Flying High with Kris+: Growing Singapore Airlines’ Loyalty in Australia (#679)

Udhara: We sponsored the Lady Gaga concert in Singapore, which just took place in late May. A huge hit first kind of phase of KrisFlyer. Beyond flying here in Australia was partnering up with all four major Australian banks. It all comes down to creating a relevant and a local. Touch to the program and when you get an email or you get a push notification for it to very obviously look like it was sent from a another part of the world.

For us, you know, we’ve invested quite heavily in growing the loyalty team over the past five years. KrisPlus is a fascinating piece of technology. It’s pretty much one of a kind in this industry.

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Comarch helps you boost engagement, grow revenue, and make loyalty your competitive edge. Want to see how they do it? Head over to Comarch.com and discover loyalty that actually works. Hello and welcome to Let’s Talk Loyalty and Loyalty tv, A show for loyalty marketing professionals. 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.

Today’s episode is hosted by Carly Neubauer, managing director of Elevate Loyalty on Australian based company, specializing in loyalty and incentive services. Carly is also the managing director of OneTap Group, a UK based company providing loyalty payment services. Enjoy

Carly: Udhara De Silva is the head of loyalty marketing for Singapore Airlines in Australia.

Being involved in the successful launch of KrisPlus in November, 2023 and now growing the Australian Crisply member base to over 1.8 million members becoming one of the largest outside of Singapore. Please enjoy this conversation with Udhara. Hi Udhara. Now this is your second time with us on Let’s Talk Loyalty.

So welcome back. There have been a heap of updates and changes in your program since last time you’re on the show, so really looking forward to hearing about those. Welcome.

Udhara: Thank you Carly. On behalf of Singapore Airlines, thank you for having me on the show again. I think we recorded our first interview about a year ago with Paula and that was a whole lot of fun, so it’s great to be back.

Carly: Awesome. So, as you know, the first couple of questions we ask we ask all our guests, and the first one is your favorite nonfiction book, whether it’s loyalty, business related. Tell us about what you love to read. I.

Udhara: Yeah, I love that question. I’m such a bookworm. I’m probably the biggest bookworm in, in my office.

My, my favorite nonfiction that I’ve read this year so far is a book called hidden Potential by a guy called Adam Grant. And the reason why it’s my favorite is because it looks at how to unlock your hidden potential in yourself. Through learning, through leaning into the discomfort of challenging yourself and creating mental scaffolding to support you in that journey of going from complete beginner to an expert in any area.

And so that’s on the individual level. There’s some great insights for managers and leaders. And then kind of on a broader societal scale, there’s some really great case studies of what that looks like when it’s applied to education systems and all sorts of organizations. So that’s my favorite.

Carly: Wow.

And leaning into the discomfort. Do you use that? Do you need to use that in your career path? How’s that going,

Udhara: ev, every single day? I think, you know, one of the great things about working in this current role, but also for Singapore Airlines, is we have the opportunity to test and learn every single day.

Whether it’s as an individual in my career and trying new things. New roles. I started at SQ Singapore Alliance about six years ago, and I started as a management trainee. And I’ve been given many opportunities to try and get involved in different projects, pilot projects and different teams.

But also on the kind of organizational level. We take some really interesting views in terms of new tech, in terms of ai. So every day is an opportunity to lean into that discomfort and try something new.

Carly: Awesome. Great book for you then. Awesome.

Udhara: Absolutely.

Carly: Also. Okay. As you know and having been on the show previously, love to ask you again your favorite loyalty program now.

It could be the same as last time. Maybe you’ve changed since then. Tell us what your favorite program is.

Udhara: Yes, I think you know, I said flybys in my first interview but I’ll choose something else because in Australia we had a fantastic very mature, very sophisticated loyalty landscape.

And because of that, there’s a lot to choose from. Right now, at this moment, I would say it’s Meyer One, which is the rewards program of department store chain called Meyer. And I think what I love about their program is it’s very easy. To get loyalty and actually go into the stores on a regular basis from the very beginning of your journey as a my one member.

And then what’s really interesting about the program is as you kind of rise through the ranks there, there’s more and more incentive to keep spending. I. All the way through to kind of high net worth individual level spending. So very interesting mechanics, super easy interface to use. And I’m all about democratizing loyalty programs and they’ve done a great job of doing that.

Carly: And they recently won an international loyalty award as well. So you’re not the only one who obviously thinks they’re pretty good.

Udhara: Well deserved.

Carly: Yes, absolutely. Okay. So for listeners who may not have heard your last episode, or not as familiar with your loyalty program, can you tell us a bit about crisply?

