#248: Leading Loyalty for Telecoms Giant Verizon

Verizon is one of the largest telecommunications companies in the United States and is of course a huge company with a huge customer base to retain in an extremely competitive industry.

Its loyalty program called “Verizon Up” has won multiple loyalty awards so we were joined by Lisa Routel, Verizon’s Marketing Strategy Lead to learn all about it.

Lisa shares the latest propositions she’s building to keep Verizon customers engaged as well as some insights from her earlier career in loyalty with leading brands like Jaguar.

Show Notes: 

1) Lisa Routel

2) Verizon

3) Verizon Up

Audio Transcript

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.

 

This episode is sponsored by Epsilon. Today, I’m delighted to announce a unique opportunity for one lucky listener of Let’s Talk Loyalty to enjoy a complimentary workshop with the loyalty experts at Epsilon one brand every month will have the chance for a unique, independent loyalty lab. A review of your loyalty program where Epsilon will share their expert ideas, how to drive your program’s performance to a whole new level. This workshop is a powerful way for you to measure and then increase the return on your investment in your loyalty program. So to apply head over to letstalkloyalty.com/epsilon and enter your details.

 

Hello and welcome to today’s episode of Let’s Talk Loyalty featuring one of the largest telecommunications companies in the United States, Verizon. With revenues approaching 130 billion and over 132,000 employees, Verizon is, of course, a huge company with a huge customer base to retain in an extremely competitive industry. The company has won multiple loyalty awards for its strategy and its program called Verizon. So I’m delighted to be joined today by Lisa Routel, Verizon’s Marketing Strategy Lead. Lisa shares with us, the latest propositions she’s building to keep Verizon customers engaged as well as some insights from her earlier career and loyalty with other leading brands like Jaguar.

 

I hope you enjoy hearing all the latest, exciting loyalty concepts from Verizon USA.

 

So Lisa, welcome to Let’s Talk Loyalty. 

 

Thanks for having me. 

 

Great. It’s super excitingly, Lisa. I think I was telling you it’s going to be telecommunications week here at let’s talk loyalty. Yes. Yes. Telecom week for you. Oh my goodness. After so many years working in it, I thought I was moving on to other industries, but here we go.

 

There’s a love of telecommunications and I think actually a big trench towards loyalty in our sector, Lisa. So I’ll be very keen to hear what Verizon is doing. I know there’s a lot of change going on for you right now. So before we get into talking about Verizon up your wonderful loyalty program, as you know, I’m.

 

Super interested to hear about people’s favorite loyalty program. So let’s get off, uh, sorry. Pardon me? Let’s kick off with asking you, what is your favorite loyalty program? So my favorite loyalty program is Kohl’s. So for those who aren’t familiar, Kohl’s, it’s an American department store retail chain, and it is considered one of the largest department store chains in the us based on the number of locations and.

 

I personally like their clothing store brands. Mm-hmm  if you aren’t too familiar, they have diffusion lines from high end designers, like Vera Wang, and there’s also Sephora at Kohl’s. That’s a, a famous cosmetics and beauty company. Mm-hmm  and it’s like this unique store within a store concept. So it’s a really, uh, a really unique one stop shop.

 

And I’ve been a loyal Kohl’s customer. For many years, and I’m a big fan of its loyalty program. Mm. Um, I’m also a Kohl’s credit card holder and the rewards program and the credit card really compliment each other nicely. Mm. And it’s an opt in program and you earn rewards. You receive an annual birthday gift, you receive personalized perks.

 

So if you’re a card holder, you receive additional member benefits, like an anniversary gift and even additional savings. And my favorite perk is a currency. They have a currency called Kohl’s cash. So it’s like getting paid to shop and you get $10 of Kohl’s cash for every $50 spent. And I, I really feel like it’s a favorite.

 

Loyalty program of mine because I feel valued as a customer and they really understand how to communicate with you. They send you reminders when you have Kohl’s cash to spend and you receive coupons through the mail and Kohl’s, they also send you emails of additional offers. And it really reminds customers of the value prop of the program and ensures that you don’t leave money on the table as well, that you don’t leave any perks or member benefits unused.

 

Mm, well, that sounds very interesting. I’m not familiar with Kohl’s department store, but the fact that you are, um, experiencing this idea that you’re getting paid to shop, Lisa sounds incredible. , it’s probably a tagline they used as well. I, I, I probably have heard it within the store and within their marketing communication.

