully, the release too is going to work out.

Paula: All good.

Paula: I have no doubt at all.

Paula: So listen, the other point about technology, of course, the topic of the moment is AI.

Dr. Nejib: Yeah, we had to.

Paula: We have to.

Paula: It would be remiss if I didn’t ask you about it.

Paula: So again, I’m a non-techie.

Paula: Some of my team are brilliant using the Chachi BT and all of the different tools that I suppose some of us are familiar with.

Paula: But as a loyalty program, can you talk to us about any use cases you already have with AI, or anything you’re perhaps excited about?

Paula: What are you doing from an AI perspective?

Dr. Nejib: So AI for us, it will serve the purpose of this hyper-personalization we want to get to.

Dr. Nejib: At some point of time, right?

Dr. Nejib: And we started personalization in an earlier show with Amanda as well.

Dr. Nejib: We talked about the personalization we’re working on, on the statements, for example, that Skywards has.

Dr. Nejib: We have 10,000 versions that are used.

Dr. Nejib: So we have a lot of personalization.

Dr. Nejib: You’ve seen part of it through the email yesterday for the 25th anniversary.

Dr. Nejib: So we’re doing that.

Dr. Nejib: And by the way, personalization is for us at this point of time, is delivering 3X in terms of engagement, whether it’s click-through rates or open rates.

Dr. Nejib: So it’s doing what it’s supposed to do.

Dr. Nejib: If I go to the next level of the one-to-one hyper personalization, we’re not talking about 10,000 versions anymore.

Dr. Nejib: We’re talking about an infinite number based on who you are, your interaction with us, and et cetera.

Dr. Nejib: And we believe AI can play a big role in terms of continuing to take that personalization to the next level as well.

Dr. Nejib: But today, and I would just say that we’re a bit cautious in terms of jumping on the bandwagon and starting to use the tools that are available out there.

Dr. Nejib: So it’s more of a watch and see for us, but I wouldn’t say totally a watch and see because we’re doing certain things.

Dr. Nejib: And we decided to go more B2B or B2E first before we go B2C as in using AI to face directly the customers.

Dr. Nejib: So call center, check-in agents, I’ve talked about the program and how it tripled in size and changed totally with its large ecosystem of partners we’re bringing in.

Dr. Nejib: But also products and innovation that we’re bringing in, Skywards Plus, Skywards Exclusives, a number of things that we’re bringing.

Dr. Nejib: Nobody can really keep up, even I cannot keep up sometimes, with everything we have.

Dr. Nejib: Campaigns, offers that we have at any point of time, etc.

Dr. Nejib: where people are calling the call center, etc.

Dr. Nejib: How about working on a tool that will help our call center agents, our check-in agents to navigate this maze and understand based on your question to them, and them diving into the information that’s available in a very conversational way, so not a techie way, for them to just put a question in and to get an answer with a high level of reliability that they can also help them interact with the customer as well and answer their queries or requests.

Dr. Nejib: So that’s the one proof of concept we’re working on.

Dr. Nejib: We’re very close in to releasing something to support our agents, both at the airport and the retail centers and at the contact center as well.

Paula: Wow.

Dr. Nejib: Taking that one step, once that works out, let’s say, and delivers the reliability that we need as well.

Dr. Nejib: Because you’ve heard about sometimes these generative AI tools being delusional.

Dr. Nejib: Totally.

Dr. Nejib: And you cannot really afford having that when you’re interacting with your customers.

Dr. Nejib: So when we get to that level of reliability, you could use the same concept and say, Paula, for example, you’ve got, I don’t know, in your kitty today, 20,000 miles, 30,000 miles, and then you’re aspiring to, you want to book your next trip to Dublin, this time of the year, etc.

Dr. Nejib: It can just go and come back to you and say, if you’re doing it in the next six months, this is what we recommend you should be doing, to get the extra miles that you need, etc.