How does it work, and what does it do with Singapore Airlines? I.

Udhara: Yeah, absolutely. So KrisFlyer is the rewards program of Singapore Airlines Group. And Singapore Airlines obviously is an international carrier. We have a presence in several countries, but Australia, where we’re recording this episode from is.

Hands down the one of the most important markets outside of Singapore and extending onto our network our frequencies across all major cities and secondary Australian cities. We have a rewards program to ensure that you know, our regular flyers, our regular customers have an opportunity to engage with the brand.

Not just when they’re flying, but beyond flying as well. So KrisFlyer has been around for about 25 years. We celebrated our 25th anniversary a few months ago. And we hit the 10 million member milestone in March. Wow. This year. And in Australia specifically, we have two 1.8. Million members.

And so it’s a significant base. It’s a highly engaged base, and our goal really is to find a diverse and a rich ecosystem of options to earn miles whether you’re flying or not flying, and of course spend your miles. Most importantly, people are looking for ways to spend their miles on flights, but beyond flights as well.

We have many options here in Australia and certainly in Singapore as well.

Carly: And that’s so important to take it from obviously the flying element, but what else can you do when you’re not in travel, you’re not transit, how can you burn on the ground? Yeah.

Udhara: Yeah, great question. So, the first kind of phase of KrisFlyer beyond flying here in Australia was partnering up with all four major Australian banks from, you know, Commonwealth all the way to Westpac.

And now we have a, an excellent product in collaboration with seven star alliance carriers called the. HSBC Star Alliance credit card. So many ways to turn your everyday spend into points that you can convert to KrisFlyer miles and then redeem on flights. But as I spoke about in the last episode in November, 2023, we launched a digital rewards app called KrisPlus.

KrisPlus is a fascinating piece of technology. It’s, pretty much one of a kind in this industry because it lets you instantly earn and spend your miles at hundreds of retailers, cafes, bars spas and so much more. This launched in Singapore about six, seven years ago. And we brought it to Australia back in November, 2023 in Sydney and Melbourne.

So we’ve got close to 200 partners now. The reason why our partners love it is because when you open the KrisPlus app, which you need to do in order to scan QR codes at checkout, which you then use to make your form of payment, you actually see the partners brand front and center both from listings as well as extra content that we list.

On behalf of partners from exclusive offers discounts, and then also prepaid vouchers, which you can use to you know, spend on, on, on restaurants, on movie tickets and clothes. I.

Carly: That’s great. You have had a huge growth path since last time you’ve even been on the show, but even in the last year since we’ve spoken around how many partners you have brought on and that ecosystem that you’ve built through your program.

Now you’ve mentioned Sydney and Melbourne, but tell us about some of those partnerships you’ve brought on.

Udhara: Yeah, we’ve got so we have close to 200 partners now here in Australia ranging from iconic cafes in Sydney and Melbourne, like Brunetti Oro on Flinders Lane. We have some wonderful premium fine dining restaurants in boat cities.

Nell, for example, is one of my favorites in Sydney. They do these amazing degustation experiences here in Melbourne. We’ve got a. Wonderful restaurant called Arru that’s really popular on the platform. And our customers love it because it’s a way for them to really supercharge their miles balances.

So, on any given day, you can earn between one and three miles per dollar in every dollar you spend. But. What’s more is we run a bunch of promotions through the year. In fact, right now we have a campaign called Feast to Fly, where that one to three miles per dollar has been boosted to 10 miles per dollar.

So think about it, if you spend say $150 on a nice date night with your partner, maybe go out to the movies afterwards, you could earn, you know, a couple of thousand. Miles during these campaigns last year in October when we celebrated our first birthday in Australia, we boosted all partners, including retailers for 10 miles per dollar.

So, you know, you could go to a DJI store called D One buy a drone for your next camping trip. You know, spend a few hundred dollars and really turbocharge your miles. And these miles are. Instantly which can then be used to redeem. And alternatively, if you have, say, flown with Singapore Airlines to Europe or Singapore, and you have a few miles that you’ve got in your CRI flyer account, but you really don’t know if you’ll save up enough for a full flight, you can actually use those miles.

To redeem at any of these partners. It’s a very straightforward exchange rate. It’s 150 miles for one single dollar or one Australian dollar. And it’s actually an industry leading burn rate in this space.

Carly: Yeah, you can see why. And it’s also very clean, clear, simple for your users and members to understand it and utilize this.

One thing I would like to call out as well is you’ve told me previously. All of your partners you’ve been, you’ve acquired them in-house. Like you, you haven’t gone out to an aggregator. This has been hard work from your team. Yes. In-house right.

