Global Loyalty at Shell: Insights, Strategy & Impact (#725)

Oleksandr: Shell is a very valuable brand.

Oleksandr: It’s kind of globally worth around $45 billion.

Oleksandr: And Shell has significant presence in mobility.

Oleksandr: So we are present across 80 plus markets, 47,000 locations.

Kanan: Asia markets, a lot of customers are value conscious.

Kanan: So they’re very, you know, fun is pricing conscious.

Kanan: And hence the loyalty program is very important in terms of how do, how are we able to communicate the value altogether that we bring to the customer?

Oleksandr: But then moving into the global role, I think the key challenge was to unlearn.

Oleksandr: That was very hard part because you tend to be very confident.

Oleksandr: You did it all.

Oleksandr: You know it all.

Oleksandr: But yeah, the world is much more sophisticated and you need to be open minded.

Kanan: The most important stakeholder of course is the customer, but then is also our business partners, our retailers, our dealers.

Kanan: And when they see that the loyalty program is impacting their business, their adoption of the program is stronger and that’s really what keeps the program growing.

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: Today’s episode is hosted by Carly Neubauer, managing director of Elevate Loyalty, an Australian based company specializing in loyalty and incentive services.

Paula: Carly is also the managing director of One Tap Group, a UK based company providing loyalty payment services.

Paula: Enjoy.

Carly: Today I’m talking with two guests from the Global Shell Loyalty Program.

Carly: Oleksandr Koliakin, nicknamed Sasha, has built an extensive international career in strategy sales and marketing, operations and digital transformation.

Carly: With a strong foundation in computer science and mathematics, combined with deep business expertise, he has worked for world renowned companies such as Procter & Gamble, Deloitte and the Boston Consulting Group.

Carly: Kanan Nabar brings over two decades of B2C marketing expertise, encompassing brand management, product development and strategic marketing.

Carly: She’s worked across retail, packaged goods, health care and media, and for organizations in India such as Bennett, Coleman & Co and ITC Limited.

Carly: The show loyalty program operates in 25 direct markets with nuances across the globe.

Carly: Please enjoy the conversation.

Carly: Hi, Sasha and Kanan, welcome.

Carly: So excited to have you both on the show today.

Carly: Welcome along.

Oleksandr: Oh, hi Carly, thank you for having us here.

Kanan: Thank you, Carly.

Kanan: It’s really nice to be with you on this show.

Carly: Yes, I can’t wait to chat with you both.

Carly: Now, what we’d love to do, what we do with all episodes, we’ll start off with a little bit about yourselves.

Carly: So I’m gonna ask you both to tell us about your favorite business book, loyalty book or something non-fiction.

Carly: Tell us, Sasha, what do you like to read?

Oleksandr: I like reading a lot and I’m probably consuming a few books per month.

Oleksandr: I think the recent one I read, which I enjoyed greatly is this one about a personalized customer strategy in the age of AI.

Oleksandr: I think there are two authors, Mark Abraham and David Edelman.

Oleksandr: And I loved it because it’s a very great framework, putting all the things together about how to personalize a customer experience.

Oleksandr: And it’s an easy read.

Oleksandr: So definitely recommend that.

Carly: Oh, I love this, especially as you said, in the world of AI right now, that’s even better.

Carly: So great.

Carly: Thanks for sharing.

Carly: And that’ll definitely be going on our favorite book list at Let’s Talk Loyalty.

Carly: So thank you.

Carly: And Kanan, what do you love to read?

Kanan: Just started reading a book this weekend, which is very relevant from a personal and professional point of view.

Kanan: It’s called Strength-Based Parenting by Gallup.

Kanan: It’s written by Mary Rickmire.

Kanan: And it’s very interesting.

Kanan: We did a little bit of work around Gallup survey in our team.

Kanan: And that inspired me to read this book, which you not only can apply to parenting, but also as I read it, I’m thinking of what I could do differently with my team, as a mentor or as a coach as well.