 

So it’s, it’s ingrained. There of cautious it’s working, it’s working. We love it. Great. Okay. Well, I’ll have to try and get them on the show, Lisa, which is, um, you know, my, uh, vested interest in asking that question is to line up other wonderful, uh, guests as well to have these conversations. And certainly retail loyalty is one that I’ve had no experience personally.

 

So I’m always curious. And I think what department stores probably struggle with is, you know, differing margins, for example, across all of their various departments. Um, and I’m just thinking back to Ireland, we have a couple of big department stores and they’ve certainly invested in loyalty as well in recent years.

 

So great to see that, that, um, Industry, I guess, is adopting and embracing it. And as you said with the kind of spend that, um, that certain customer segments have with department stores, it’s definitely worthwhile to kind of keep people engaged. So well done Kohls. Yes. So listen, tell us then, Lisa, I know you’ve been with Verizon now for, um, over four.

 

Uh, but also did some fascinating work in Jaguar land Rover, which I find quite fascinating, Lisa, particularly because as a consumer, I tend to see very little going on in, um, in loyalty for car brands. Now, maybe I’m just missing it. Um, I know for example, BMW have done something recently in the UK market, but otherwise it feels like that there could be a lot more done.

 

Given the, um, the, just, I suppose the, the level of spend, of course, if you’re going to buy, you know, a car from Jaguar land Rover. So would you tell us a bit about your career and maybe particularly about what you did with the, with Jaguar? Sure. Absolutely. I mean, overall I think loyalty is a very interesting space and I transitioned to loyalty after working as a research scientist in graduating business school.

 

So yeah, even though it was a, a pretty dramatic career transition, I it’s. Day. I, I feel I still use some of those same skills and that skillset today. And I’m, I’m still well grounded in metrics, data analysis and, and finding creative solutions. And I have held loyalty marketing in strategy roles within.

 

Various industries. So ranging from telecom technology automotive, as you mentioned, Jaguar land Rover and retail, and it all began with starting a loyalty initiative at Burberry, and then leading the launch of Jaguar’s first loyalty program and now leading marketing strategy for. For Verizon up, which is Verizon’s award winning loyalty program.

 

So, um, in my current role, I am responsible for, um, leading communications promotions and member experiences for Verizon up and Verizon up offers. Verizon’s wireless customers offers and rewards, and that ranges from Verizon products and services and top brand and gift cards, charity offers, and once in a lifetime experiences.

 

So I’m responsible for all engagement and acquisition plans to achieve program metrics and KPIs and develop the roles of channels and tactics. And for Jaguar, that was a really. Interesting time. We were launching so many new products and services and we really had to target a whole new customer base.

 

So Jaguar, when I was there, they launched their first SUV. The FPAC their first crossover, the EPAC they relaunched like a compact sedan. Even the Ipace their first electric vehicle. So we needed to acquire new customers. Mm-hmm  and acquisition. I mean, it’s, it’s a niche brand Jaguar. So, I mean, that was somewhat of an uphill battle where your niche and you have to really essentially target all new customers.

 

So the loyalty. Program came into play when, um, we were launching these new vehicles and, um, they dealt with not necessarily like how Verizon up is like free member benefits, but rather different incentives and promotions for different customer segment. So we had, um, campaigns that would target existing customers, but the majority would be acquisition and we formed really unique.

 

Um, Models. Um, it wasn’t necessarily maybe somewhere off the shelf, but a lot of personalized type of models to target, um, these new, um, customers to the brand. And so the loyalty program came into play with those different promotions and we had to be very strategic. Some of these promotions may have been, um, quite aggressive, but we wanna make sure that we’re targeting the right customer segments.

 

Of course. Absolutely. And again, my limited understanding, Lisa is that, um, cars in general are sold through dealer networks, which is perhaps one of the, um, the reasons that the, the manufacturing brand. And especially as you said, uh, I suppose a luxury niche brand like Jaguar mightn’t have had contact directly with its customers in the past.

 

So quite interesting to hear that. And I would say also quite challenging because, you know, Loyalty is not usually seen as the, the tool or the tactic, um, that is easily used for acquisition of customers or even for, you know, um, you know, access to people to get permission to market to them, you know, even pre customers, you know, I think that’s quite an unusual idea.