Dr. Nejib: Where you interact with Skywards every day, get to co-brand, use this co-brand on certain, you know, spend, etc.

Dr. Nejib: So helping you maybe, you know, build your journey towards the, you know, that reward.

Dr. Nejib: So, yeah, so that’s, that’s, that’s an, again, conversational AI, you just go, you ask the question, it comes back with some recommendation, you ask it again and say, oh, maybe I’m not interested in this, find something else for me, etc.

Dr. Nejib: And it would have all the information from a Skywards perspective, but it would be able to think like a person and then come back to you with some recommendations as well.

Dr. Nejib: So, the more we’re getting, you know, the program, you know, sometimes they say the program’s getting complex, actually it’s getting richer.

Dr. Nejib: It’s just gonna provide you with more opportunities, but how do you, as a member, keep up with that?

Dr. Nejib: Yeah.

Dr. Nejib: So, yeah, so those are some of the uses, use cases that we will look at.

Dr. Nejib: And then we’re not very far from making them happen.

Dr. Nejib: But as I said, we’re cautious around a couple of things.

Dr. Nejib: One, the reliability and two, using the data as well.

Paula: Yeah, absolutely.

Dr. Nejib: And so how do we contain also the use of this data and how do we protect the privacy of our members as well?

Paula: Of course, absolutely.

Paula: And I love that use case, particularly Nejib, you know, the idea that one thing, how do I need to behave in order to earn to get to the threshold?

Paula: But also, what is the most affordable way to burn?

Paula: So if I do want to go to Dublin, and we know there’s always some flights busy and some are not, from an infantry management perspective, guide Paula saying, you know, there’s a great flight a few days earlier, instead of me going through all of the searches and whatever.

Paula: So loads going on there.

Dr. Nejib: It’s easing up that friction and it’s, you know, making it easier for you to interact with us.

Paula: Earn and burn.

Paula: Amazing.

Paula: So we’ve been through an awful lot, Nejib.

Paula: 25 years, as we said so far.

Paula: Again, congratulations.

Paula: Can’t wait to see the silver livery on the aircraft.

Dr. Nejib: Yes.

Paula: Yes, that’s going to be coming out, I think, quite soon.

Dr. Nejib: Yeah, that’s a moment for all of us and a pride, a moment of pride, I think, for all the Skywards, but also all our support teams, again, corporate communication, we worked extremely hard in putting that whole livery together, you know, our engineering team, it’s entering shortly the shops there for the painting to happen.

Dr. Nejib: So hopefully by the end of October, we’ll get it out.

Dr. Nejib: We have a sneak preview of it in the social media.

Dr. Nejib: So we’re all very excited.

Dr. Nejib: I think it’s again a moment of pride for all of us.

Dr. Nejib: The first time Skywards is going to be on our planes flying the globe.

Dr. Nejib: So I think it’s a tribute to all the hard work that the team has put together.

Paula: Amazing.

Paula: So I guess the only final question then, Nejib, is what do you think the future holds?

Paula: What are you excited about for Skywards for the next 25 years?

Dr. Nejib: Well, hopefully we will not wait another 25 years to get some of these maybe concepts that we have in mind would have been in the pipeline for us.

Dr. Nejib: For some time.

Dr. Nejib: Again, I talked about hyper personalization.

Dr. Nejib: We’re going to be working harder on being even more relevant in our strategic market, US, UK.

Dr. Nejib: You’ll see some announcements coming in the UK shortly.

Dr. Nejib: It’s our largest base again, nearly five million members.

Dr. Nejib: So those will continue.

Dr. Nejib: By the way, we’ll also get into other modes of transportations as well that are relevant to our members worldwide.

Dr. Nejib: So you’ll see new partnerships coming in, enhancements on the products like Skywards Plus.

Dr. Nejib: But you could think these are incremental in nature, okay?

Dr. Nejib: When that’s part of the BAU and the business as usual, you know, how the program continues to stay relevant and et cetera.