Kanan: So very, very interesting.

Kanan: I’m yet to power through the rest of it, but already love it and highly recommend.

Carly: Oh, this is good.

Carly: Anytime we can have a recommendation that works at home and in the office, that’s very handy, right?

Carly: Good stuff.

Carly: Good, good.

Carly: Okay, next, we always ask our guests, your favourite loyalty program, please, Sasha.

Oleksandr: I have many, but because I’m travelling quite a lot, so my boat would go for miles and more.

Oleksandr: That’s a famous airline program and I get a lot of benefits out of it simply because I’m a frequent traveller.

Oleksandr: So yeah, I enjoy that one greatly.

Carly: Excellent.

Carly: I think that’s such a great one when, especially if you’re travelling and we work in loyalty, you know how to get the best out of them.

Carly: That’s awesome.

Carly: Kanan, and tell us about your favourite loyalty program.

Kanan: I actually have two.

Kanan: One is Amazon Prime, subscription-based, very, very, you can see what the value is.

Kanan: I think it’s great from a customer point of view and they’re able to communicate it well.

Kanan: The second one is a local program in India called run by a retail chain called Fab India, called Fab Rewards.

Kanan: It’s a very simple program.

Kanan: I like the simplicity of it.

Kanan: And you can hassle free, very seamless experience for the customer.

Kanan: Even if I gift anyone, we have the festive season coming by.

Kanan: If they want to go and change, they just give my number and they change it.

Kanan: So I find them very customer focused and that’s why I love it.

Carly: Yes, good.

Carly: And bringing up subscription, this is always a great one.

Carly: We love this conversation on Let’s Talk Loyalty, subscription programs in the loyalty space.

Carly: So nice, very good, very good.

Carly: Now, obviously, we’re here to talk about your careers and your program.

Carly: Please give us an introduction to the Shell loyalty program overall.

Carly: Tell us a bit about what it does, where it operates and some background, please.

Oleksandr: Maybe I could start and a little bit pay for the Shell story and then Kanan would add on the loyalty program per se.

Oleksandr: But we represent mobility and convenience business.

Oleksandr: In fact, Shell is a very valuable brand.

Oleksandr: It’s kind of globally worth around $45 billion.

Oleksandr: And Shell has significant presence in mobility.

Oleksandr: So we are present across 80 plus markets, 47,000 locations, including service stations, mobility hubs, EV charging stations.

Oleksandr: In fact, we have 75,000 public charging stations globally.

Oleksandr: We have number of convenience stores, 13,000 convenience stores globally as well.

Oleksandr: 25,000 Shell Cafes, which is our new sort of brand for fresh coffee and food.

Oleksandr: And to give you some perspective on the numbers, we are selling 500 million cups of cold coffee every year, 2 billion cold beverages.

Oleksandr: So it’s a sizable convenience business that we are operating.

Oleksandr: Now maybe, Kanan, you can add some flavor about how we use the loyalty program within that business.

Kanan: Thank you, Sash.

Kanan: I think that context really helps because I think this is really what we get customers to come not only once, but the loyalty program is something that keeps them coming back and trying each of these offers.

Kanan: They come to us first for fuel, but then they get hooked on to the coffee and they’re there for the car care, and this is how the program really ties all of it together.

Kanan: So our program has been on for many, many years, but we’ve started the digitalization journey about seven, eight years ago.

Kanan: We are now present in 25 direct markets, along with a lot of indirect license markets as well.

Kanan: Our program goes by different brand names.

Kanan: I think we make it very, very relevant in each market.

Kanan: So in some, most markets, it’s called either Shell Go Plus, or it’s called Shell Club Smart, but then we also have one of our largest markets US, but it’s called Fuel Rewards.

Kanan: So it goes by different names, but I think the binding factor that ties all of this is the CVP.

Kanan: We have very strong sort of always on offers.