 

Would that be fair to say? I think you’re absolutely right, because loyalty is all about retaining your existing customers, that retention play. Whereas here it was just because it was a unique situation, essentially, an acquisition play. I mean, we definitely wanted to retain our customers that fit a certain customer profile that we assumed or thought and projected that they would be open to these new type of vehicles, like the SUV or.

 

Or, um, the EPAC the crossover. So, um, there was essentially a retention play, but the majority, so to speak, cuz we had to expand our, our customer segment were expanding into all new categories, expanding the product line. It was all new. Um, so we wouldn’t necessarily even have those existing customers. In the first place.

 

So really building that base. And I think, I think with loyalty and, um, you know, relating even to promotions, the key is to find the right match with your customer segment and the, the right product and service, and then the right offer. Absolutely. And I do want to obviously move on to Verizon up because that’s what we’re here to talk about.

 

But just as we’re honest, would you say that it was something, you know, that you were, you know, really happy with the results? Did it, did it deliver for, you know, just again being in the car industry I’m super interested, would you say it was, um, more difficult than you maybe initially expected as a team?

 

Um, did it deliver for, for the business. There’s always challenges, especially with new product launches and also some of these new categories. I mean, electric vehicle, that’s essentially a new concept, but we did see a, really a strong, um, growth, um, in revenue and in sales. Um, we, we were, I. I did see a stat.

 

Like we were the, the top brand, um, luxury brand. It was 2016. Mm-hmm  for sales growth. So, um, we did see, we did see a significant amount of growth, but, um, some or some products and categories didn’t necessarily perform as well as others. Mm-hmm  I do remember the SUV, the FPAC mm-hmm , um, was, was fairly strong.

 

And, um, you’ll, you know, I started seeing a lot of, uh, F paces on the road, which is a good sign. Didn’t necessarily perform as well. There were some struggles, but, um, you know, you start seeing there, there are gonna be those hits and misses when, when you launch a whole set of new products. Yeah. Yeah. But it sounds like the loyalty strategy, um, direct to consumer almost, you know, that, that sounds like it was a, an intrinsic part of, of getting those products to where they needed to be in terms of sales volume.

 

Yes for Jaguar. I was involved with all their CRM campaigns, so even beyond loyalty. So, um, okay. I, you know, I, I was involved with both acquisition and retention, all of Jaguar’s campaigns for the north America market. And, um, yeah, I guess around, um, several. A couple years in, then we had all these new launches.

 

So at first it was really a strong concentration on retention and then a pivot to acquisition with the, the new, um, launch of the new lines. Super super. So what tempted you to Verizon then? Verizon up when I joined Verizon, it was probably like six to nine months in mm-hmm , um, following launch. So it was an exciting time.

 

I felt like I was able to. Build a loyalty platform from the ground up. So it was, um, almost reverse.  compared to Jaguar where Jaguar first focusing on retention and then acquisition. Whereas here the first half of my tenure at Verizon, I’m still, there has been trying to build that Verizon up membership basis.

 

Opt in program. So building that base and then following that once you really reach some of those milestones, then really encourage engagement. Mm. Um, we have seen that those customers that are engaged within Verizon really. Over index on many different types of metrics and data points, um, with say NPS or reduction in churn and transactional benefits with Verizon products and services and even more.

 

So if they have multiple relationships with, with Verizon, if they’re also F so, um, You know, both wireless and wire line or, um, credit card we were at at the time of the launch, um, things have changed, but at the time of the launch of the credit card, um, we were integrated, there was a, a currency called Verizon dollars and that was integrated within Verizon up.

 

So there have been some changes recently, but, um, Verizon up as a whole, um, is also becoming more of. Integrated platform in integrating across the Verizon ecosystem. So you’ll see that we have partner offers. So you’ll see Harry and David, uh, some seasonal offers, some partnership, um, rewards in app, but then we have also Verizon products and services.

 

You’ll see, say many different, um, Verizon branded accessories. And then also we had, um, other Verizon products and services as rewards, um, within Verizon up, um, travel pass, and cloud and smart family and, um, those type of rewards. So, um, we are, you know, continuing to build that integration across that Verizon ecosystem.

