Paula: Welcome to Let’s Talk Loyalty, an industry podcast for Loyalty Marketing Professionals.
Paula: 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.
Paula: I’m delighted to announce Capillary Technologies as the new title sponsor for Loyalty TV.
Paula: Capillary’s mission is to bring the loyalty market out of the 1980s and into the present, ditching the slow, chunky manual services of the past.
Paula: Capillary is all about making loyalty management easy, with scalable AI-powered tech that turns loyalty managers into superheroes.
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Paula: Hello and welcome to this episode of Let’s Talk Loyalty and Loyalty TV.
Paula: This interview features Philippe Lazzarini, the CRM and loyalty manager at Autogrill, a food and beverage brand that’s famous throughout Italy, and turns over more than a billion euro there.
Paula: Globally, Autogrill is actually the world’s leading provider of food and beverage services for people on the move, in airports, motorways and railway stations, operating primarily concession agreements in 30 countries on four continents, and employing over 46,000 people.
Paula: Philippe shares the evolution of loyalty as a marketing and engagement tool for Autogrill customers, supporting their growth as a much loved brand throughout Italy, leveraging simple yet powerful mechanics such as digital receipts and gamification, both of which have been surprisingly effective for the MyAutogrill program.
Paula: I hope you enjoy our conversation.
Paula: So, Philippe Lazzarini, welcome to Let’s Talk Loyalty and to Loyalty TV.
Philippe: Hi Paula, thank you so much for having me.
Paula: Wonderful, I think you’re joining us today from sunny Italy.
Paula: Am I right?
Philippe: Well, not really today, it’s quite foggy in Milan, but let’s hope for the next days, for the weekend.
Paula: Incredible, Milan is such a spectacular city, and we do love to have global representation, particularly for this podcast, because there are so many incredible stories happening around Europe in particular, I think at the moment, so very happy to hear what’s going on with Autogrill.
Paula: So before we get into, of course, talking about your incredible career and the program that you’re nurturing and driving forward, as you know, we always start this show talking about our favorite loyalty programs, and that’s for a couple of reasons.
Paula: First of all, we love to know what you admire as a loyalty professional, and of course, we can also keep our eye out for other future guests as well, once we know what’s happening in different markets.
Paula: So it’s wonderful for us to ask this question.
Paula: I think you have two to tell me about today, Philippe.
Paula: So let me just ask you then straight away, what is your favorite loyalty program or programs?
Philippe: Well, I’ll mention an international one, which is Flying Blue from KLM and Air France.
Philippe: I bet I’m not the first guest to mention that.
Philippe: So I won’t go into detail into that.
Philippe: The other one I want to mention is an Italian version of the loyalty from an international retailer, which is Flying Target Copenhagen.
Philippe: For those who don’t know the brand, it’s a European based brand with more than a thousand store, I guess, and they have sort of a variety of retail.
Philippe: They have toys, they have gadgets, they work a lot on seasonality.
Philippe: Last time I was there, it was packed with Halloween themed things.
Philippe: And what I admire of this program that they launched last year is that they, for my understanding, they really designed it in order to fit with the business objective of the company.
Philippe: What I mean by that is that their business is based on impulse purchase.
Philippe: So you don’t go to that store because you plan to buy something.
Philippe: You go there, you browse, you get inspired, and eventually you buy.
Philippe: So one of the objects, of course, for them is to drive traffic to the location.
Philippe: Because only when they get to the location, you know, they eventually buy.
Philippe: So they designed this application with very much a gaming application.
Philippe: They made a lot of effort in that.
Philippe: I had the chance to talk with the people who designed and managed it, and they really started first from the gaming.
Philippe: They said, we put Loyalty into the gaming, not the other way around.
Philippe: So there’s this app, you have avatars, skins, missions you can accomplish, getting badges and so on.
Philippe: And many things are meant to take you to the store.
Philippe: For instance, you get experience points by just checking in into the store.
Philippe: So I really found this very interesting engagement.
Philippe: Of course, they also keep people engaged to the brand, thanks to this gaming, so they stay top of mind.
Philippe: Another thing that I love is also that one of the missions is to vote for a product.
Philippe: They basically do it every day, certainly.
Philippe: Would you buy this product or not?
