Paula: Welcome to Let’s Talk Loyalty, an industry podcast for Loyalty Marketing Professionals.
Paula: I’m your host, Paula Thomas.
Paula: And if you work in Loyalty Marketing, join me every week to learn the latest ideas from Loyalty Specialists around the world.
Paula: So today’s show is a celebration of our first birthday.
Paula: Now, I have to say, I really didn’t imagine when I started recording my first 12-minute episode of Let’s Talk Loyalty, that I’d still be here happily recording one year on.
Paula: But we launched the first show on August 22nd, last year, which was 2019, and today is August 20th.
Paula: So, super excited to achieve this amazing milestone.
Paula: Now, in order to do something completely different, in fact, I thought the show format would be quite interesting to do something very engaging and very new, and that is to have a competition for listeners of Let’s Talk Loyalty.
Paula: So, I reached out to our friends in the Loyalty Academy and explained that I wanted to do something really special.
Paula: So, what we’re announcing today and what we’re launching today is a super fun competition, which will entitle one lucky winner, who is a listener to the show, to win a customer loyalty marketing professional course.
Paula: So, today’s show is all going to be about the Loyalty Academy.
Paula: And in order to talk through that, I have two guests on the show.
Paula: First and foremost, I have Graeme Thompson, who is chairman of the Board of Regents for the Loyalty Academy.
Paula: And Graeme is based in Auckland, New Zealand.
Paula: So, first of all, I’m going to say hello to Graeme and let you say hello to the audience.
Graeme: And first of all, congratulations.
Graeme: And from the Board of Regents and the directors of the Wise Marketer and the Loyalty Academy, well done.
Paula: Thank you so much, Graeme.
Paula: It’s great to have you on the call.
Paula: And we’re also joined by a recent graduate of the Loyalty Academy, because I think it’s super important for us to have a student perspective.
Paula: And again, many people listening to the show will know that I did my own studies with the Loyalty Academy two years ago in 2018.
Paula: But also, we like to have global voices of loyalty.
Paula: So we are also today joined by Emily Ong, who’s joining us from Singapore.
Paula: And Emily is the regional loyalty product owner for Sephora in Asia, and most importantly, a recent graduate and customer loyalty marketing professional.
Paula: So Emily, welcome to Let’s Talk Loyalty.
Emily: Thank you for inviting me to join you on this podcast.
Emily: And congratulations on achieving your first year anniversary.
Paula: Thank you so much.
Paula: Honestly, I’ve said it before on the show that I really, in my own mind, said I will do four episodes, and then I’ll run away and go back to my day job.
Paula: And here we are coming up to the one year.
Paula: So great to be talking to you both.
Paula: So I think the format of the show, as I mentioned, we have a very exciting scholarship in partnership with the Loyalty Academy.
Paula: The details of that, I’m actually gonna leave till the end of the show because what I want to really do is, first of all, talk to both Emily and Graeme about their experiences leading and studying with the Academy.
Paula: And most of you will know that there’s probably between, I’m gonna say 250 and 300 listeners to every episode of Let’s Talk Loyalty.
Paula: So plenty of people, I guess, like you, Emily, who were curious about becoming a certified loyalty marketing professional and reach out for information.
Paula: And really this is the opportunity to talk about what can the Loyalty Academy do for people listening to the show in terms of their career.
Paula: So before we get into all of that, we’ll have our usual starting question.
Paula: And Emily, I’d love to ask you what, first and foremost, is your favorite loyalty statistic?
Emily: Okay, for me, I really like the customer engagement score because it shows us how heavily the customers utilize our services and how engaged they are with the brand.
Emily: So for brands with online businesses, actually better scoring can be given for each customer because you can include their online interactions, such as busy time, frequency of visit.
Emily: So basically someone with a higher engagement score would mean greater customer loyalty.
Emily: And that means you will bring benefits such as repeat purchasers and having the brand as top of mind.
Emily: Yeah, so that’s why I like this score.
Paula: Wonderful, Emily.
Paula: And it sounds like a single number that you take all of the data from different parts of your business, whatever role you’re in, and aggregate them into one simple KPI.
Paula: Am I right?
Emily: Yep, it is.
Paula: Okay, wonderful.
Paula: Well, thank you for kicking us off, Emily.
Paula: That’s absolutely fantastic.
Paula: So I think that the next thing is to really get into the background of the Loyalty Academy.
Paula: And Graeme is, as I said, the chairman of the Board of Regents.
Paula: So Graeme, I know you have a long and illustrious career, a lot of wisdom in loyalty, I think is how we’ve described it.
Paula: So maybe first of all, tell us about your loyalty career based in New Zealand, and then maybe tell us how the Loyalty Academy came about.
Graeme: Certainly.
Graeme: Many years ago, I won’t qualify how many, I got involved in the travel industry, and there was mainly corporate travel, but I felt there was an opportunity to look at extension of the application of travel.
Graeme: So formed an adjunctive called Incentive Travel, and that was really doing group movements with linked to incentives for worldwide rewards aligned to travel.
Graeme: But it still didn’t satisfy what I felt was an opportunity to go deeper in the relationship with clients and have what I call the octopus relationship with clients.