Kanan: We have a core points based program in all of our markets.

Kanan: And as we’ve gone along this digitalization journey, we try to make it very, very relevant for each of our customers.

Kanan: And that’s really what keeps them coming back for more.

Kanan: Sasha, I don’t know if there’s anything you want to add to that.

Oleksandr: I’ll say it’s Kanan, thank you.

Carly: So tell me if I’m in different regions, how does the program look?

Carly: Talk to us a little bit about the different programs by region, by country, the different metrics by every country, or how do you actually operate it in all the multiple regions that you have?

Oleksandr: I think what we are mindful of is every region is very, very different.

Oleksandr: So I’ve just been in Asia last week, visited India and Philippines.

Oleksandr: And yeah, that’s a different world if you compare with other markets.

Oleksandr: So in terms of customer types, vehicle types, and how the customers are interacting digitally with your product.

Oleksandr: So we try to make it very relevant.

Oleksandr: Every region would have a sort of separate program, which we try to adjust to the local needs, again, to the vehicle types.

Oleksandr: For example, the big difference you would find between Europe and Asia is Asia is very big on two-wheeler type of vehicles.

Oleksandr: So that requires a separate thinking about the program structure, etc.

Oleksandr: US market is very different again.

Oleksandr: So it’s primarily like discount driven and rewards driven.

Oleksandr: I think in Europe, we have a combination of member benefits, points, and we are trying to adjust kind of the entire journey towards the preferences of the European consumers.

Oleksandr: So I think the different structure, even brand name, might differ by country.

Oleksandr: But what we are trying to do as a global team, essentially, so we are looking at what not only what are the differences, but what are the similarities between the markets.

Oleksandr: And we see they are so quite common member benefits.

Oleksandr: For example, is a pretty common theme, which is emerging all across the globe.

Oleksandr: And there are some other topics.

Oleksandr: So Kanan, please feel free to add your spin on things.

Kanan: I think it’s really, again, what we are trying to do is influence behaviors, right?

Kanan: And some of the features do that.

Kanan: A lot of people are very similar at their core.

Kanan: So for example, something like milestones or stamp trackers work across markets.

Kanan: Consumers are used to those kind of offers across different retail chains, and those always sort of work well.

Kanan: So some of these things are, you know, what we do centrally is take insights, make sure we use, you know, consumer behavior and behavioral science in terms of structuring some of these.

Kanan: So I think those are the commonalities that we are able to pick across our program.

Oleksandr: Can you tell us a little bit about…

Carly: Oh, sorry, go for it, Sasha.

Oleksandr: Yeah, I would also add, for me, the interesting aha moment is when it gets to even UI, UX, and how different regions kind of think about how the app should look like.

Oleksandr: So quite material difference in taste, whether it should be very packed on the screen, or it should be like clean and sort of decongested.

Oleksandr: That is pretty interesting discoveries that I’m still having being in this business for a number of years.

Oleksandr: There are very interesting differences that are happening across the globe.

Carly: Absolutely.

Carly: Take us back to the start or earlier days, because I know you’ve been in market for a number of years, and you’re working through evolutions, but how do you approach this from the early start, design, strategy?

Carly: Where do you start with something like this, especially when you’re looking at so many regions?

Kanan: I think I can talk a little bit about my experience in India, where we did not have a loyalty program.

Kanan: It was a greenfield market.

Kanan: In 2020 is when we started the loyalty program.

Kanan: As in many other industries, we first start with market research, with understanding what is not only the competitive scenario, but also what are the usage and attitudes of the customers.

Kanan: We want to be very customer centric.

Kanan: In terms of strategy in any market, I think we have the benefit of having this program in so many other markets and learning.

Kanan: Typically, what we would do is to connect with a market which is as similar to us as possible.

Kanan: As Ashtar mentioned, the differences across regions already.

Kanan: Then the global team helped us putting together the overall customer value proposition.