Philippe: So you can get every day coming back and getting points for that.
Philippe: And being their business based on changing very much their assortment with high frequency, this is very important for that.
Philippe: And they told me they got more than 600,000 votes in just one year.
Philippe: So this is a huge thing for their research and their development.
Philippe: So I think this is really smart.
Philippe: And for how I intend loyalty, there’s very much importance to know well enough to design the program in relation with the business objectives of the company.
Philippe: And they did an outstanding job, in my opinion.
Paula: It certainly sounds like an outstanding job, Philippe.
Paula: And thank you for bringing one onto the show that I’ve never heard of.
Paula: So certainly, if anybody’s listening from Flying Tiger, we would absolutely love to get them onto the show.
Paula: So it’s certainly a store that is available in Ireland.
Paula: So I have shopped there and really enjoyed it.
Paula: I have to say, it’s also a store brand that really gets the basics right.
Paula: You know, there’s so many retail brands that kind of get a little bit jaded.
Paula: But Flying Tiger, I’m sure everybody who has a store and goes in, every time I go in and I’m amused, I’m entertained, and I come out with a bag full of things that I never knew I needed or wanted, but very compelling.
Paula: But I totally take your point, Philippe, and I think that is super smart.
Paula: The idea that the purchasing team could, I suppose, pre-qualify or check demand for a particular product using the relationship, using the loyalty program, even before they go out and perhaps buy the stock, because, of course, that has so much risk associated with it.
Paula: It’s absolutely genius.
Philippe: Absolutely, absolutely.
Philippe: Just to be clear, this is the Italian loyalty.
Philippe: As far as I know, this is only in Italy so far.
Philippe: I have no idea of the plans of the international, if they tend to expand in other countries or do different things.
Philippe: But this is my own experience.
Philippe: I tried a lot and to meet work, I definitely went more times this year than I did last year.
Paula: Super, Stok, great.
Paula: Well, listen, we’re off to a brilliant start.
Paula: And I know actually very little in general, Philippe, about the loyalty market in Italy.
Paula: So if there are other insights like that, as we have our conversation, please do feel free to share.
Paula: Because again, I think people listening to this show, no matter where we are, everybody wants to know what’s working in different markets because we can all pick up ideas and inspiration from your expertise.
Paula: So let’s get into talking about you as a professional.
Paula: Tell us about your background.
Paula: How did you get into our industry and how long have you been working in loyalty?
Philippe: Well, I spent all my career in marketing.
Philippe: So then it came straight away to loyalty.
Philippe: Actually, I studied marketing.
Philippe: So there was a passion that drove me to understanding the customer, how we behave in general.
Philippe: And I think that marketing is very much about that.
Philippe: So I started with household cleaners, but then people did to food retail.
Philippe: Because, well, I’m a foodie and probably that’s my Italian DNA driving me to that.
Philippe: I did with everything in the marketing industry, like local store marketing, I managed a chain of self-service restaurants.
Philippe: Then I also did market research, so even deep diving or understanding customers from that perspective.
Philippe: Then I moved to data, very much into data with marketing intelligence and digital communication and social media.
Philippe: Then CRM, and finally I got to loyalty.
Philippe: And I think that having had this career, I intend loyalty really with a holistic approach.
Philippe: So of course, loyalty as many fields is very specialized as a segment.
Philippe: But I think that having this holistic approach, I intend the loyalty in a wider sense than just the loyalty program.
Philippe: And so it’s now five years that I’m doing loyalty for Autogrill, and our loyalty program is called MyAutogrill.
Philippe: And I also get certificate with Loyalty Academy, and I’m among the founding members of the European Loyalty Association, which was born one year ago.
Philippe: And currently, I am the Hubmaster for Southern Europe region.
Philippe: We just held our very first event in the region a few days ago in Milan.
Philippe: It was really an amazing event.
Philippe: If you’re interested, I can tell more about it.
Philippe: It was really a great start for the association in the region.
Paula: Fantastic, fantastic.
Paula: So tell us about Autogrill then, Philippe.
Paula: A very impressive brand.
Paula: And I have to confess, I didn’t know it before we had our first meeting.
Paula: So for the sake of our global audience listening all around the world, would you mind introducing Autogrill and telling us a bit about the corporation?