Udhara: Exactly, and this is the case both in Singapore and here in Australia.

So if we made a deliberate effort not to go with a white label solution and work with an aggregator and the reason why we did that is because you can really get granular by going to individual partners and figuring out what the best offer is. For both the partner to showcase their brand and bring people into their stores, into their restaurants, but also for our customers as well.

What we do is quite unique. The technology is quite unique. You have to scan QR code at checkout, and then you use apple Pay or Google Pay within the app to then complete the transaction, or alternatively, you use your miles. So that kind of education piece, both for our consumers but partners.

We felt we could do best. And the result is a really interesting ecosystem. It takes a lot more work, but what we have on the app is something you can’t really find through other loyalty platforms. So.

Carly: And that makes sense as well. Managing that it gives you the ability to create these unique experiences for your members.

Also hotels business rewards that you have. Leisure, star Alliance. You’ve mentioned banks. You’ve got a really good showcase. Partnerships within this program.

Udhara: Yes, exactly. I think it all comes down to creating a relevant and a local. Touch to the program. You know, the last thing you wanna do is have a presence in our key market Australia.

And you know, when you get an email or you get a push notification for it to very obviously look like it was sent from another part of the world. For us, you know, we’ve invested quite heavily in growing the loyalty team over the past five years, and an extension of that is some really, local personalized offers through our range of KrisFlyer partners such as, you know, hotels like TFE hotels business rewards, companies like pay.com the Star Alliance credit card.

Of course we have the Virgin Australia relationship as well. And then of course our newer tech, KrisPlus in Sydney and Melbourne.

Carly: Yeah, it’s a very rich ecosystem that’s. For sure. Thank you. Now, you mentioned the Velocity Airlines conversion relationship. Let’s talk about that a little bit as well.

Udhara: Yeah, so the, so Singapore Airlines and Virgin Australia first partnered, I believe about 14 years ago. And it started out as a, an alliance. So the ability to not only book flights. Using what we call code share arrangements. So Virgin Australia passengers could fly Singapore Airlines and Singapore Airlines could, passengers could fly Virgin Australia, but it went much deeper than that as well on the loyalty side.

So KrisFlyer and Velocity for You Can Fly, have a very unique relationship which I don’t think anywhere else in the world you can find. So not only can you earn and spend each other’s currencies on the very on, on our respective flights, but you can also convert. Your velocity points into crisply miles, and you can convert your crisply miles to velocity points.

And so, for example the velocity member might want to get a seat on first class or suites which they can only do with crisply miles. So they’ve been saving up their velocity points. They can easily convert those points to to crisply miles and then access that amazing sweets product that we’re famous for.

On our key roots. And then the crisply member, let’s say they’ve got a bunch of miles that are expiring. They don’t wanna spend it on a coffee or a movie or store. And on KrisPlus a great way to actually extend the shelf life of your crisply miles, which extend in which expire in about three years, is to convert them to velocity points, use them on a domestic flight or one of their great options as well in their ecosystem.

Carly: And that’s exactly, you’ve touched on this, the three year expiry, but you have mentioned previously as well, some of the really great examples of other things that you’ve seen your members redeem on. There’s a golf tournament recently Yes. In Melbourne, lady Gaga. In Singapore kayaking in Thailand, you’ve given some examples of the types of things that people are redeeming on.

So that ability to either convert using a very nice airline experience in first class or literally on the ground, a really fun experience you might do with friends or family. I.

Udhara: Exactly, and that goes to our wider ecosystem. So you mentioned lady Gaga and the Golf Truman. That was actually part of our experiences pillar of KrisFlyer called KrisFlyer Experiences.

It’s in partnership with MasterCard. The whole point of a KrisFlyer experiences is to curate money cut by experiences for members that they can redeem exclusively with miles. So we sponsored. The Lady Gaga concert in Singapore, which just took place in late May. A huge hit, great success from the redemption side and fantastic brand visibility, of course.

And then in Australia we did in March our very first KrisFlyer Experiences golf tournament at a very exclusive golf course here in Melbourne called Kingston Heath. And our members loved it. They, we had people fly down from Singapore, from all over Australia parting ways with their miles.

Hopefully using

Carly: their miles to fly. Right? Of course. You

Udhara: fly flying with their miles or with our domestic airline partner versus Australia. And they had a great time and, you know, the feedback from our members was they want more of this. And you know, it takes a lot of heavy lifting to curate these events.

