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 for loyalty specialists around the world. This episode is brought to you by Epsilon and their award-winning people, cloud loyalty solution. I’ve always delighted to have Epsilon on board as a sponsor, and particularly today, as they were just named a leader in the Forrester wave loyalty solutions, Q2 2021 report with the top score in the current offering cash agree.
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This report is designed to help you as marketeers find the perfect partner for your loyalty program. So to download your copy of the report, visit epsilon.com forward slash let’s talk loyalty.
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. Hello. It’s great
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To have you listening on the show today for any of you who get as excited as I do. When I see a new loyalty program launching today, I have a real treat in store for you. Built rewards is the world’s first loyalty program that rewards you for paying rent. And by that, yes, I mean the money that’s. So many of us spend every single month to pay rent for our home. It’s a really big idea, Andrew remarkable loyalty industry innovation. So today I was thrilled to be able to chat to industry veteran Dave county, director of loyalty and partnerships at built rewards to share this incredible idea with you on today’s episode of let’s talk loyalty
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so Mr. David
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Kanti, please do tell me, what is your favorite loyalty statistic? Hey
2m 5s
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Paula, how I am? I think my favorite law test statistic is a redemption breeds loyalty. I know that that’s a favorite amongst others, but I’ve always been a huge advocate for the customer. So I’ve always invested in the customer proposition. And I think the customer when he really gets to realize that when they redeem. So to me, making sure that the hurdles and the entry into redemption are achievable and encourageable, then that’s that really kind of allows you to engage with your members or earlier in the process.
2m 46s
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Lovely, lovely. I think I’ve often used the word integrity, Dave, when I talk about, you know, what makes a loyalty program successful and without naming names, one of the first programs I worked on had an agency that actually didn’t have same level of customer centricity, and they were basically earning in fact, a fixed fee regardless of the rate of redemption. And obviously then they were dis-incentivizing. And so I know it’s a big issue for the industry. You know, what’s a healthy redemption rate, what’s a healthy reward rate, but actually it’s something I know, for example, American airlines also alluded to, and I’ll be done to get into your kind of airline background, but the whole idea of the speeds to redemption and making sure that that redemption actually happens.
3m 30s
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I think probably I suppose, because the airline industry started the whole kind of loyalty industry. Would you say it’s it’s there that you got that kind of insight from?
3m 40s
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Probably I probably got the insight more on the hotel side, but if I, if I look at my airline experience, when I worked for jet blue, I did have the opportunity to really kind of re-imagine what loyalty can be in the airline industry. Certainly in the United States, jet blue was the, the first major airline to introduce a revenue based program in the United States. At the time it was, it was leading edge and other airlines, all the majors basically said that’s not going to work.
4m 21s
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And they they’ve all subsequently followed. And I think by going to a revenue based model at that point in time, it allowed the relationship between the revenue management team and the loyalty team to really come together as one because before airlines were very much forced down the path of capacity controls and so forth, but now by going to a revenue based model, it allowed you to really kind of open up all the inventory on the aircraft for redemption and I, and I think that basically was an opportunity for us to re-imagine how loyalty programs can play a part and be a significant positive within the, the airline from that, from that point forward up to that point, I think the, the, the relationship between revenue management and loyalty resolve as viewed as loyalty was the cost center.
5m 31s
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And I think changing that mindset was, was hugely important.
5m 37s
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And can I ask you Dave, just on that point, did consumers understand that or how did the consumers react? Because I think it’s genius. And as, as many of my listeners know, I’m expert to share ways on X Emirates and didn’t have an incredible role like you did with jet blue, but did the consumer understands the difference and why you were making that very important strategic decision
6m 2s
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At the time? It was a, it was a huge risk for us at jet blue to, to take that step because it required us to not only believe in what our strategy was and, and be patient with it, but it also required us to educate the customer base. And when you have a, the majority of the, the traveling public in the United States at that time were essentially conditioned into mileage based programs. There was a reluctance in to accept this, this new model.