Philippe: Absolutely.
Philippe: Autogrill is an iconic brand in Italy.
Philippe: We manage espresso bars and restaurants of very different kinds in travel location, mostly in highways.
Philippe: That’s where the brand was born, but also in airports, railway stations and so on.
Philippe: So very specific industry.
Philippe: Let’s say captive markets, because it’s what they are, at least for how highways are structured in Italy, in which you really need to enter through a gate, and you don’t have business freely on the motorways.
Philippe: There is a rule, there are concessions, so it’s very specific, different from other countries.
Philippe: So we started many decades ago.
Philippe: We were really part of Italian history of travel, because when in the 60s, 70s, Italians started getting, you know, have better wealth and started traveling.
Philippe: We were really associated with travel.
Philippe: We have been, for this reason, featured in many movies that are very famous for Italians.
Philippe: So that’s the story of the company.
Philippe: Then in the last 20 years, it has been the worldwide leader in this industry through acquisition that we had in many countries, including the US and other countries in Europe.
Philippe: So we have been leader for 20 years in the food and beverage services, mostly in airports, if you consider the corporate part.
Philippe: And the last step on the evolution has been two years ago, when we joined forces with the Do Free Group, which was world leader in duty-free shops, in airports, of course.
Philippe: So now we are part of this new form group called Avolta, which has the best of the two businesses.
Philippe: And of course, there are synergies and great programs ahead.
Philippe: So we are very excited for new evolution from our company.
Paula: Incredible.
Paula: Wow.
Paula: Thank you for that.
Paula: And I know there’s lots of different brands.
Paula: Again, people might not know Autogrill, but you represent a lot of brands and trade under a lot of the brands as well.
Paula: So could you give us a sense of any of those brands as well that might be more familiar for the audience?
Philippe: Absolutely.
Philippe: Well, as a corporation, we have a double approach.
Philippe: I mean, we develop our own brands.
Philippe: So the side of Autogrill, which is very famous in Italy and also in a few neighboring countries.
Philippe: We have internal brands that might sound recognizable for most of the people.
Philippe: But on the other hand, we manage many franchise brands.
Philippe: So I’ll just mention some around the countries.
Philippe: We have Starbrag, KFC, Burger King, all the major players.
Philippe: But also, we are very good in developing custom-made concepts with local, let’s say, excellencies of the region.
Philippe: For instance, just to give an example, in the Palermo airport, we have a concept which is developed with a two-star Michelin chef, which is called Ciccio Sultano.
Philippe: It’s very famous in Sicily.
Philippe: And so, we developed a concept.
Philippe: So, we do all the design part of the concept.
Philippe: Of course, the chef has a role in developing the recipes and all the assortment.
Philippe: But then we are industrialized.
Philippe: It sounds bad, but it’s a technical way to say that we build a process to be able to reproduce the recipe, the chef to be offered a standard, an offer with a standardized quality to our customers.
Philippe: So, you get the dish, it’s how it’s meant to be, in short.
Philippe: So, we are very good in that.
Philippe: We have, in fact, in Milan, in our headquarters, we have an innovation center, which is very much focused on developing a new food and beverage offers, new concepts.
Philippe: We also have an innovation center, which is more on the service side.
Philippe: So, many things are happening.
Philippe: And it’s very exciting to work in Autogrill, because it’s already been leading in our industry, not just in Italy, but I would say we are an excellency in Europe as well.
Paula: Yeah, I love that actually.
Paula: And getting a two Michelin star chef to lend his personal brand to products that you’re going to co-create.
Paula: I mean, I think it’s incredibly clever on both sides, both for the chef, obviously, to build their reputation even further, but for Autogrill then specifically to have something that is unique and compelling.
Paula: And to your point earlier, actually, for me, loyalty absolutely is, first of all, I suppose executed at the product level.
Paula: So given that you’re putting that level of care and attention into creating something absolutely delicious, that’s guaranteed to have people coming back.
Paula: So sometimes we might not need points in currency, we just need to get the basic product right.
Paula: So sounds like this mentality goes throughout your whole business.
Philippe: Absolutely.