 

Yeah. Yeah, no, it’s definitely complex. And again, as you know, I, I started my loyalty career with oh two priority. So, um, very similar and very familiar and fond memories of, you know, driving that integration. And that’s why I always love to, um, to understand Lisa, even what you just referred to there, you know, what’s the reason for being for a loyalty program because.

 

I think there’s a lot of difference across all industries. And it does seem with telecommunications that it really serves very effectively as a differentiator versus other networks. And I think what, um, any business, particularly of the scale of Verizon. You know, will discover is building a loyalty proposition that is unique is, um, quite expensive and time consuming.

 

Dare I say it. And for that reason, once you do go down that path and start to evolve it and respond to what the customers are feeding back to you, it does really give a very powerful differentiation for the company. I think that’s a very unique point and an important one because telecommunications can be seen as simply a commodity.

 

Yeah. It’s, it’s a service. Typically they have quite low NPS scores.  yes. Your cable companies. And I mean, They trend what slightly higher than IRS is that the, the joke, but, um,  but as a , but as a whole, um, telecommunications and I, I see some, um, unique loyalty initiatives and programs we even have, um, just to give you some background of telecommunications in the us, there’s.

 

There’s the big three there’s Verizon at and T and T-Mobile, and T-Mobile recently merged with sprint. Okay. And T-Mobile has something called T-Mobile Tuesdays and it’s, you know, it’s a weekly type of offer, but, um, for Verizon up, we want to, um, offer. Member benefits throughout the customer life cycle.

 

And throughout the month, a customer can claim rewards throughout the month and remain engaged within the platform. And we want our customers to feel valued. So there is say, uh, A transactional component. I was mentioning like accessory offers, but there’s also those long term type of metrics that you don’t necessarily see a short term ROI.

 

It’s, it’s churn benefit. It’s, um, net promoter score. Those type of things can take time. And, um, you know, that’s where loyalty comes into play as well, both with short term initiatives, as well as those longer term metrics. Yeah. And I do think it shows, um, a lot of, I suppose, leadership integrity when there is that level of investment.

 

Because again, certainly going back to my days in oh two, you know, when we signed off and we were told the board had approved the investment, it was a three year commitment straight up, you know, and I really certainly going into that, you know, and. Thinking on behalf of consumers, I found it very reassuring that there was an awareness at the C-suite that these are longer term initiatives that were not in it just to drive short term behavioral change, because I think often loyalty is seen as this, you know, quick fix panacea for, you know, some business issue.

 

Um, and sometimes it can be a big job to, um, to educate internal stakeholders. About exactly what you’ve referred to in terms of, you know, having the patience to allow the loyalty program do its job. And I think another point is that loyalty and loyalty programs move beyond just the transaction and then like a, a current topic.

 

Now that’s usually discussed is emotional loyalty and that emotional connection. And with telecommunications. An overall trend could be, I’m going to hop to the next company that offers the best device offer or the overall price. And you, you see that routinely customers are impacted by price. Sure. On top of network, quality of network, that’s also a major one, but emotion is that key driver to mm-hmm , um, you know, to the most profitable customer type of behavior influencing customer spend loyalty and LTV.

 

So, um, I would say emotional loyalty has been behind rising up strategy to emphasize membership and access to experiences. And so we have something even called first access called presale. We have a new partnership mm-hmm  with live nation to purchase event and concert tickets, as well as super tickets where there are a lot of white glove V I P events that a customer can, um, try to claim.

 

And, um, you’ll see, like even in our, our marketing messaging, we refer to these exclusive experiential type of rewards and giving our members more access. Mm. And I know this is literally hot off the presses Lisa and, uh, live nation is perhaps not a brand that will be known by, you know, everybody listening around the world.

 

But I think in simple terms, live nation are the world leader in, um, venue operations, certainly in Ireland, UK. They really are absolutely the market leader of operating those extraordinary venues. So giving the likes of Verizon up members, the opportunity to get presale access, because of course, all of the concerts.

 

And I think particularly coming outta the pandemic, there’s a pent up demand for live experiences in getting back out into the world of concerts and theater and, and entertainment overall, I guess. Yes. Yes. Live nation. It is the major company behind concerts and tours for major artists, especially, um, within the us.

 

So it’s, it’s really nice to launch, um, now with the whole resurgence and the reopening and. Exactly that customers are excited to be back into the world and get back to their old way of life and going to concerts and, and experiencing that firsthand. So we’re, we’re really happy to offer that access to our customers.