6m 46s
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So it required us to kind of keep focused on the long game here and educate customers about the fact that this was actually going to be better for them over time. And by showing them that redemption was available to them a lot earlier helped with that message because all of a sudden, where traditionally you had programs that were opening up their inventory at, let’s say 25,000 miles, we were now opening that up at 5,000 appointments and allowing people to get to that kind of level early and quickly was hugely advantageous to us because it allowed us to really demonstrate that what we’re actually bringing to the market is going to open up so many other opportunities and stimulate reward travel.
7m 48s
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So yes, there was a, there was a, an, an element of there was, there was an element of hesitation from the public and acceptance, but over time, I think they realized that actually this makes a lot of sense. And when you started to see the adoption rate continuously grow and you saw redemption rates continuously grow, then that allowed us to really tell the story. And I also think it’s important as well to con to have this continuous dialogue with your customer base. So what we were doing was we were introducing something very new.
8m 32s
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We were asking them to adopt essentially, by the way, we were also asking our partners to change their mindset. And by, by being able to demonstrate that you’re, you’re, you’re getting to a earlier, we were able to show over time that the adoption of the program, not just at the core, but through the partner ecosystem as well actually went skywards it was tremendous I’m sure.
9m 13s
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Exponential growth I’m sure. Was it,
9m 16s
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It was significant growth. Triple digit. My
9m 18s
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Goodness, my goodness. Wow. Talk about a career defining campaign.
9m 23s
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Yeah, I wouldn’t, I, it hasn’t ended there.
9m 29s
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It certainly helps. Okay. Okay. So I think 26 years, I counted in total of direct loyalty experience. Any other highlights that you’d mentioned, because we’ve talked about it, obviously jet blue, I think your eight years as director of loyalty and partnerships with jet blue, and you had time with Starwood and also IHG. So what other stands out, I suppose, in terms of things you’re particularly proud of and your loyalty career.
9m 56s
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Yeah. So it’ll be 11 years with Starwood. We’re terrific because I was there actually pre Starwood. I was, I was there with ITT sheruts and, and when Barry Sternlicht, who was the, the CEO and founder of Starwood, when, when he acquired the, the brands of ITT, that was, that was subsequent to an acquire an acquisition of a small hotel brand at the time called Western, believe it or not. So Western had a program called Western premier, and we had a program called Sheraton club international, and the remit then was we need one program and make it the best program in the world.
10m 47s
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And when you get, when you get that kind of direction, it’s, it’s both a challenge, but at the same time, it’s, it’s really kind of liberating because it allows you to kind of attack things from a white space. And I think, I think where we, where we’ve ended, where we ended with SPG basically was industry transform transformative. It became one of the most loved programs in the world. So I’ve been lucky in the sense that I was part of SPG from the very, very beginning, and to, to see that get embraced by the, the traveling public in the hospitality space was hugely rewarding.
11m 41s
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I kind of took a step to the right then, which was kind of really interesting as well when, when I joined the AutoZone us and some people, because I was only there for a year, it tends to get glossed over. But it’s, yeah, it was an amazing experience because it was the first time I’d ever kind of stepped into the retail space. And what really intrigued me about that opportunity was, again, it was, we don’t have a loyalty program. We actually don’t know what the hell we want and can you help us?
12m 25s
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And so that started from a blank sheet of paper as well. And the, the way that, that completely transformed sales, same store sales for all us on, which is the largest auto parts parts store in the United States at the time it had 5,000 stores. And I think the thing that really intrigued me about that was AutoZone owned all those stores that weren’t franchised. So by being able to create a program from scratch that more than doubled, the average basket was hugely rewarding, but I did have a realization at the time that while I’m very proud of what we achieved at AutoZone, I didn’t have realization that when once travels inside you, it’s very hard to leave it go totally.