Kanan: That’s how we built the program.

Kanan: Then comes the point where we have to make technology choices.

Kanan: I think again, this is where having that scale really helps.

Kanan: Because we have platforms which are relevant to different regions.

Kanan: From there on, it’s really about how do you want to construct that program?

Kanan: How do you want to make sure the offers are relevant for the customer?

Kanan: I think one very important part, which is central to making sure that the program is profitable is, how do we put the commercial aspects together?

Kanan: How do we structure the points?

Kanan: How do we structure?

Kanan: We literally help markets then create a business case around all of these commercial aspects, help them put together almost like a digital P&L to know at the end of this.

Kanan: I think there are two things really.

Kanan: We want to be very customer centric.

Kanan: We want to make sure the customer is kept in mind when we design the program.

Kanan: But at the end of the day we have to make sure that the program is profitable.

Kanan: So we make sure these two things are taken care of.

Kanan: We work very closely with the IT teams who have all kinds of specialists, including UI, UX designers, et cetera.

Kanan: We do a lot of again, marketary customer research and test and learn when we put these things together.

Kanan: Last but not the least, the most important part for us is, at the end of the day, the program comes live at our four courts.

Kanan: How do we take our wider team together, onboard them, train our site staff is very, very critical to a successful launch of a program for us.

Kanan: That’s really how we did it and I think it was very interesting because when we launched the program in India, it was in the midst of COVID, towards the end of 2020.

Kanan: In the first quarter, we got our first half million registrations, which were literally through the site staff because there was so much less happening.

Kanan: I think this really helps for us.

Kanan: The last mile is really at our four courts.

Kanan: Sasha, you want to add to that?

Oleksandr: Yeah, I would probably say so for me.

Oleksandr: First of all, this area of loyalty and more broadly, digital, that’s where local global teams are working very closely together.

Oleksandr: I would say there are probably two important elements that we use to drive our thinking.

Oleksandr: First of all, of course, it’s a research, right?

Oleksandr: Understanding what the local consumers are preferring, how they interact with different loyalty programs, would they prefer points or discounts or visas or something else?

Oleksandr: That’s an important pillar.

Oleksandr: The second very important pillar for us is, of course, data.

Oleksandr: We look at how the program is performing currently, what is happening, whether the KPIs are solid or they’re not, do we see an opportunity, etc.

Oleksandr: I think the third big pillar is about experimentation, is trying different things and doing even A-B testing and trying to understand what actually consumers really prefer.

Oleksandr: Based on all those combinations, we make decisions how to evolve our program, how to tune it.

Oleksandr: One of the examples could be, for example, last year in the UK, we moved from visits-based program to a points-based program.

Oleksandr: Taking into account all the factors that I just mentioned, we made a decision we can move the program to the next level.

Oleksandr: We can revamp it.

Oleksandr: It’s a very hard work and very delicate work, but a lot of teams are involved from IT, data analytics, technology teams, product teams, but most important, local teams because we execute locally.

Oleksandr: Everything should happen, all the trainings and consumers shouldn’t feel any pain.

Oleksandr: So they should kind of wake up one morning and get hopefully much better loyalty program.

Oleksandr: So we did that, but that’s what is guiding our decision making in LA.

Carly: Now, Kanan, can you go back to your point around looking for a market that might have similarities?

Carly: Tell us a bit about any common themes that you can see throughout some of the regions.

Carly: Cause I think that’d be really interesting to know some commonalities and or some really big differences where you say, hey, this has worked in one market, but there’s no way it’s working somewhere else.

Kanan: Yeah, I think the commonalities are more easier to sort of track.

Kanan: I can say, for example, in Asia markets, a lot of customers are value conscious.

Kanan: So they’re very, one is pricing conscious and hence the loyalty program is very important in terms of how are we able to communicate the value altogether that we bring to the customers, right?

Kanan: So I think they do see that they’re getting points, they’re also getting offers.