 

Yeah. Yeah. I think what it does do is it makes us all again, feel excited, feel alive, feel the emotional connection that you were referring to earlier. Right. Absolutely. Absolutely. To even move beyond the transaction, move beyond that promotional, um, spend and messaging into that, then emotional, um, connection with our customers.

 

Yeah. I mean, certainly in my time and I doubt it’s changed that much, you know, there’s a couple of sectors of consumer spend where actually it’s almost a grudge purchase and certainly things like fuel is one of those. And I do think utility. Unfortunately, we all want the benefits of our mobile phone. We want an exceptional, of course, high speed network.

 

But when it comes to paying our bill, actually we really seem to resent it in a way that’s probably not very fair. Given the, the cost to providing a service like that, the infrastructure required. I think so. And also within the pandemic, especially network usage and reliability became even more important, especially as we’re online working from home.

 

Yeah. Um, it became even more important to have that, that reliability, and it’s not necessarily sexy, but, um, you do notice when, when you don’t have that,  totally. Um, reliability. So, um, you know, Verizon always makes, it makes a point to say that essentially our, our biggest asset it’s, it’s servicing our customers and providing a strong network.

 

Yeah. The network is, is our strongest service and product for our customers. You’re totally right. Yeah. It’s getting the basics. Right. And again, I think because it’s something that is very much behind the scenes. I don’t think certainly me as a consumer, I don’t appreciate the complexity and the cost of delivering that kind of infrastructure.

 

So again, definitely something that I always kind of, you know, took for granted, like the phone, like to your point, you know, the phone was always the sexy part. So whether that was apple or, or Samsung or any of the market leaders. That’s what, um, customers always aspired to was the handset. And again, the network behind it to me again, before I got into the industry, I always assumed, regardless of what network I was on, that I was getting a similar or probably identical service in terms of its reliability.

 

But I certainly learned over time. That’s absolutely not the case. It does depend, you know, how well the infrastructure’s been built under. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. I think the, the shiny, sexy objects, like the devices and the big apple launches always. Yeah. You know, get the big headlines and we’re always the, the worker B behind the scene.

 

but, uh, you can’t have one without the other totally. Especially in this day and age. So, um, yeah. You know, we’re, we’re here to service our, our customer. Yeah, absolutely. And I dunno if my figures are a hundred percent up to date Lisa, but the last figures I saw, I think it was the end of actually 2020 was quoting that Verizon has 120.9 million customer customers.

 

Um, and I’m sure, you know, that’s, uh, I don’t know if you can talk about the membership numbers are Verizon up, but in terms of a consumer base, that’s an incredible number. We, uh, I can’t speak specifically to the number of members within Verizon up, but a, a, a strong percentage. Mm-hmm  are a part of Verizon up and we see that engagement.

 

So, you know, we’re really happy with the results. Great, great. Yeah, no, absolutely. So what would you say Lisa are the biggest kind of trends and loyalty given your background with Jaguar, you are and Burberry as well. Another wonderful brand. Um, what would you say is going on in the world of loyalty right now?

 

I think loyalty has been really direct, directly impacted by the pandemic. I think the pandemic had some overarching trends and one of those, which I think is really impacting many industries and many different functions are that customers are more fluid. Um, they’re really. I mean, especially following the pandemic where we have, um, inflation and customers are becoming more price sensitive.

 

Mm-hmm  and less loyal to name brands, so to speak. So even supply chain issues are also impacting the product selection at stores. So, I mean, I read a stat that. More than 80% of consumers bought from a different brand than their usual brand in the past few months. So, um, you do see that brand switching that lack of loyalty.

 

And so that’s where I think loyalty programs and platforms are key that a customer, again, beyond the transac. How does your brand make a customer feel? Mm-hmm how have you treated a customer in the past that customer service a aspect mm-hmm the customer experience comes into play mm-hmm so I think that’s a major trend and another trend would be personalized rewards, which could be seen as a direct response to this customer fluid.

 

And being personalized leads to rewards, which are relevant and exclusive and leads to building that emotional connection with customers. So when you build that emotional loyalty, you know, again, moving beyond the best deal, so to speak and really personalized rewards, ultimately results in an increase in that customer value.