13m 26s
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When jet blue invited me back to New York, I kind of thought, you know what? I think it’s, I think I can leave the, the car parts piece behind me, but it, but at the same time, it was a, it was a moment in my career that I’m very grateful for because of that immigrant, very grateful to Waterstone for giving me the opportunity. It was a terrific opportunity. And I learned an awful lot from it because now you’re looking at very small kind of average baskets and seeing how you can exponentially grow that and how you can influence behavior. Wow. And then of course, IHG was a huge opportunity because you were talking about, believe it or not the first hotel program in the world.
14m 17s
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And at the time it was the largest hotel program because it had 120 million members globally. And that was that, and that was without acquisition. So running their programs. So we had multiple programs under the IHG arm. So you had Kimpton karma, which ultimately we, we kind of, we retired Kimpton karma, but retained Kimpton, inner circle. And then you had the Intercontinental ambassador. And of course within that, you have Royal ambassador IST rewards, which like I said, at the top was the, the largest and first a hotel program.
15m 2s
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And having a program that kind of is relevant across the world across multiple different brands to different customer segments was amazing. And then of course, that leads me to where I am today with, with built. And that’s, that’s something that I’m, I’m very proud of. Well, I
15m 29s
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Mean, that’s the main reason you’re on the show today, Dave and I had been very aware of your illustrious career of course, and with all of that fantastic work. So thank you for talking us through and firmly establishing your credentials. And, but I honestly think built rewards is perhaps the most innovative concept that I have seen. And I think ever like I’m consulting, you know, 10, 11 years, and I can see you’re nodding, your head built rewards is, is literally renting should be rewarding. This is the tagline I’ve seen on the website and an entirely new proposition. You already use the word relevant. And I know you have a particular passion about why this concept is M first of all, I think essential.
16m 13s
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And secondly, so am so powerful. So I’d love you to explain and introduce built rewards for the audience.
16m 21s
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Sure. And I’d like to premise it by saying that I do actually believe that this is the most important, larger program of my career. And it’s something that I’m very, very proud of. Everything kind of starts with a mission. And so, so when you think about what’s the problem you’re trying to solve, and then is there a mission that we can get behind? And one of the biggest challenges, certainly in the United States, I actually think this is probably a challenge globally, but let’s start in the United States where young people in the rental community today are spending the biggest portion of their monthly income is being consumed by rent.
17m 13s
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And today they get nothing for it. So while you might have retail programs, travel programs and, and so forth, yeah. A lot of those, they don’t add up to your largest monthly expense. So we wanted to see was there a way in which we could start rewarding that type of a expense, but the more and more we kind of thought about as we kind of were drawing this out on a board and saying, okay, how can we make rent more rewarding? We realized that there was a much bigger mission here and what that is, is giving people a pathway to home ownership.
18m 1s
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So not only are you rewarding your on-time rent payments, we’re also creating a pathway over time to home ownership. So how are we doing that? Well, there’s a couple of ways we’re doing it. We’re allowing you to obviously accumulate points based on rent. Now you can now, by the way, you can use those points in many, many ways. And I’ll get that into that in a second, but, but you can also accumulate these points and use them towards a down payment on a home. Wow.
18m 41s
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Extreme to that is, and this is, this is a little unknown that, that we were surprised about when we were kind of building this out, but your highest monthly expense in the United States today does not. If you pay on time, payments do not get reported to the credit agencies. So that in and of itself is an opportunity because young people who are trying to build their credit scores over time, we’re not getting any credit for their largest monthly expense. My goodness.
19m 21s
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So built is now not only going to reward you for your rental payments, but we’re also going to report those on time rent payments to the credit agencies and build your credit score. So that’s significant because over the lifetime of a renter, if you, if you continuously build your credit score, based on that highest payment, that’s actually going to save you thousands and thousands, tens of thousands of dollars when you’re trying to originate a mortgage. So we are building a pathway to home ownership. Now, I also said that there are multiple other ways that you can earn.
20m 5s
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So what we wanted to do was ensured that built members while accumulating built points, we’re going to be able to use those points towards rent, but also we need it to be relevant in their everyday life. And the way that we’re going to do that is by building an ecosystem of partnerships that allows them to transfer on a one-to-one basis, by the way, into a number of different airline partners, hotels, also into fitness and lifestyle programs. We’ve also built out a very, very highly curated catalog with the built collection.
