Welcome to Let’s Talk Loyalty, an industry podcast for loyalty marketing professionals. I’m your host, Paula Thomas. And if you work in loyalty marketing, join me every week to learn the latest ideas from loyalty specialists around the world.
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Hello, and welcome to this week’s short episode of Let’s Talk Loyalty. I’m your host Paula Thomas, and today I’m looking back to June of 2021, when I met with Dharmesh Bhana, The Loyalty and Rewards Executive at one of South Africa’s largest banks called Nedbank.
Dharmesh is responsible for setting up and launching the Greenbacks program as well as the behavioral economics unit and the data science practice area for Nedbank.
In our interview, he explained the overall customer proposition. Focusing on how they’re learning from the gaming industry to build a gamified program for Greenbacks. For example, they made the decision to use the word levels instead of tiers, really taking vocabulary from the video gaming world. Another part of the gamification strategy is to reward customers who consistently repay their loan installments on time every month. This positive behavior is incentivized, recognized, and rewarded with the competition entry. Any customers with loans who repay their installment each month on time, have the opportunity to win back the entire value of their loan. Some wonderful lucky winners have already won their entire home loan back. These of course then are truly great stories that again, use the power of gamification to remind customers of the importance of this behavior, and also inspire them with the possibility of winning a wonderfully valuable prize.
The Greenbacks program is also dedicated to finding ways to support multiple stakeholders. Taking care of the needs of customers and the bank itself, but also the needs of the broader community. For example, part of the program is focused on recognizing when customers save money into their bank account. This is of course, really good for both the customer and the bank, but also when customers do that, saving a donation is made by the bank to a chargeable organization. They call it an affinity donation. So for example, organizations such as the World Wildlife Fund or the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund also benefit from Nedbanks customer’s savings. They are really putting a lot of effort into this strategy so that the interests of all three stakeholders are always served. This of course keeps the customer involved because it doesn’t just make logical sense but really builds emotional loyalty, which as we all know, helps to ensure closer bonds between the customers and the brand. When customers understand that Nedbank is making donations on their behalf to a cause that they are passionate about, they will, of course, be less likely to think about switching banks in the future. In the knowledge that they’re aligned to the bank in more ways than just the simple financial or transactional relationship.
I hope you agree that Dharmesh is doing a wonderful job leveraging the Greenback’s program to serve multiple needs. So was always, I’d love you to listen back to the full interview if you haven’t done so already. You can find this one quite simply on letstalkloyalty.com/120.
In closing, just to let you know, we have a very exciting week this week, especially if you are interested in loyalty in retail. Tomorrow, I’m featuring a brand called Sleep Number, a retailer that leverages loyalty mechanics to drive advocacy. Then on Thursday, I have a superb conversation for you with Floor and Decor. We’ll hear all the insights behind the PRO Premier Rewards program. Which has been designed to deliver powerful benefits to this retailer’s community of flooring professionals nationwide with a vision of growing their share of wallet with this key segment.
Thanks again for listening this week to Let’s Talk Loyalty.
This show is sponsored by The Wise Marketer. The world’s most popular source of loyalty marketing news, insights, and research. The Wise Marketer also offers loyalty marketing training through its Loyalty Academy, which has already certified over 245 executives in 27 countries as certified loyalty marketing professionals. For more information, check out thewisemarketer.com and loyaltyacademy.org
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