 

So, um, Verizon. Are making a point, an initiative to trend towards that personalization. We are having upcoming relaunch. So, um, there, there will be, um, more to, more to come with personalization, but I mean, even now, currently we have certain upgrade offers for customers. We have anniversary offers for a customer’s wireless anniversary.

 

Personalized as well. We have personalized campaigns. We have say reminder campaigns, reminding customers, um, to use their, their offers. Um, we also have personalization in the past, say with E statements, um, Currently we have, like, if they’re upgrade eligible, you’ll see that version within an, within an E statement.

 

Um, if you’re a card holder, there would be a certain personalization there. So we try to personalize on both the reward offer level, as well as the campaign level. Mm, well done because it’s, it’s definitely a complex piece of work. And I can tell that your scientific background is coming through  in terms of making all that work because, um, yeah, it is the holy grail and, um, there’s a lot of talk about it and remarkably low success rate of having it fully executed.

 

I think everybody is working very hard on it all of the time. So, and I guess the job is never done Lisa, either, um, in. Obviously the more we learn, the more we have to continually personalizing what sounds like you’re a fair way down the track compared to a lot of people. We try our best. We’re always looking to optimize.

 

We’re always looking for that one to one connection with our customers to ensure that it’s relevant. So definitely more to come. And, um, even going back to your question, and this is making me think of, um, um, even more examples is really that seamless omnichannel type of experience, and then also mobile first.

 

And to give you, um, Some insight into Verizon up it launched and is currently apt based a hundred percent app based. So we’ve always been mobile first and, um, we try our best to integrate across that Verizon ecosystem. So if you claim an accessory reward, um, within Verizon up and another CTA, Will be after you claim that, um, you can now make a purchase within the app, um, to, to, um, to use that discount for a accessory immediately.

 

So there is that seamless type of experience. And then when we had device dollars, device dollars was also integrated within the shop flow to make a purchase for a device. So there is that integration. There is that seamlessness mm-hmm  so, um, we really try to make things very easy for the customer. Yeah.

 

And, um, yeah, so you know, that whole shop flow integration. Yeah, no, it’s essential. Yeah. Removing the friction at the end of the day, we all know that we’re fundamentally busy people, you know, I’ve heard the term cognitive overload, um, as something that, uh, I think we’re all increasingly suffering from, um, even pre pandemic and certainly through the, the pandemic.

 

I think we all want simplicity. So anything you can do to get that integrated into the flow, I think absolutely drives conversion. Um, and just. The, the topic of personalization, I suppose. Um, you know, it’s almost impossible to discuss that without wondering about privacy and how, um, how consumers in the us feel about privacy.

 

You know, I think coming from a European background, in fact, the European data protection commissioner is. Is, um, usually based in, in Ireland or is usually an Irish, uh, representative. So I’ve always been super high alert to privacy regulations. We’ve got GDPR. So, so what is the situation like and what kind of consumer sensitivity or not do you have with privacy in the context of personalization?

 

So privacy restrictions have been getting tighter and tighter. Like Apple’s mail privacy protection released with the iOS 15, the GDPR regulations and the limitations of third party cookies. So customer data is becoming more limited. As a result. And this is where I feel loyalty comes into play because loyalty programs are effective and there are effective way to collect zero party and first party data mm-hmm  and, um, there’s a.

 

Clear value exchange with loyalty programs. Customers want to be rewarded for sharing their data. So zero party data helps with the phasing out of cookies and customers are in control of the data they choose to share with your brand. And I think that is key. And, um, with the whole relaunch of Verizon upcoming, next several months, there will be more ways for customers to share their tastes and preferences and in a general.

 

A lot of different loyalty programs and platforms, they can allow customers to share their taste and preferences with say surveys, polls, gamification. And I think customers feel more at ease when they know, okay. I consciously am sharing information with you. For that member benefit for that personalization.

 

And they, they see that, um, firsthand. Whereas if it’s done say in a creepy way where totally, um, yeah, you’re, you’re seeing this customer behavior on the back end, or you not communicating it quite properly to the customer, they might feel resentful as a. Yeah, I think you’re absolutely right. It is the execution.

 

And I think when it’s, um, a little too personal and I think we’ve all experienced that or in an unexpected context, I do think then, you know, we all ti tend to feel a bit kind of freaked out and a bit, like not really sure. You know, I mean, I’ve had experiences and, you know, I still don’t know how some of them happened, but where I would be verbally discussing something, for example, or sending a WhatsApp and all of a sudden I’m being targeted by a product on a totally different platform.