Kanan: And it’s, I think showing that piece and showcasing that is very important.

Kanan: So I think that’s a common theme I can clearly see in our space.

Kanan: In terms of things that are very different, it could be like Sasha mentioned UI UX, right?

Kanan: And a very, very simple thing like European customers really like clean cut design.

Kanan: They want, you know, that is something that shows order, that goes culturally sort of with the audience.

Kanan: While in Asia, I think the sense of having a lot on your screen gives that I’m getting a lot of, I’m getting more bang for my buck.

Kanan: So our apps would then start looking very different, you know.

Kanan: So I think that’s one big different.

Kanan: And also in terms of just culturally, how you would use copy, how you would write your offers, et cetera, would really vary.

Kanan: And I think, you know, this is an example from my past life, really.

Kanan: We, you know, our tagline has been go well.

Kanan: And in Asia, for example, we never say goodbye or go.

Kanan: We usually the connotation is see you soon, see you again.

Kanan: So even when we craft our offers, it needs to adapt those cultural nuances into our CRM strategy and the way we write CRM.

Oleksandr: But also for me, the eye-opener is in some markets, like India is an example, they even different languages used in different parts of the country.

Oleksandr: So again, from the CRM perspective, that adds a layer of complexity.

Oleksandr: But you ask about similarities, for example, what I find is like in Asia, the two-wheeler segment or three-wheeler segment.

Oleksandr: This is pretty unique, but you see quite a lot of similarities in how people use their transport mode, and they are busy, they want to get faster, they want to move, etc.

Oleksandr: There’s quite a lot of similarities.

Oleksandr: I think in Europe, like emerging trend, of course, electrical vehicles are popping up in certain markets, and again, there’s certain similarities in terms of how people get on board and start using them, etc.

Oleksandr: But there are differences as well, because if you would say Europe, Europe is very, very different as well, right?

Oleksandr: So there’s always some similarities, some differences, and the devil is in the tail, and you need to go deep into segments and different customer type and different occasions, how they use their transportation modes to understand all of that.

Carly: One thing you have touched on previously when we’ve chatted is that understanding you have of your customer.

Carly: You have a deep knowledge of the customer, a lot of data around the customer.

Carly: How do you measure the programs, and I say programs plural because of the multi-region approach.

Carly: Tell us about measurement because this is a huge pace.

Oleksandr: I would give that to Kanan because she’s an expert in that field.

Oleksandr: So Kanan.

Kanan: I think one is that we measure performance across many different KPIs.

Kanan: Some are the purely operational ones, some are the customer ones of how many total active customers do we have, how many total contactable customers do we have.

Kanan: So we measure them across the funnel, right from how many downloads to how many of those have registered to how many of those have given consent, have been active, all of that.

Kanan: The second aspect is in terms of business measurements, in terms of our products, how many of them are buying fuel, how many of them are buying non-fuel products and so on.

Kanan: And then of course, we have commercial KPIs around how much value are we driving through the program.

Kanan: We of course measure things like costs, etc.

Kanan: And then I think for us, at the end of the day, what also matters is how does this contribute back to the P&L of the business.

Kanan: So at a very broad level, it’s this, then of course at a CRM level, we have, we measure at campaign levels, how the campaign performance is, how many clicks, how much, how many offers were activated, how many were achieved.

Kanan: So I think for us, it’s again a combination of not only making the data available, but helping markets use that data to take the right kind of decisions.

Kanan: So I think centrally, we can always make all of this available through dashboards.

Kanan: And many markets, there are many times that we learn from markets as well, because when they’re running the programs, we realize that they are tracking 10 other KPIs, which make a lot more sense, and especially on the operational side, things like fraud, et cetera, also need to be measured.

Kanan: So I think again, in loyalty, the trick is there is a problem of plenty.

Kanan: We have a lot of data, but how do we use it?

Kanan: And I think that’s really the trick.