Philippe: Going a little back, talking about the story of Autogrill, what really strikes the foreigners, and if you browse on TikTok or Instagram, you will find many videos of foreigners getting into Italy and stopping in a service area or guest station, as they usually call it, and getting so brutally stunned by what they see, because they expect to have just basic food that you can find, sandwiches, a restaurant with pasta, burgers, croissants, and all the pasta you can get from Italian food, but just don’t expect in that setting, in a guest station.
Philippe: And this is really a know-how that Autogrill developed over the decades, because it’s not just about having an assortment, in being able to deliver it consistently.
Philippe: And one important detail, we are in a business in which traffic changes a lot.
Philippe: There are periods of the year in which you almost cannot enter in the store, like August, which is the quintessential holiday month in Italy, and other periods in which there’s very little traffic.
Philippe: So, it’s not easy to manage so much different peaks.
Philippe: And we have such big expertise.
Philippe: That’s why we are able to deliver consistently this quality.
Philippe: And being able to innovate, because we introduced on highways products that people wouldn’t expect to find it.
Philippe: Like, you know, we had, for instance, pizza, which would be really high quality with the study that we did with an expert in the field.
Philippe: So, being able to be crunchy and soft, even if, you know, you’re not just taking out from the oven like you have in a pizzeria in Italy.
Philippe: So, this is an innovation process behind that helps to being able to be consistent with the quality all the time.
Paula: Amazing.
Paula: So, with, you know, such an incredible product, I mean, dare I say it, it’s almost like it doesn’t sound like you need a loyalty program that people are, you know, already driving past or they’re already in the airport.
Paula: So, talk to us about, I suppose, the whole journey with loyalty, like back to the beginning, which I think you told me when we spoke last time, is about five or six years ago.
Paula: Given that you are so famous and you do have such demand, what was the need for loyalty that was identified?
Philippe: Absolutely.
Philippe: So, the consciousness of the need of loyalty is rather new for the company.
Philippe: The first version of the loyalty was launched seven years ago.
Philippe: I was not managing the loyalty at that time.
Philippe: And the idea was that the market was changing, because it is true that people get to highways because they need to go somewhere.
Philippe: They don’t get to highways because they want to stop at our stores.
Philippe: Okay.
Philippe: And they usually stop.
Philippe: The first reason to stop in our stores, it’s not to have some food or drink.
Philippe: Usually, it’s just you’re doing a long trip on a highway.
Philippe: You need to stretch your legs to use the restrooms.
Philippe: So, it’s understandable.
Philippe: Then once they’re there, it’s our job to make them interested in having some food and drink.
Philippe: We also have some retail, which is very peculiar.
Philippe: So, we really work in capturing.
Philippe: So, our business is about capturing the traffic that gets to our store because of where we are, okay?
Philippe: So, it’s a bit different business.
Philippe: So, loyalty, it’s different in our case than it might be for like flying through the dimension before.
Philippe: Completely opposite dynamic, right?
Philippe: So, but before that, we in the company, we had the feeling of some customer that were definitely loyal, like truckers.
Philippe: We had some loyalty activities in the 90s for them, because they are a specific driver, you know, truckers, we can say they live on highways.
Philippe: But for the general public, only when the market started to change, and there are more competitors now in the industry, and people were really understanding there are different brands, we, the company realized we need to really talk loyalty.
Philippe: So at the time, the top management made this important switch.
Philippe: They couldn’t really agree on the proposition where to start.
Philippe: So the first proposition was a bit of a compromise, and the idea was, let’s launch it with the, let’s say, minimum valuable proposition.
Philippe: And in a couple of years, we do a custom CRM and loyalty engine.
Philippe: And then we, in a couple of years, we will figure out how to make it evolve.
Philippe: So that was the idea.
Philippe: So it was launched around seven years ago.
Philippe: And two years later is when I was asked to care of it and understand how to make it evolve.
Philippe: And there started my challenges to make it evolve.
Paula: It’s actually a very common situation, Philippe.
Paula: You know, I think again, marketing people, business people, everybody has a clear idea of the potential for loyalty.
Paula: But again, as individuals, I think we experience it so differently that when it comes to sitting down to design something, the challenge is enormous.
Paula: You know, it’s super complicated.