20m 57s
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We’re also kind of introducing an educational element through our editorials. So a lot of people certainly in the, the millennial and gen Z audience, and I mean this very respectfully to the, to, to them, but a lot of people hear about points and miles currencies and whatever, and they don’t really understand the true value. Now, some people can go to the point sky and there’s some really great information there that, that you can, you can source. But what we want to do as part of the build rewards experience is also educate people on how they can maximize their currency.
21m 43s
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So what is the best way that you can use build rewards? Should you want to travel? So we, if, if you download the, the built rewards app, you’ll be able to go into a lot of the editorials in there are very educational. And if you wanted to, let’s say travel to Dubai are beyond what is the best way in which you can do that. And certainly with our partner, we have a partnership with Emirates that allows you to transfer your built rewards into, to sky warts. We’ve also got a partnership with American airlines.
22m 24s
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We’ve got a partnership with air France, KLM, Aeroplan Hawaiian airlines, Turkish airlines. So when you start and Virgin, we’ve also done a partnership with Virgin points. So when you start looking at those airlines that we have within that ecosystem, we throw, we, we touch all three major alliances, one world and star Alliance. And then you’ve got niche partners like Emirates and Hawaiian. That really kind of bring a, a different level of experience, but allowing our members access on a one-to-one basis to those types of partners can be, can be hugely rewarding.
23m 13s
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Absolutely. But the other thing you, you mentioned the word relevant at the, at the beginning relevancy to me is, is key to everything that you should be doing in a larger program. You really need to be relevant at every touch point. And to me, I’m one of the reasons why I’m saying that built rewards is going to be the one of the most, if not the most important program of my career is it truly is a lifelong loyalty program because it’s relevant from your very first rent payment, all the way to home ownership.
23m 53s
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Now that’s significant. And you know, when you start looking at those types of problems, so I spoke about you start with the problem. You have, you have young people that are paying rents that are there, that are skyrocketing wages are not kind of, our salaries are not staying in line with, with the increase in rent and real estate. So home ownership is getting further away. So by creating a program that puts you on the path to, to that I think is, is truly rewarding.
24m 33s
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Wow. Perfectly received. Oh my goodness. And it’s actually still brand new Dave,
24m 39s
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Am I right? I think you launched in June and here we are in August. So kind of eight weeks old, like literally hot off the presses.
24m 48s
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It is hot off the presses. We launched it in, we launched it in June of June 22nd, 2021. So it’s a program that there have been a lot of amazingly talented people in builds have kind of come together to create this. Yeah. And it was all built through COVID, which is even more astounding because, you know, when I sat down with the founder and CEO on crew Jane in his new, in his New York office, and we discussed some of the ideas around, first of all, where this started was Oscar had had this idea and he asked me, how can we do this?
25m 38s
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And we sat down and we kind of ideated this and went over, you know, we had a fairly long dinner, which was quite enjoyable, but that was the night that, that actually was the night when the world heard that Tom Hanks had got COVID in the United States. That was like, oh my God, we need to take this. You know, I I’d probably say that tongue in cheek. And I, and I don’t mean to kind of, to make light of a light of COVID, but it was the night that, that, that announcement came out, the NBA shut down. The president announced that borders were being closed and so forth.
26m 21s
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Yeah. So all those things kind of happened collided at the same time. So all of a sudden we started building this team through zoom and, you know, we were recruiting through zoom and it was, it was an amazing journey calming coming together. The other interesting thing about it was people ask me about the fact, I can’t believe this hasn’t been done before. And, and, you know, I asked myself the same thing, but some, sometimes the most simple ideas are, are the best.
27m 5s
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And I think, I, I think one of the keys to our success was really kind of looking at it holistically. So not only did we look at it from the consumer perspective, but we also looked at it from the landlord perspective.
27m 24s
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This was going to be my question, actually, Dave, and I’m guessing that’s the revenue model and that’s essentially who’s paying for the points. Am I right? Is that part of the overall needs and problem that anchor was trying to fix when he, when he came up with this vision?