Kanan: We have another team part of Sasha’s overall portfolio, which then hand holds and works with the market rather partners with them to make sure that this data then gets translated into strategy and implementation.

Oleksandr: Couldn’t agree more.

Oleksandr: I think you have so much data that, yeah, this abundance is actually paralyzing you sometime.

Oleksandr: I think it took us a few good years to make sure we have clarity around what is the value and what are the costs.

Oleksandr: So even making sure we understand all the costs and all the different pockets that we have.

Oleksandr: And again, markets are also very different in terms of how they do accounting, et cetera.

Oleksandr: So understanding the entire almost loyalty and digital P&L, that was extremely important for us to understand how it all stacks together and start demystifying it for people.

Oleksandr: Because again, I’m listening to all your great podcasts, et cetera.

Oleksandr: The question of how much value you deliver from your loyalty program, it’s probably one of the most fundamental questions everyone is anxious about in a way.

Oleksandr: So, yes, I think we spent quite some time, but I think we are in a very good shape there in terms of understanding what is happening.

Oleksandr: But then beyond that, there’s so many signals, there’s so many parameters, there’s so many segments.

Oleksandr: And we are now moving into personalization even, that I think one of the things that we are doing at the moment is making a very clear sort of tree of what depends on what and helping markets to sort of focus their attention on where the best opportunity lies for them in the given market and then how to translate this opportunity into concrete actions that they can take based on all the best practices that we’ve learned based on local best practices as well.

Oleksandr: So we are trying to help actually the markets to simply simplify their decision making process and get them to value actually faster.

Carly: Now, Sasha, you mentioned the learning part.

Carly: This is a question we do love to ask because I know as loyalty practitioners, others like to hear this.

Carly: Do you have any, have you faced any sort of big challenges, oops moments or any key learnings you’d like to share around whether it’s designing, launching, implementing, changing, evolving the program?

Carly: I mean, everyone’s had them, but any you can talk to us about.

Oleksandr: Yeah, maybe I will start and then Kanan you can build on.

Oleksandr: But for me, there are a few things.

Oleksandr: So number one, I moved from in my previous role before taking this global digital role, I was doing a role of general manager retail for number of markets.

Oleksandr: So I was running P&L and of course, Loyalty Program was part of my marketing team.

Oleksandr: So I was pretty engaged.

Oleksandr: But then moving into the global role, I think the key challenge was to unlearn and to be a lot more open-minded, that the world is very different, markets are very different.

Oleksandr: That was very hard part because you tend to be very confident, you did it all, you know it all.

Oleksandr: But yeah, the world is much more sophisticated and you need to be open-minded.

Oleksandr: You cannot pour more water in the glass that is full.

Oleksandr: So, a little bit unlearning, being curious and understanding the consumers in each geography.

Oleksandr: That was one thing.

Oleksandr: I think the other thing that I discovered is that technological decisions are very important because incorrect decision can derail you for the years to come and they are very, very, very expensive.

Oleksandr: That’s why we did ample amount of work across the last few years, understanding what is the ideal technology stack for us and how that fits into the structure of like P&Ls that we just described, how to make it affordable and who are the right partners.

Oleksandr: So, for example, I just been to Asia visiting to markets and I visited Capillary, which is our big partner in Asia.

Oleksandr: We have the platform across number of markets.

Oleksandr: It’s very modern, very composable architecture, which I think has great potential and great use at Shell.

Oleksandr: So, I think making those technological decisions properly is very, very important because that actually sets you for success for years to come.

Oleksandr: Last but not least, what I discovered is, it sounds very simple, let’s change the program.

Oleksandr: But it needed an amount of work by so many people to get it right.

Oleksandr: Because at the end, as I said, consumers, they need to wake up in the morning and just get everything working, right?

Oleksandr: And this huge amount of work that is happening behind the scene, front and back and finance, legal, IT, everyone is working together and then executing that on site.