Paula: I think sometimes what happens is there’s too many objectives that loyalty is expected to support rather than perhaps a single minded objective, like you referred to with Flying Tiger, for example, where it’s just to drive that footfall in or just to drive, for example, the choice about products.
Paula: And so it sounds like Autogrill again realized, I suppose, the need to differentiate, as you said, if the market was changing.
Paula: But then if there isn’t a laser focus on exactly what your business challenge is that you’re looking to solve, then it is very hard to design something either that customers want or that’s going to achieve a business objective if it’s not really clear.
Philippe: Absolutely.
Philippe: As I mentioned at the beginning, loyalty is very specialized.
Philippe: It’s strict in many ways.
Philippe: And once you are inside, you understand how complicated this is more than when you see it from outside.
Paula: Yeah.
Philippe: So, well, it was absolutely with good intention that the decision was to launch it and modify it.
Philippe: So we were all happy at the time, but seeing from inside, making evolve, when you have a running program, this gets even more complicated, you know, making changes.
Philippe: So that was the challenge.
Philippe: So there were two basic issues at the time.
Philippe: So the very first proposition was based on rewarding, depending on how many coffee drinks you were taking.
Philippe: So it was based on a very important item.
Philippe: And we sell so many coffee drinks.
Philippe: Last year, we sold around 90 million coffee drinks, in just in Italy.
Philippe: So you can imagine how important it is for our business.
Philippe: You can understand when you’re driving, you stop, you need to get energized.
Philippe: So Italians take their shot of espresso.
Philippe: So this is, I’m not surprised about that.
Philippe: The minus of that is that it was not really rewarding, depending on how much you were spending.
Philippe: So if you were spending just a coffee, or you were taking many things and a coffee, you were considered the same.
Philippe: And the other thing is that for those who were not taking a coffee, which there are the majority, they had no incentive to make them recognize with a loyalty card.
Philippe: That was a problem because we were lacking data.
Philippe: So two major problems.
Philippe: Not appealing enough the proposition and lacking data.
Philippe: So that was the situation I found when I stepped in.
Philippe: And while I was thinking to the new proposition, I like to think strategically, but I’m also quite pragmatic.
Philippe: And I thought how we can quickly find a way to get more information.
Philippe: And by scouting, we found out that we could in-house develop quite quickly a service to help that.
Philippe: So another point about loyalty, that very often we think that people thinks, maybe not just loyalty people, but general business people think that it’s very much about monetary benefit.
Philippe: Of course, monetary benefit are important, but sometimes there’s no monetary that makes a difference.
Philippe: There are tons of cases about that.
Philippe: So in our case, it was a service, and the service, in developing the service, started from the customer.
Philippe: So I have a north star when I work in marketing, and particular loyalties, that I consider you have to understand the customer, you have to understand this in the union, and you have to understand your company.
Philippe: So these are the three variables that you must really nail in order to have the right design of your loyalty program.
Philippe: So our customers, our most loyal people who are high users of the, before being our loyal customers, high users of the highways are business people.
Philippe: And business people have mostly the need of taking track of the expenses, right, for expense reports or for their small business, whatever.
Philippe: So what we found that we could build a service for providing digital invoices.
Philippe: Right now, I think it’s a commodity, but at the time, five years ago, we were not only the first in our industry, but were among the first in the country to develop such a service.
Philippe: And it was rather successful.
Philippe: We got some thousand people to subscribe and add this service in your loyalty.
Philippe: And this had three major effects.
Philippe: The first one is that we attracted people who are valuable, because these people are spending a lot.
Philippe: You know, they are the truck that I spent.
Philippe: It’s the first point.
Philippe: Second point is that we got data, because they were using the loyalty card for all the expenses.
Philippe: So data to analyze.
Philippe: And the third thing, that we had more people, relevant people to interview with surveys, to understand which direction to move our proposition.
Philippe: So as you see, a tactical thing, but it was related to some goals that were very important for the loyalty.
Philippe: So this gave us, in a relatively short time, some relevant information in order to think about how to make the program evolve.
Paula: It’s a very smart move, Philippe.
Paula: Honestly, I think you might even be taking for granted that a lot of even retail loyalty programs offer digital invoices or receipts.