27m 40s
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Yeah. So what we want to do was we wanted to be able to demonstrate to, to the landlords and real estate community, that the cost of acquisition of a resident and the cost of retention of a resident is quite high. So being able to, to go to landlords and say, look, we can actually create a program that allows you to not only incense new new residents, but also allow you to retain good residents just makes sense.
28m 22s
2
So what we did was we, we built what we’re calling the pardon, the pun, but we, we, we created the bill for awards w the build rewards Alliance, which is actually an Alliance of all of the top real estate companies in the United States. They all basically became part of the build rewards Alliance, whether it be related, whether it be Starwoods, whether it be Artemis, whether it be Camden, all of them, they all came together to create the built rewards Alliance. And these are a group of owners who basically saw the value in creating a program that not only rewards on time payments, because by the way, rewarding on time payment also gives the landlord an element of assurance that they’re going to get paid.
29m 18s
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Amazing. Yeah.
29m 20s
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But you wanted to create that Alliance, Dave, sorry to cut over you. But I was wondering about this. So, so there wasn’t an existing community of landlords who had identified the commercial problems, which clearly is their top pain point. I’m sure. And this was something that you essentially went to them and say, you know, we’ve noticed your pain points and can see it matches up with the consumer pain point. And how about we fix that for you in between? Yeah.
29m 47s
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Yeah. So not me personally, but certainly the, the, the company and, and the, the real estate team went out and explained, first of all, the proposition of built. Okay. So all of all of those organizations work as independent businesses. And what we were able to do was say to them, look, we’re creating a program that we think can be helpful to you. Yeah. So we kind of went on selling them on a vision and asking them to kind of take, and by the way, not just the real estate partners, but all of our partners, we, we basically were asking them to take a leap of faith with us.
30m 33s
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Of course. And I think they’re there, it’s been truly kind of validating to us that so many have kind of come on board so quickly to, to create this kind of ecosystem, but certainly getting the landlords and the real estate owners involved early was a huge shift because that really showed us that there was a significant interest in, in doing this. And it made sure that we could create a program that wasn’t kind of like a onesy twosy fly by night.
31m 17s
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Totally.
31m 17s
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Yeah. Yeah. And I saw the level of ambition, Dave, as well. I’m not sure how far geographically your real estate team has got. And of course, I signed up in the hopeful anticipation that Dubai might be next on the list because I’m renting. And I can tell you, I would love some SkyWars miles or the likes in return and put geographically then given your age weeks old, as we said, is it limited to New York at the moment? I know you’re planning nationwide, certainly in the U S but what’s, what’s the vision.
31m 47s
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The vision is certainly the, the whole market of the United States. Initially. Now the, the build rewards Alliance essentially just covers that. So we’re starting off with 2 million apartments already as part of the built rewards Alliance. So, and if you think about that from the perspective of, and that’s just the launch. So if we think about one and a half residents per unit, all of a sudden, you’re at 3 million build rewards members pretty quickly now we’re, we’re, you know, like, like, like we’ve just touched on where like eight weeks in here.
32m 32s
2
So we’re kind of, we’re, we’re kind of switching these properties on, in a very kind of deliberate way, because it’s important for us to ensure that the, the proposition is right. It’s, it’s important for us to ensure that the, the, the, the residences are ready too. So we, you know, there’s a lot of operationally, we, we need to kind of make sure the training is in place. We need to ensure that the residents understand the proposition and so forth. And I also think one of the, one of the, one of the keys to success in any loyalty program, by the way, not just to build, but any large program is continuously listening to your customer.
33m 26s
2
And one of the things, and I I’ve, I’ve, I have a reputation for making sure that we continuously engage with customers and certainly at jet blue, when we create a true blue and we, and we took that kind of risk in creating a loyalty program based on revenue, educating the membership base. Yeah. The most important thing was listening to the customer, hearing what their experience was and then being able to adjust. Yeah. So while what our core proposition kind of out of the gate, we believe is very, very strong.