Oleksandr: So our service champions or people who actually interact with customer, everything should be perfectly lined up and executed excellently.

Oleksandr: And that is hard.

Oleksandr: That is quite a challenge, I would say.

Oleksandr: Yeah, Kanan, maybe you can build on that a few more things.

Kanan: So Carly, your question also included something on oops moments, is it?

Carly: Totally did.

Oleksandr: Yes.

Carly: Anything you’d like to share around oops, what did we do there and how did we learn or change?

Kanan: Sure.

Kanan: So thanks, Carly.

Kanan: I think this is like in any part of the business or any project, loyalty does have its oops moments as well.

Kanan: And Sasha just spoke about how closely fine-tuned the whole chain needs to be.

Kanan: So I think there have been times when we’ve gone live with an app, an update, and one update could have broken something else somewhere.

Kanan: And thankfully, we realized this very quickly because we have feet on the street.

Kanan: People from the sites will start calling us and thankfully, our technology teams are very responsive.

Kanan: And these kinds of mistakes, if at all it happens, can be corrected very quickly.

Kanan: But it does, you know, help us make sure we then have the right processes in place.

Kanan: We have the right sort of interventions in place.

Kanan: We have a very strong custom operations team.

Kanan: So when they hear, they start getting calls, etc.

Kanan: We know there has been some technology break somewhere.

Kanan: There are processes in place to make sure people get on the job and correct these aspects.

Kanan: So I think in, you know, our business, our loyalty program, which is so finely linked from, you know, what happens at the back end to the customer experience, I think this is generally an area.

Kanan: I mean, thankfully, it’s a metric that we track and those kind of oops moments are only lesser and lesser.

Kanan: But I think this is typically any marketeer’s nightmare to wake up and, you know, have a lot of messages around.

Carly: So true, so true.

Oleksandr: Let’s say that the enjoyable part of this job, again, last week, I, in Philippines, I had an opportunity for 30 minutes to interact with drivers of Jeepney.

Oleksandr: Those are small buses that carry people.

Oleksandr: And in 30 minutes, you get a really good understanding of how these people live, how they use their car, who they transport, how they actually, how they do business around it, etc.

Oleksandr: This is very rewarding.

Oleksandr: Those are things you don’t have intuitively in your head.

Oleksandr: You just don’t know it exists like that.

Oleksandr: And when you learn those things, you see how rich is the world, how many needs are there.

Oleksandr: And then, obviously, it’s an opportunity to make people’s life better a little bit using the loyalty program, using some of the elements of surprise, delight or whatever, or just doing seamless experience.

Oleksandr: I think that helps people to live their lives and make their life journey better, as we say it.

Oleksandr: So that is very rewarding and it’s a good aha moment as well.

Oleksandr: That kind of, yeah, there’s a lot of like positive energy in what we are doing.

Kanan: Just to add to that, I think for us, the most important stakeholder, of course, is the customer, but then is also our business partners, our retailers, our dealers.

Kanan: And when they see that the loyalty program is impacting their business, their adoption of the program is stronger, and that’s really what keeps the program growing.

Kanan: So I think for us, they are another important stakeholder of making sure that program is helping their business, and hence they sort of become evangelists of the program.

Carly: Well, having that advocacy and promotion at the retail or store level is huge, right?

Carly: So that makes so much sense.

Carly: One thing we’d love to ask you both, because you both have a long standing career in loyalty and with quite a large global program, is, tell us a bit about some of the most important lessons you’ve learned or some of the advice you’d give to someone starting out.

Carly: If we were to ask it a bit, take a step back and a bit more broadly across your career.

Oleksandr: I would start, I would kind of maybe a bit repeat, but don’t assume you know.

Oleksandr: Be curious and go and learn, right?

Oleksandr: Because you cannot or you shouldn’t say that I’m a perfect customer.

Oleksandr: I know what it takes.

Oleksandr: They’re very different customers, very different groups.