Paula: In my experience, some do, but I still think there’s a lot that do not.
Paula: And I also think that there is a fourth benefit that, along with the three incredibly valuable ones you’ve already mentioned, the other benefit is that the sustainability and certainly consumers I have met feel better.
Paula: And even I as a consumer feel better if I agreed and receive a digital receipt instead of the piece of paper that then I crunch and put in the bin, or maybe I keep for my expenses, as you said.
Paula: But I think everybody has a slightly better feeling when they get a digital invoice and then it’s available anytime, again, either on the loyalty account or by email.
Paula: If somebody needs to go back and check something.
Paula: So to me, digital invoices are absolutely something.
Paula: A lot of people don’t realize how powerful they are.
Philippe: Absolutely.
Philippe: And as I said, at the time it was very innovative.
Philippe: So it really impressed our customers.
Philippe: Okay, after that, with having all of this information, we start really working hard to move to the new proposition.
Philippe: As I mentioned before, I like to cross the business needs of the company and knowing how the industry and the company is, we have a great advantage compared to any other food retail.
Philippe: We have such a diverse assortment because we have coffee, we have breakfast food, we have sandwiches, we have pasta, we are so, so different.
Philippe: While food retains usually are very narrow on one specific category, so they’re just two chicken, they’re just two bird and so on.
Philippe: So we had to leverage on that.
Philippe: So when we built the new proposition, we, first of all, we had an earning system based on how much you spend.
Philippe: This is pretty basic, so we’re absolutely going to the basic.
Philippe: And we made a catalog of our own products as a first stage, because we think we are so diverse that we have an interesting catalog with our own products.
Philippe: First of all, we are promoting our products.
Philippe: Secondly, this is much more simple from a technological standpoint, because we were still on a customer program, then we were slowly moving to the market solution.
Philippe: But the point is that you have to make steps that are manageable.
Philippe: So this was a consideration that we had.
Philippe: And there’s also a consequence in ROI, of course, because being our products, they have a cost which is more affordable than going straight away with the external rewards.
Philippe: So once we defined this proposition, I finally convinced my CEO to switch the button and do the change.
Philippe: That’s when coronavirus hit.
Philippe: And so, as you know, unfortunately, it hit very hard in Italy.
Philippe: So the priorities of the company changed because it was very much about survival for that crazy year.
Philippe: But let’s say we didn’t stay hand in hand because I think again that, you know, particularly in hard times, you have to be creative and you have to understand your customer and, you know, being with them.
Philippe: And I’ll give you an example.
Philippe: So I gave you just the context to understand what we did.
Philippe: We did something for trackers.
Philippe: But if I explain to you how was the situation in Italy, it will be clear what happened.
Philippe: So it’s 2020.
Philippe: Italy is in lockdown.
Philippe: So all Italians stay at home.
Philippe: They cannot go out.
Philippe: All the businesses are closed except some essential ones.
Philippe: Basically, we just go out for go to shop at the grocery stores.
Philippe: This is what was happening for a couple of months in Italy.
Philippe: So Italians realized immediately that what the medics and nurses were doing, they became instant heroes.
Philippe: Rightfully so, of course.
Philippe: It took them sometimes to realize that also the guys work in grocery stores.
Philippe: They had to be supported because they were on the front line in such a dangerous situation with no vaccines and no idea exactly how this virus could be managed.
Philippe: But nobody ever realized how those goods were getting to the stores.
Philippe: And it was thanks to truckers.
Philippe: So, we know them, so we realized that.
Philippe: And imagine you’re a trucker, so it’s already hard work.
Philippe: And you find a situation that all the restaurants in the country are closed.
Philippe: All the hotels in the country are closed, and you’re neglected when you’re doing this job in such a situation.
Philippe: So we decided that we needed to take a public stand to support the truckers.
Philippe: So we did a digital communication support in them.
Philippe: And we leverage a lot to our loyalty to show support and give useful information, because the situation was really hectic.
Philippe: Every week, they were changing the rules.
Philippe: Some things were open, some had to be shut down, et cetera.
Philippe: Autogrill were open, even if you had all the other restaurants and bars in the country were closed, because being in highways, it was considered as a public service.
Philippe: So the traffic was 90% down, so there was nobody in our stores.