34m 6s
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We want to continuously listen to the customer. And if there are ways in which we can tweak, evolve, adjust, and so forth going forward, we’re going to do that. Now, a good example of that, if I can go back to jet blue for a second, but a good example of that is in, in listening to your customer base was when we created true blue. And we went from a distance space model of miles to now a revenue based model. We, we w we also understood that customers who were flying long distances regularly were always going to feel a little bit, hang on a second.
34m 52s
2
This, this doesn’t add up. And we introduced a thing back then called the goal long bonus. And what that meant was if you had 10 flights that were over a certain distance, we would reward you with 10,000 points. So I think when we first launched that that distance number was about 2000 miles, and the reason we had done that was we were looking at people who were flying from east to west coast okay. And rewarding them. And I remember quite proudly walk having a member event in Boston at the Boston opera house.
35m 42s
2
And we were, I was entertaining some, some TrueBlue members and part of the conversation with one particular member was, Hey, I really like what you’ve done with true blue, but there’s one thing that really annoys me. There’s always one, but I kind of went, okay, well, I’m, I’m intrigued. And he said, that go long bonus really kind of gets to me because I fly from Boston to Denver every week. And it’s just to me sitting on the aircraft, I feel like I’m on that thing for four and a half hours, five hours.
36m 25s
2
And to me, that’s a long haul and I’m not getting that long haul bonus. And I went back to the team with armed, with that type of feedback and said, Hey, what would happen? First of all, how far is Denver? So we started looking at that. And then I said, okay, what would happen if we reduced that from 2000 miles to, I can’t remember what it was, let’s say 1600, what would happen? And what we realized was that would actually open up about 36 new routes that would qualify far the goal long.
37m 6s
2
So we were able to take that type of feedback, listening by listening to our customers and implement a change to the model. And then we were able to, you know, go out to our customer base and said with, with the, with the market that we’ve been listening to you, and we’re adjusting based on what you’re telling us now. So that’s just one example. I see us continuously doing that with built as well. We’re going to continue to see, listen to our landlords and our, our, our partners. Yeah.
37m 46s
2
And we’re also going to listen to our residents. And if there are things that we can adjust, we’ll, we’ll make those adjustments, but we’re very proud of the, the proposition that we have. We think it’s going to resonate. It’s again, it’s rewarding your highest monthly expense. And to me, that, that, that cannot be under, you know, understated
38m 10s
3
It’s genius. Honestly, I’d say our head nearly exploded. I could just imagine that dinner meeting cause you referred to it last time we spoke as well. So, and actually even I did look up your seat CEO as well, Dave, just because, you know, and love to know, particularly with something that is so innovative. And I mean, I use that word. That’s another, my favorite words, you know, like what can we do? That’s totally different and know that anchor Jane, your, as CEO worked in at Tinder, for example, and lots of other tech startups. So clearly has the type of mentality that I think often is quite missing. And Lloyd’s yeah. I think a lot of us have been maybe around a little bit too long and we need to kind of stir things up a bit more.
38m 52s
2
Yeah. I think I’ve been very fortunate to work with anchor on, for has got an, an infectious energy and an eagerness to continuously learn. Wow. And it’s, it’s, it’s quite all inspiring actually to be working with him because when he first met with me, he, he quite quite casually threw his hands up and said, look, I have this idea, but I really don’t know how to make it happen. Can you help? And you know, I certainly, I was, I was intrigued by the idea, but I’ve been more impressed with anchor’s eagerness to learn.
39m 40s
2
He has been, he’s become a, an incredible student of loyalty and the, the, the whole science behind it. And he can probably almost explain the program better than I can at this point. It’s, it’s, it’s extraordinary. So, you know, from, from somebody who has an idea, he, wasn’t just interested in kind of having guys go and do it. He was also interested in understanding every single element of it. And in doing that, that, that kind of passion feeds through the organization.