Oleksandr: So that would be one.

Oleksandr: I think number two is the great program is executed via a chain of very important stakeholders and people.

Oleksandr: Kanan mentioned retailers, dealers, they need to believe it.

Oleksandr: Local markets need to believe in it.

Oleksandr: But more important service champions, people who work on site, if they radiate confidence and joy about the loyalty program, if they feel great about what they’re offering to customers, I think that is going a long way.

Oleksandr: I think the third very big and important element is, make sure the basics are right, that everything is operating well, have a good tracking systems to quickly spot if something is not working.

Oleksandr: Make sure you constantly get back to basics and ensure basics are in order.

Oleksandr: It’s a very complex operation.

Oleksandr: It’s spanning even within a given country.

Oleksandr: It’s touching so many disciplines, so many teams, et cetera.

Oleksandr: So at any given moment in time, you need to watch execution and it needs to kind of flow day in, day out excellently.

Kanan: Yeah, I think Sasha’s already put in all the key ones.

Kanan: I think the one I’d like to add to that is keep your eye on the money.

Kanan: Yeah, keep your eye on the dollars.

Kanan: Sasha already mentioned it.

Kanan: Understand what are your end-to-end costs, right?

Kanan: What are your true costs?

Kanan: We end up looking only at the marketing costs, but then you have your cost of points, discounts, you have your cost of people, you have cost of systems, all of that.

Kanan: So how do you keep your eye on the dollars to make sure that you’re running a profitable program?

Kanan: Because that’s what keeps the faith and trust of the organization going and you will continue to get investments into your program.

Kanan: So I think that’s a very key element.

Kanan: And I think when we are structuring the program, we tend to be very optimistic and very enthusiastic about it.

Kanan: And we could miss some of the details.

Kanan: So it’s worth spending time in the beginning to get that right.

Carly: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

Carly: And you’re right, that’s great advice for anybody, old or new in the industry is to keep your eye on the money.

Carly: Before we close out the conversation, anything you’d like to share further about the program or anything you’re personally most proud of?

Oleksandr: Well, I think over the last few years, as I said, I think probably the great thing I’m most proud of is, A, we demystified quite a lot of numbers.

Oleksandr: And I think these days we can proudly say in majority of markets, we can clearly articulate and underpin how the loyalty program is actually translating into changing behavior or relevance for our customers and how we can measure that financially.

Oleksandr: And again, big thank you to Kanan.

Oleksandr: I mean, she did a phenomenal job there to bring that all to the light.

Oleksandr: I think I’m immensely proud by some of the cooperations we have in technological space and the partnerships we have and how we build the technology in a way.

Oleksandr: And of course, I’m very proud about the growth and development of our program.

Oleksandr: And I think we are touching more and more lives with our loyalty program that’s visible in our numbers.

Oleksandr: And I think when I hear some of the stories, how people enjoy our loyalty program, they say thank you.

Oleksandr: That’s probably the best highlight for me.

Carly: That’s a feel good moment, right?

Carly: If you’re actually getting their customer feedback, that’s fantastic.

Kanan: And I think just to add to that, I think Sasha mentioned we work very closely with markets and when all of them this time of the year, they’re doing their sort of planning for next year.

Kanan: And I think what gives me great joy is to then see that their plans are, they have loyalty as a foundational element for their business growth and that really talks about sort of the cooperation that we have, but also how pivotal loyalty is for the business.

Kanan: So I think, yeah, that’s important for any program that it adds value to the business.

Carly: Thank you both so much.

Carly: It’s been fantastic to chat with you and I’m no doubt that the listeners and all viewers are going to get so much out of this episode hearing from you both.

Carly: So very big thank you once again.

Kanan: Thank you for having us.

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.

Paula: Wise Marketeer Group also offers loyalty education and training globally through its Loyalty Academy, which has certified nearly 900 marketeers and executives in 49 countries as certified loyalty marketing professionals.

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