Philippe: But still, we were open for doing this public service.
Philippe: So we were really a great support for them, giving them information, telling them, look, you can find the open restaurants here and there, we’re giving them a map.
Philippe: You can find showers in this place, because also these little details were problem for them.
Philippe: We’re offering them a coffee every day, coming to our store.
Philippe: So why I’m telling you all of that?
Philippe: Because this, in 2020, had no impact on sales, because we were 90% down.
Philippe: There was nothing that could help sales in that time.
Philippe: But we built a strong relationship with them in that period, because really they felt how we were supporting them, and there was no interest in the short term.
Philippe: So, end of the story is that two years after pandemics, we had three times the number of trackers in our loyalty program that we had before the pandemic, because we built over time.
Philippe: So we didn’t do it with this intention, even if, of course, we knew that that was a way to build the relationship.
Philippe: But being authentic in this relationship really built trust, which loyalty is all about, trust.
Philippe: So we had them in the program.
Philippe: We are very sad they keep growing.
Philippe: They, we did many other things with discounts of all these importance, or not just, this is just a part of the picture, but it was an important one.
Philippe: And not only they are growing, they have an amazing retention rate.
Philippe: About 90% of them stay with us year over year.
Philippe: So, just to show that, you know, if you understand the customer, you send the needs and their situation, and you’re able to relate with them, you will build over time.
Philippe: Of course, you will need also the monetary part and everything that’s needed.
Philippe: But that’s very important in building trust.
Philippe: That was a very important case for us.
Paula: It’s a big, big story, absolutely, Philippe.
Paula: And I do remember hearing that Italy was going into lockdown.
Paula: It was the very first time I even heard the phrase lockdown.
Paula: I had no idea what it meant.
Paula: I think the whole world was exactly the same.
Paula: And of course, we found out very quickly.
Paula: But I know how badly hit Italy was particularly.
Paula: And you’re absolutely right.
Paula: So the heroes immediately, of course, the entire medical industry.
Paula: But then absolutely, as you said, the convenience store trade, I know, even in the US., were allowed to continue operating because it was seen, actually, as an essential service.
Paula: So we could all at least go and get the bare minimum in terms of, whether it’s fresh milk or whatever, through particularly those early days.
Paula: And as you said, the truckers were the ones that made sure that we had the supplies we needed.
Paula: So well done for recognizing that segment.
Paula: And as you said, being authentic and taking care of them at a time when they were doing something that was very frightening.
Paula: So, yeah, lots going on there.
Paula: I’m conscious we have so much to talk about Philippe.
Paula: But the big one I wanted to get to with you next, as I know it’s a super exciting part of your program now, is around gamification.
Paula: I know you’ve been experimenting with it.
Paula: And you said to us that it’s performed beyond expectations.
Paula: So tell us about how is gamification now manifesting in your current proposition?
Philippe: Absolutely.
Philippe: This is really the latest thing that we’ve done.
Philippe: So we launched the new program two years ago.
Philippe: So just to finish the story.
Philippe: And we have been evolving to it.
Philippe: Of course, we fixed the basic.
Philippe: And now we are building on more on the emotional side.
Philippe: One of those is gaming.
Philippe: So it’s no surprise because it’s really a buzzword in the business right now.
Philippe: What we did.
Philippe: So I mentioned that Autogrill is really an iconic brand.
Philippe: I would say a pop icon in Italy.
Philippe: So we decided to design a game which was fun.
Philippe: And at the end, you would get winning, you know, prices with our loyalty.
Philippe: So it was meant for engagement.
Philippe: What we really wanted to do is to really personalize it, telling the story about the company.
Philippe: So people know the brand.
Philippe: Of course, they don’t know everything, but there’s so much to say about our brand.
Philippe: So we personalize this game.
Philippe: Of course, the game is driving on a motorway, as you can imagine, to be consistent to the brand.
Philippe: Picking up products.
Philippe: So you get points by picking up the products.
Philippe: And we have our iconic sandwich like Rustical and Camogli, which any Italian will know.
Philippe: Coffees and pasta and whatever.
Philippe: You stop in the Autogrill on the way, and each stop has the architecture of the different Autogrill, because this is also something specific, that many Autogrill have very specific architectures, very recognizable.
