Paula: Welcome to Let’s Talk Loyalty, an Industry podcast for loyalty marketing professionals. I’m Paula Thomas, The Founder of Let’s Talk Loyalty. Today’s episode is hosted by Tom Peace, Managing Director of The Loyalty People, a strategic consultancy with a laser focus on loyalty, CRM, and customer engagement.
The Loyalty People also runs a free global community for anyone working in the loyalty industry. If you are working in loyalty marketing, make sure to join Let’s Talk Loyalty every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday to hear the latest ideas from loyalty experts around the world.
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Tom: Hi, I’m Tom Peace, Managing Director of The Loyalty People and presenter of Let’s Talk A Little Loyalty. Welcome to this week’s short summary show on behalf of Let’s Talk Loyalty, this week my Let’s Talk a little Loyalty podcast showcases Paula’s interview with one of the leading marketers in US Convenience retail, Derek Gaskins, Chief Marketing Officer of Yesway.
In this interview, Derek shares the exciting challenge of keeping customers loyal while acquiring new stores and building a leading retail brand. He also explains how Yesway have embraced loyalty at the very heart of their business and how this has developed an award-winning Yesway rewards program that supports the business’ strong growth.
It’s fascinating to hear from a brand that drives business performance directly from their customer loyalty program. Yesway is a relatively young business who are growing very fast and won the prestigious convenience retail award in 2021. A big part of that success is that they designed the loyalty strategy at the same time as they built the business model.
For this reason, customer loyalty is absolutely at the heart of their customer strategy. As Derek says in the interview, loyalty should be your primary thought, not something you operate as a side function to your marketing strategy. Yesway is also a very forward thinking, ethical, and people focused business.
They had an amazing response to the pandemic, giving their team members free food and two weeks paid holiday. When designing their customer strategy, Derek knew it would be vital to consider key aspects of customer needs, and he has ensured that the loyalty program, Yesway Rewards is focused on cross category promotions, customer value, digital first strategy, and customer convenience.
Crucially, Yesway ensure that the product selection, quality and service are excellent, which underpins customer loyalty completely. Yesway are listening to their customers, and as a result, they’re getting it just right. Yesway is a fantastic example of how to create customer loyalty by starting with the basic business principles and overlaying a strong customer strategy based on understanding what the customer wants and likes about your brand.
This is so insightful and the original podcast is a great listen. I’d highly recommend listening to the main show, which can be found at www.letstalkloyalty.com, and first aired on the 31st of March, 2022, episode number 204. Thanks for listening. I hope you enjoyed the summary Show all the best and speak to you soon, Tom.
Paula: 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 500 executives in 38 countries as certified loyalty marketing professionals.
For more information, check out thewisemarketer.com and loyaltyacademy.org.
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