 

And then I’m starting to wonder, you know, where, where was that picked up from? Is it my Alexi as I call her when I’m speaking out loud? So I don’t set off everybody’s, uh,  home devices. Um, but. There’s a very important awareness in terms of, you know, what, what consumers are comfortable with. And it sounds like you’re, you’re treading very carefully with that.

 

I’m glad I’m not the only one that has seen that creepiness because I mean, I’ve been discussing, say butternut squash, risotto recipes with my mom, and all sudden she’ll receive an ad of rota squash recipes. So, wow. Um, it’s a, it’s a little too personalized there. There’s that fine line. Totally totally.

 

And for your mother to notice as well. I mean, that’s a whole different demographic demographic of course, because I think we’re tuned into it and we’re online, obviously most of our certainly working lives. So, you know, I tend to think, oh, I, maybe I Googled a recipe or something, but, uh, might be less likely for our parents.

 

So yeah, there is, um, definitely an important line not to be crossed when it comes to that privacy and the piece I was thinking as well. Lisa says you were talking about that is. With the proposition that you’ve launched now with live nation. That was definitely one where we saw on the oh two priority side, a huge appetite, you know, for people to identify particularly maybe a genre of music that they do want presale access to tickets, for example.

 

So, you know, I’m a country music fan, which I know is not something to always boast about, but whoever that is what I like. So I do tend to, uh, I love when a country music artist comes to Ireland or now Dubai, of course. So like there’s no point telling me for example, that there’s a hip hop artist coming, but over time, I think that’s exactly what, um, you know, your members will absolutely get joy from sharing exactly what they do want access to.

 

Because then at least they know it’s not that kind of, you know, mass market proposition where it’s sent out to everybody, but they sent it out to the fans. Who’ll be most interested in that type of music. Totally agree. Because you could have data that supports that this person is a strong music enthusiast.

 

But that can mean a lot of different things. You might be very into country music, whereas then, uh, a hip hop artist would not be relevant to you. So, um, just being a music enthusiast, really doesn’t tell you all what you need to know exactly. Um, you know, you can really turn a, a customer off if there is suddenly receiving push campaigns about, uh, a certain artist where they’re just simply not interested to ever go to a show.

 

So lots going on, Lisa. Huh? Things are always exciting. Uh, at Verizon and Verizon up, there’s always, uh, a new launch. There’s always a new product and service, and it’s all about keeping things new and fresh for customers. Totally. And anything else that’s coming up in the future? Is it all top secret or are there other things coming out that you can even tease us with?

 

Or do we have to wait till you come back onto the show a second time? Well, there’s still a lot more to come and, um, it should be launching within next couple of months. But, um, even in the meantime we have great rewards in app. And so we have, um, different accessory offers. We have seasonal type of partner offers and continue to check back for presale and super tickets.

 

And so, I mean, we really have a strong offering for our customer. Wonderful. Wonderful. So I’m sure everybody who’s listening, certainly in the us market will be very excited to go and look at Verizon up and the evolving proposition, because literally I think a lot of the changes you’ve made most recently are, are what, literally a couple of weeks old.

 

And as you said, lots more coming up in the coming months as well. So, so listen, that’s all of the questions I had for you today. Lisa, was there anything else you wanted to mention before we wrap? Well, I really appreciate the time. Um, you spent with me today to, um, really allow me to share my insights about Verizon up with your audience.

 

And I, I know there is an international aspect to your audience, which, um, is, is great. And there’s so much exciting things on the horizon for horizon up. So definitely stay tuned and it would be great to connect with you even following those changes and especially. The world continues to evolve and, um, we’ll see where it goes for sure.

 

And if it’s okay with you, Lisa, what I will do is make sure to put your LinkedIn profile in the show notes. So if people want to reach out, perhaps they can, uh, check in with you directly. Sounds. Perfect. Thank you. Great. Okay. Well, listen, it’s been a fantastic conversation, Lisa, as I said, very, uh, fond memories for me of telecommunications.

 

I love the work that you’re doing. So Lisa Marketing Strategy Lead at Verizon. Thank you so much from Let’s Talk Loyalty.

 

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