40m 21s
2
So the culture of built is about constantly learning about all aspects of our business. I mean, I never thought that I never thought that I’d be learning about real estate. To me, it’s a fascinating space and you know, it, I’m intrigued by it. The whole banking side is really, really extraordinary. And then I have to show it out to tour engineers because they have been phenomenal in not just kind of building this from scratch, but also building it in a way that allows us to continuously innovate and add different dimensions to it.
41m 5s
2
But that, that all comes from the top that comes from anchors energy, you know? Yeah. He, he was part of Tinder, but he, he had businesses before Tinder. I mean, Tinder acquired Tinder, acquired his company, you know, and as part of the Kairos umbrella, that, that, and Kairos is the company that anchor, there were a number of different companies that he’s invested in, you know, whether it be in healthcare, whether it be in the housing and education.
41m 45s
2
So there’s a number of different things that, that anchor is very passionate about, but he’s also passionate about bringing great ideas to life. And I th I think his, his, I mentioned his, his infectious kind of personality that really kind of does inspire us all to kind of be at our very best at all times. And I think that’s what gives me confidence for the future of where bills can go. It’s because it, that marries very, very well with what I spoke about in listening to your customer base.
42m 28s
2
Yeah. So not being satisfied with what you’ve just developed today, but continuously looking to improve it. Yeah. And I think that’s, that’s the culture of built and that, that definitely stems from anchor. Okay.
42m 44s
3
And my final question was exactly about where can it go, Dave, and, and, and I mean that in both ways, so first of all, geographically, can we, first of all, get it to our, our home country of Ireland, because it would be remiss if I did not let my listeners know that Dave county is from cork, which is very exciting to me, the Dublin cork rivalry may not be understood by everybody listening, but anyway, I’m sure you’ll appreciate it. And so geographically, I mean, is there an opportunity to do this around the world? And the second part of that question, Dave is around, you know, commercial real estate. And we’ve already talked about COVID.
43m 25s
3
I think commercial property is on its knees and my understanding from outside of the industry. But do you think there’s a possibility for a model to do this on the B2B side of real estate?
43m 37s
2
I think there is, but just, just to be, to be transparent, I think it’s important for us to get the, the rental market right. First for our residential and just for residential immediately. So, you know, that’s, that’s the first thing we want to tackle. We’re, we’re eight weeks into it. We want to make sure that we get it right, but, but it is an onion. We w there are many layers to it. And commercial is certainly a layer that we will, we will look at geographically.
44m 21s
2
Obviously our focus is in the United States initially, but certainly we think it is a portable program. And when we’re, when we’re ready, I think you will see us look at opportunities abroad. So we’ll see where it goes. I, you know, we, we get these questions all the time in the sense that we’ve launched and we’re asking for feedback, and we’re already kind of getting, we’re already getting questions on the commercial side. We’re getting, we’re getting questions on, can you do it for mortgages?
45m 2s
2
So, so the homeowner already are asking, well, can, can you reward me for my, for my mortgage? Yeah. There’s multiple different things that we’re going to look at, but I think it’s important that, you know, we’ve made a commitment to the rental community to be a program that really allows them to, to find some level of reward from their rent and to, to give them the opportunity to get on the ladder of home ownership. So that’s, that’s our kind of starting commitment. Yeah. I think if we can nail that, we’ll, we’ll be tremendously proud, but at the same time, we will continuously look at opportunities to expand it.
45m 51s
3
Wonderful. Yeah. And you did use the, the words earlier table ready, which I’m not very good at, you said be patient. And I think he used it in the context of jet blue, but you could hear, I get excited. I get carried away and I want it all tomorrow.
46m 4s
2
So listen, it’s, it’s something that I’ve had to get comfortable with myself as well. And, you know, working with anchor, like I said, he’s got an infectious appetite to, to continuously challenges to improve, but, but it, you know, I sometimes kind of look at him and he, he kind of, he sees my face now and, and in some ways, and the expressions I have, and he knows when I’m kind of going okay, let’s, let’s kind of, let’s, let’s, let’s pump the brakes here for a minute because I, you know, I love the fact that, that there are many different layers that we can kind of go to here.