Dr. Nejib: And the team is working hard on some of these.

Dr. Nejib: And as I said, the technology is going to allow us to be much more agile in terms of doing more of this as we go.

Dr. Nejib: But there are a couple of things that truly have been an obsession of mine and hopefully we’ll be able to see this happen in my lifetime.

Dr. Nejib: Yeah, so my new purpose in my second stage of life.

Dr. Nejib: But it’s this concept which we have implemented for platinum, but we were wanting to implement for silver and gold.

Dr. Nejib: You know, I said that we democratize the program.

Dr. Nejib: That’s true.

Dr. Nejib: We democratize the program as in earn and burn.

Dr. Nejib: We allow people to earn more and obviously to burn much faster and to getting the flywheel of loyalty to turn very quickly.

Dr. Nejib: However, we kept the program pretty exclusive when it came to tier and status.

Dr. Nejib: And the reality is that we don’t want to overwhelm our touch points and operational touch point.

Dr. Nejib: And also we want to create an experience that’s exclusive in nature for those status.

Dr. Nejib: So, you know, we still have a very small, even about 2% of our members are actually premium members.

Dr. Nejib: And we’re maintaining that steady.

Dr. Nejib: We’ll probably relax that a little bit once we move from DXP to DWC, where we have more ample, you know, square footage of lounges and et cetera, where we can cater to more members.

Dr. Nejib: But right now, we’re keeping this at a manageable level.

Paula: Sure.

Dr. Nejib: But you think of status, status is very static and has always been for loyalty programs for decades.

Dr. Nejib: Like it’s, you know, silver 25,000 miles for us, tier miles, you know, 50,000 for gold, 150,000 for platinum.

Paula: Yeah.

Dr. Nejib: Between 25 and 50, there’s a continuum of things that can happen.

Dr. Nejib: Between 50 and 150, even more continue to happen.

Dr. Nejib: So people don’t feel they’re stuck.

Dr. Nejib: And once they, you know, they get that, like there is no way for them to get an aspire for the rest.

Dr. Nejib: Yeah.

Dr. Nejib: It’s for us, you’re creating that continuum.

Dr. Nejib: And how do we unlock benefits that are somewhat a la carte?

Paula: Okay.

Dr. Nejib: Because baggage allowance means something to you.

Dr. Nejib: It doesn’t mean something to somebody who’s traveling, you know, very light and et cetera, you know.

Dr. Nejib: Lounge access may mean something to you.

Dr. Nejib: It doesn’t mean so much for another person.

Dr. Nejib: How do we create that continuum where you unlock benefits in the form of discounted upgrades or, you know, lounge access or baggage allowance between these tiers?

Dr. Nejib: And even between blue and silver.

Paula: Yeah.

Dr. Nejib: So you don’t have, and not only unlock benefits, but unlock benefits that are useful to you.

Dr. Nejib: Technology needs to obviously allow that and your touch points need to be able to fulfill that.

Dr. Nejib: So, I don’t know if you heard about the airlines, most of the airlines moving into the new way of, new reservation systems and talking about this modern airline retaining, which is really a concept that we’ve inherited.

Dr. Nejib: The airlines, by the way, used to lead the way in a lot of these concepts, revenue management, this, that.

Dr. Nejib: And now retailers are somewhat leading the concepts and the e-retailers in particular.

Dr. Nejib: So your e-commerce like Amazons of the world, et cetera.

Dr. Nejib: So this modern airline retaining is about you packaging your own things, you know, just whether it’s a holiday or a flight, a seat, a baggage allowance and et cetera.

Dr. Nejib: In that same category, you know, the, we think, and it’s a personalized package that we put the basket and then we price that basket.

Dr. Nejib: The same way we should be thinking about the loyalty as well, as we go.

Dr. Nejib: Because higher level of personalization, making benefits that are a la carte, and creating a continuum of benefits between tiers.