Philippe: And there were quizzes on trivia about Autogrill.
Philippe: There’s so much to say.
Philippe: I mentioned about movies.
Philippe: So there are questions about the movies where we’re featuring in, but also some things that they sound weird, like there’s an Autogrill that’s just next to it, there is a church in the middle of a motorway, which sounds really, really strange, or many other things, many other things.
Philippe: So we were expecting to drive engagement with that.
Philippe: But what we found out is that this was also driving somehow acquisition, because you didn’t have to log in to play the game.
Philippe: We just share with all in stores, and also now are digital channels.
Philippe: So you could play without any registration.
Philippe: But at the end, you were getting prices to redeem within the loyalty app.
Philippe: So just if you finish the game, you were, let’s say, incentivized to join the loyalty or log in to your account, if you already remember, to redeem your price.
Philippe: And we were surprised to see that people were not only played, because we got 90,000 games completed in just four weeks, which is impressive because the full game is about three minutes.
Philippe: So it’s really a lot of time.
Philippe: I think that we got really thousands and thousands of hours of gameplay.
Philippe: And many really decided to join the Loyalty for this.
Philippe: So this is teaching us that there’s really a lot to gaming.
Philippe: We expected that people could enjoy it.
Philippe: If gaming is well done, Italians, we know that are very much into gaming.
Philippe: But we didn’t expect that it could influence the acquisition in such a way, so we are ready.
Philippe: Planning for next year to make it more structural with our Loyalty program.
Philippe: And to go on with a new wave of new exciting games that can have similar results.
Philippe: Yes, absolutely.
Philippe: We’re very excited about that.
Paula: Yeah, I mean, I think what the key obviously at a minimum is that it’s a great game.
Paula: So obviously, you’ve nailed that to get so many people engaging and actually using it.
Paula: I think it’s a super smart strategy, actually, just to use your words from earlier to make it something that anyone can play, even without necessarily being initially a member of the Loyalty program.
Paula: And then, as you said, once they finish playing, why would they not either claim their prizes or just share their data once they’ve already been engaging for a couple of minutes?
Paula: And the numbers are also, I think, very significant in the context of your overall base.
Paula: And I probably should have asked you that earlier, but just for the sake of our audience, can you share what is your kind of membership numbers at the moment, Philippe, because 90,000 is huge, but particularly in the context of the size of membership that you’re working with at the moment?
Philippe: We had a restart after the pandemic because of everything that happened.
Philippe: So we are on the way to going to a million customers.
Philippe: So we want to increase the speed of acquisition.
Philippe: But I must say that we are pretty much focused on a healthy growth.
Philippe: By that, I mean that our important KPI for us is active members.
Philippe: We have a high share of active members, and we are particularly happy about the retention.
Philippe: Because overall, we have 80% of retention year over year.
Philippe: This means that once we get into the program, they tend to be happy.
Philippe: So we will focus on, you know, get more acquisition and then to we’re confident that once they’re here, we can really bring value to them.
Paula: Amazing.
Paula: Yeah.
Paula: Well, honestly, what I can hear is that you’re very committed to, first of all, what the business needs and designing propositions that are very closely aligned with that, Philippe.
Paula: So first of all, thank you for that clarity.
Paula: I think on its own, that’s a master class in loyalty, because it’s very easy to get distracted and do things, you know, that might seem like a good idea, but really keeping it on that north star, I think, is a brilliant piece of advice, that you’ve demonstrated.
Paula: So it sounds like you’re a very busy man, you’re going to keep evolving your proposition, to make sure that it continues to meet the needs of all of those frequent travelers that you mentioned, both on the highways of Italy, and of course in airports and service stations around the world.
Paula: So I won’t get into any other further questions.
Paula: I know we’re tight on time, but I would just love to extend an invitation to you to come back again, please God, maybe next year, and share all of your latest developments over time.
Philippe: It would be a pleasure.
Philippe: Thank you so much.
Paula: Amazing.
Paula: Okay.
Paula: So, Philippe Lazzarini, CRM and Loyalty Manager at Autogrill.
Paula: Thank you so much from Let’s Talk Loyalty and Loyalty TV.
Philippe: Thank you.
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