46m 51s
2
And the other thing, as well, just before we end is I actually think that this can be a huge stimulus by the way, to the travel industry. And hence, we’ve created this, this, this ecosystem where you can transfer on a one-to-one basis to all of these airlines and hotels. And this is an opportunity for our partners to get access to the younger demographic. So it’s mainly millennial and gen Z that are in this kind of space. And these, this is an audience that hasn’t yet really established a loyalty to a specific travel company.
47m 35s
2
So by tapping into that, we’re actually stimulating and we’re opening up the opportunity of travel to them. And I think it kind of goes back to my comment about educational elements as well. So educating them on how they can maximize their points with our travel partners is also an opportunity to really educate them on the power of loyalty programs and how it can open up the whole globe to them. So I do see this not just solving far the real estate and housing, but it also can be a stimulus to travel.
48m 19s
2
Yes.
48m 19s
3
Yeah. And she used another lovely term as well, Dave earlier, which was a lifelong loyalty program. And, and I totally hear that coming through in this concept. And certainly with my experience, every piece of research that I have seen on loyalty with gen Z and with younger customers exactly says loyalty is not working for them. Like there actually is a major problem with yes, the idea they love the concept. They totally bought into the idea of reciprocity. And then they look at the reality and they go, oh, not for me, it’s just not working. So I think you’ve actually, you know, stimulated a lot of people to realize that core problem.
49m 0s
3
And as you said, identify something that’s hugely relevant for the first time.
49m 4s
2
Totally. And I think that’s going to be very important to so bringing all those things together, so educating them on the value proposition, allowing them to realize value early through redemption and continuously being continuously listening and understanding their, their needs, their concerns, the challenges that they have and seeing if there’s ways in which we can address those, I think allows us to continuously be relevant. And then of course, building our partners who want to be part of that ecosystem to ensure that the overall experience continues to, to, to, to build is going to be important.
49m 53s
2
My
49m 53s
3
Goodness. Well, I have to say Dave, I’m, I’m utterly inspired by what you’re doing, and I think you can hear it coming through a totally drunk the Kool-Aid. So I think there’ll be lots of people who probably want to get in touch with you and follow your work, Dave. So where’s the best place for people to find you
50m 10s
2
Sure they can reach out to me@daveatbuiltrewards.com. It’s very simple. So happy to, to take their questions follow up are, if they’re interested in partnering with us, I’m happy to, to hear what those opportunities are as well. And I may actually be at the larger conference in Dubai, in October. Oh my
50m 36s
3
Goodness. Okay. Well, we will make sure there’s a prime seat available for you, Dave. And just as you say, built rewards, I thought a couple of times we should really be clear that’s B I L T. And so just in case people are confused, I’ll obviously make sure to link to you and to build rewards as well in the show notes as well, Dave, obviously to make sure people can find you and they can obviously reach out to me as well if they want to get to you. So that’s it. Any final closing comments before we wrap up?
51m 3s
2
No. Terrific. Paula, thanks very much for having me on. I really enjoy the show. I’m an avid listener and, you know, as somebody who has been in loyalty for just shy of 30 years, wow, it’s great to have, have, have an Irish person to lead. This type of initiative with your podcast is tremendous. Thank
51m 27s
3
You. Brilliant, brilliant stuff. Well, listen, Dave Kanti, head of loyalty and parks, no
51m 31s
0
Ships have built rewards. Thank you so much from 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, both online and in workshops around the world through its Loyalty Academy, which has already certified over 150 executives in 18 countries as Certified Loyalty Marketing Professionals. Thanks so much for listening to this episode of “Let’s Talk Loyalty”. If you’d like me to send you the latest show each week, simply sign up for the show newsletter on Let’s Talk Loyalty.com and I’ll send you the latest episode to your inbox every Thursday, or just head to your favorite podcast platform, find “Let’s Talk Loyalty” and subscribe. Now, of course I’d love your feedback and reviews and thanks again for supporting the show.
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