Yeah. To make sure it does have the right balance of, you know, will this appeal to a large subset of our base. Is this really interesting enough? Is this really money cut by? But in the end it’s worth it because the members love it and then it gives us a bit of PR mileage as well.

Carly: Yeah, absolutely.

It sounds extremely fun. And how did you start with the company? How did you join Singapore Airlines? Tell us about your journey.

Udhara: Yeah. As I said earlier, I started as a management trainee back in right mid 2019. Had no prior experience in airlines, but I’ve always been a major airline geek.

And so the opportunity to really peek behind the curtain and see how the magic is created at this, wonderful company was something I couldn’t refuse. And so, I joined as a management trainee. And essentially what they do with this program is they rotate you into different departments and you’re able to make an impact from day one.

Wow. You’re not just shadowing, you’re actually, you know, taking on a ownership of projects, you’re affecting outcomes. And then eventually you get the opportunity to look after certain areas of the business. So I joined Loyalty in late 2021. It’s just been over three years now. And the time has absolutely flown.

And the reason it’s flown is because there’s a real opportunity to shape things here. And so you’re never bored. There’s always something fun to do.

Carly: Well, you made the right choice. You joined the loyalty area. Well done.

Udhara: Thank you.

Carly: Fantastic. So what’s coming up next? What should we be looking for from Singapore Airlines and KrisFlyer or is it all totally confidential?

Udhara: Yeah, look, I think we’ll be doing more of what we have been doing for the past five years. So, you know, first and foremost, are we able to deliver value to our Australian members, our Australian KrisFlyer members and potential new members through our air offering. You know, making sure that there’s plenty of availability to redeem the seats you want in all four cabins that we fly to.

In Australia is there an opportunity to interact and engage with our airline partners, whether it’s our low cost carrier scoot Virgin Australia, our Star Alliance partners, so that’s air and I think we are very proud to say that there’s not been any major issues with accessing inventory, which I think is something that people are frustrated about, especially now with.

You know, limited access to flights supply chain issues. We have consistently provided inventory of seats on economy class, all the way up to all the way up to suites. Then on the non-air side. We have partnerships that go back, you know, 10, 20 years with some of our bank partners and then newer partners that not many of our members might know about at this stage.

So how can we make sure that our members continue to find out about these partners and have an opportunity to engage? So, offers, campaigns new activations. There’ll be more of that. The experiences side as well. We’re hoping to really scale that up in Australia over the next few months and years.

And then. You know, for lastly KrisPlus such a big priority of ours. It’s currently available in Sydney and Melbourne, primarily in the downtown areas, but you’ll see more growth and more supply of merchants. And then on the consumer side, you’ll see some exciting campaigns continue to roll out over the course of the year.

So it’s really about localizing the program and making sure that a large cross section of our customer base has an opportunity to get value from the program.

Carly: When you mentioned engagement, what would be your sort of tips and hints around how to really engage your member base? You’ve definitely got great content.

The experiences sound amazing and the venues that you can redeem in as well. What else do you think about when you’re looking at your communications and your engagement planning with your members?

Udhara: So the thing about having a diverse ecosystem of earn options and burn options is you’ve gotta find a way to package it to the right customer.

And I think that’s something we’ve really figured out how to, do well, we’re still learning. But a big part of it is having local resources on the ground here. So within my team, I have a business development focus, and then I have a marketing and comms and member engagement focus. So we’re continually refining which customer segments to.

Target with particular types of content, with particular partners. It makes no sense to highlight business rewards to a young student, right? It makes no sense to target you know, accelerated goal status to our high value PPS club members because they already have yeah, that access and the benefits.

So for us it’s about really segmenting our base using the data we have and progressively becoming more and more sophisticated about how we. Segment and target the base. So I think you know, ultimately it comes down to making sure that of all the content that we have available to pitch to our customers and our members, how do we get the right message and the right combination of assets to the right crisply member or right potential crisply member.

And so that’s something we’re continuing to learn and test and grow from.

Carly: Yeah, and that’s always a challenge. I think in the loyalty space we’re segmenting. Personalizing. It’s easy to say, let’s do that. It’s not as always easy to implement and it is a test and learn and continual evolution of getting that.

Right. Especially in new comms planning as well.

Udhara: Exactly. And often it doesn’t require high tech it’s sometimes it’s just a matter of sitting down and looking at some raw data, a couple of Excel documents and figuring out, okay, who do we want to target over the next few months? And just articulating your top three to four customer segments that you want to talk to.

So it doesn’t have to be high tech. It’s really about thinking through and being deliberate about what you wanna say.