Dr. Nejib: So, easier said than done.

Dr. Nejib: It’s been, as I said, an obsession.

Dr. Nejib: It’s been on my plan for like seven, eight years now.

Dr. Nejib: Hopefully the technology is going to help us do that.

Dr. Nejib: So we’re thinking next two years, where we unlock this release too, with the iLoyalty IBS platform, we will be able to do more of this as we go forward.

Dr. Nejib: And also working with the airline on this modern airline retaining platform, we will be able also to personalize the things like pricing and et cetera, working with our members.

Paula: Amazing.

Paula: Super inspiring.

Paula: I mean, I’m at Silver, I think I said to you, working my way towards gold, so anything I can do along the way.

Paula: Honestly, it is.

Paula: It’s something that I behave differently, you know?

Paula: I remember thinking of myself, it’s a terrible word, but when I joined Emirates 25 years ago, and I got my first co-brand card, I remember thinking, I feel like a loyalty junkie.

Paula: And honestly, it’s like, I just want all of these benefits now, so I’m fully, fully on board.

Paula: So listen, that’s all of my questions for today, Nejib.

Paula: I just wanted to ask if you have any final words of wisdom, any final thoughts or comments.

Paula: We’ll definitely be having you back on the show, again, with our global hosts, of course.

Dr. Nejib: Hopefully I’ll have more to say.

Paula: You always have so much to say.

Paula: But yeah, but it’s certainly my last opportunity to host you as you know.

Paula: So anything else you want to say before we wrap up?

Dr. Nejib: No, I think it’s, you said we’re an old-fashioned loyalty program.

Dr. Nejib: I think just maybe, again, to all the loyalty experts out there, that sometimes there are basic things we need to do.

Dr. Nejib: We’re here to…

Dr. Nejib: Loyalty is earned through, we talked about the virtuous cycle of loyalty with the earn and burn.

Dr. Nejib: But it’s also really earned in what I call recovery moment or disruption moments.

Dr. Nejib: So how do we provide the best experience possible for our members when they go through a disruption, for example, and that also allows us, we need to be the custodian of that experience within the organization.

Dr. Nejib: We need to be the voice of the customer in the organization.

Dr. Nejib: We need to be able to influence everybody, not just proving to them that we’re making money, but also driving them to support our members in the best way possible.

Dr. Nejib: So members have that trust and we’re taking away that anxiety.

Dr. Nejib: And what happened is whenever you do something like this, and we always talk about the nice stuff, like celebrating their birthdays, and we have a very few of those happening during this silver jubilee celebration.

Dr. Nejib: It’s not just so much the exciting moments like that, and taking them to a show, but it’s also recovering from disruption as well, and helping them in moments of anxiety when they’re flying with their family, when they need all the support to make things happen.

Dr. Nejib: So, being a customer advocate, being the voice of the customer, being the customer experience custodian, I think these are some of the basics that we sometimes need to go back to.

Paula: Absolutely.

Paula: Yes, yes.

Paula: So many words of wisdom.

Paula: I have to say it’s been a masterclass.

Dr. Nejib: It’s the age, Paula.

Paula: Honestly, we’ve got it going on, but honestly, it comes through, it’s inspiring, and it’s obviously working.

Paula: So, congratulations again.

Dr. Nejib: Thank you as usual, Paula, for being such a graceful host and looking forward to engaging with you on other forums.

Paula: I please God, absolutely.

Paula: I’ll be looking forward to it.

Paula: So, Dr.

Paula: Nejib Ben Kheder, Head of Emirates Skywards, thank you so much.

Paula: From Paula Thomas, from Let’s Talk Loyalty, and from Loyalty TV.

Dr. Nejib: Thank you.

Paula: This show is sponsored by Wise Marketeer Group, publisher of The Wise Marketeer, the premier digital customer loyalty marketing resource for industry relevant news, insights and research.

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