Carly: That’s so great being deliberate about it. I like that. What would you be most proud of so far in the program especially based on your number of years with Singapore Airlines?

Udhara: There’s lots to be proud of.

I think true. Just from the function of working with an incredible team. So, so we don’t work in isolation here in Australia. We have an amazing team in the head office in Singapore, whether it’s the KrisPlus team who’ve built this platform from the ground up from what was originally a, an idea that was hatched from our incubator called KrisLab. And they grew this from a pilot project to a really solid business in Singapore. And so, you know, working with the product team, with the finance team the marketing team and getting their support to actually build this from the ground up here as well has been an amazing experience.

The KrisFlyer base as well, actually post COVID has grown at a faster rate than it ever has in the past. You know, 10, 15 years prior to that. And so we’ve almost doubled the CRI flyer base since borders reopened, and I don’t see that trajectory slowing down anymore. And that’s really a function of not only, you know, the things I touched on, great availability non-air partners.

So lots to be proud of not just from what we’ve done on the ground here, but. The in the innovations and the collaboration we’ve had with head office and tying that all together through what we do best, which is, you know, fly from from Australia to key parts around the world.

Carly: One thing you’ve just mentioned as well is the ability to sign up in the air.

So you’re in your mid flight. How does that work? Tell us. Yeah, because that’s quite great that you can just decide, Hey I’m gonna become a member now. I’m on the flight already. How does it work?

Udhara: Yes. It’s so easy. So this was launched back in July, 2023 where if you signed up to KrisFlyer, you would get instant access to.

Free wifi for the duration of your flight. Great acquisition

Carly: tool, by the way, wants free wifi. Exactly.

Udhara: And it’s incredibly simple tech. You join the wifi network that we have online, and if you aren’t AFI member, there’s a very easy. Prompt where you can sign up and within, you know, 30 to 60 seconds you’re all good to go.

The easiest way I will say, to actually sign up to KrisFlyer this, believe it or not, KrisPlus it takes about 20 seconds. You just give your first name and your email address and you’re good to go. And if you happen to have any friends or family who use CRI Plus as well, they can share. A promo code or referral code where you’ll get $5 worth of miles on your first purchase and they’ll get $5 worth of miles as well.

So,

Carly: fantastic.

Udhara: Really easy way to join KrisFlyer.

Carly: Yeah, well you’re making it really simple, frictionless. Yes. And there’s a really good incentive in place to, to want to join Fantastic work. So, for yourself, what is it that you love so much about the loyalty industry and why? When you did the early days at Singapore Airline, why did you choose the loyalty space?

Udhara: It the journey to loyalty wasn’t a deliberate one. One of the things that I find most interesting and satisfying about this company’s management culture is you do get rotated around the business so that you get a broad set of exposure and you can refine your skill sets and apply what you.

May have learned in your previous role into your new one. And so I was given the opportunity back in late 2021 with no idea of what to expect. Other than knowing that there are certain types of projects in the pipeline that might be interesting to, to roll out. What I love about loyalty is that it’s you’ve got a bit of a startup vibe in, in a much larger organization, so there’s a bit more scope to try new things.

Every day I get to interact with external partners new KrisPlus partners, existing crisp flyer partners, events. So it’s a very interesting role. I genuinely don’t think any two days are alike, and I’m quite fortunate because I, I. You know, don’t get bored very easily in this role.

Carly: It doesn’t sound like it at all.

Well, it’s been so fabulous to have you back on the show. This is really great to hear the progress and the evolution since last time you were with Let’s Talk Loyalty. Anything else you’d like to share before we say our final Thank you.

Udhara: Absolutely. Thank you so much for the opportunity to appear on the show once again.

It’s always a pleasure. Look for. Folks who are curious about how we have scaled KrisPlus within Singapore and in Australia as well. If you are in this part of the world, definitely sign up. Now is a great time to download the app off the Apple or Google app stores because we do have a promotion running till the end of.

June where you earn 10 miles per dollar. And hopefully you’ll get to explore some of the ways I’ve talked about personalizing content for our partners and making it very easy for our members to earn miles. If you are a business in Australia that you feel like would find some interesting synergies tapping into our customer base, both domestically as well as on the inbound side definitely feel free to reach out.

We can be contacted quite easily on LinkedIn.

Carly: Fantastic. Well, fantastic. Thank you so much for coming back on the show. It’s been so great to chat with you. Always good to hear especially how programs have evolved since you know, over the times over the years. So really appreciate your time today, and we are very much looking forward to seeing what the next 12 months hold as well.

Udhara: Thank you so much, Carly. It’s been a real treat. Thanks once again.