Graeme: So you’re dealing with the corporate travel, you’re dealing with their incentive travel and their conferences, but how can we actually help them grow their business?
Graeme: And more by default than rather by design, I formed a loyalty company, and that was Premium Group Marketing in New Zealand.
Graeme: And I guess the key thing, I do want to stress the word default, because I think many people get into the industry by default.
Graeme: And one of the concerns, and it’s something that will unfold as we go through this conversation, is that I think we underestimate what the level of knowledge and experience is required to deliver a high-performing loyalty program.
Graeme: And even in the early days, we did okay.
Graeme: But the reality is, I look and reflect and say, what do we know now about loyalty and what it encompasses?
Graeme: We were way short of the mark 20, 30 years ago.
Graeme: So it’s through the activities or through the Academy that we can hone down and be more concise and more professional in what we deliver, and actually derive a better outcome for the clients that we’re working with.
Paula: Wonderful.
Paula: And that’s actually probably the single biggest truth, Graeme.
Paula: I’ve certainly ended up working in loyalty by accident, by default, as you said.
Paula: And I think you’re totally right.
Paula: You end up in this entire world with a whole different set of metrics and a different language.
Paula: And you’re suddenly going, oh, my goodness, I feel underqualified here.
Paula: What do I do?
Paula: So I know the Loyalty Academy was the first formal education and training curriculum.
Paula: So how did the idea come about?
Paula: Because one thing I love, Graeme, and obviously you’re part of the wise marketer as well, is it is very much a global qualification and there’s perspectives from all over the world.
Paula: So who came up with the idea?
Paula: Was it you or the guys in the US?
Paula: Or where did it all start?
Graeme: No, look, I’m not sure as I’d like to take the cream on the cake.
Graeme: I’ve got to acknowledge Mike Capisi.
Graeme: In the earlier days, when he was involved in Colicky, that was the time when Bill Hannifin and Mike Aitken were also involved.
Graeme: And I actually met them at Oxford University when they were doing an executive loyalty course.
Graeme: And that’s going back many, many years ago.
Graeme: And I attended from New Zealand because of the very reason what I described before, is our inadequate knowledge to deliver a professional program.
Graeme: And if we go back to the years that we started, we thought that if we provided a reward to a customer, that we were delivering our job.
Graeme: But loyalty is way more greater than that and far more complex.
Graeme: So in terms of the knowledge and the experience that the likes of Bill and Mike had, just embellished the opportunity to create a platform, which then ultimately led on to the Loyalty Academy.
Graeme: And that was formed some five years ago.
Paula: OK, five years ago.
Paula: Yeah, I really, I don’t think I had any sense of how long ago it was.
Paula: I did my own training two years ago.
Paula: And again, you know, there’s not all times in our lives where we have the space and the opportunity to study.
Paula: But I certainly remember wanting to do it for a long time.
Paula: So that’s amazing.
Paula: So we’ve got five years of expertise.
Paula: And again, most of the listeners will know Mike Capizzi, Bill Hanifin and Mike Atkin have all been guests on the show.
Paula: So I almost feel bad, Graeme, that it’s taken me a year to bring you on.
Paula: But here you are.
Graeme: Oh, look, I’m the shy one of the lot.
Paula: I don’t think that’s true at all.
Paula: So I suppose the other final question just on the Academy and getting it set up.
Paula: So what does your role mean, Graeme, in terms of chairman of the Board of Regions for a qualification which needs, I suppose, global recognition, which is the ultimate objective?
Paula: So educating people and sharing the brand, I suppose, of becoming a certified loyalty marketing professional.
Graeme: The Board of Regions, of which I’m chair, is principally there to provide guidance and sanction to the day-to-day activities that Mike delivers.
Graeme: And we meet quarterly and go through the performance of the Academy, how we’re going, where we need to hone up and improve performance.
Graeme: The Academy, the Board of Regions is comprised of a number of fairly, I’d say, highly knowledgeable people.
Graeme: They’re not people that have just been solicited to come on board.
Graeme: They’re people from extensive knowledge, from universities, from banking industry, and so forth, and from within the industry themselves.
Graeme: So we’re talking about the high degree of skill and knowledge, and that actually helps Mike have a better appreciation that we are there to provide him the backup and the support that he needs.
Paula: Yeah, to keep that in mind.
Paula: Super, brilliant.
Paula: Okay, well, listen, thanks for giving us the background and context, Graeme.
Paula: Emily, love to get a sense first and foremost about your loyalty career to date.
Paula: I know we met on LinkedIn.
Paula: I don’t know how many months ago it was, but tell our listeners first of all, what kind of loyalty work have you done in advance, I suppose, of doing your own training?
Emily: Okay, so back in 2017, actually, I joined one of the government statutory boards in Singapore in the health sector, and that’s where my loyalty journey began.
Emily: Before doing other stuff like marketing and all that, that’s not directly related.
Emily: Really, it began when I joined that organization.
Emily: So with that, I created and managed the entire loyalty program, and also built a new platform for them.
Emily: So it was a health-related loyalty program for the people living in Singapore.
Paula: Nice.
Emily: So I’ve been there for those two, three years, and it was, in fact, the same year you took up the CRMP in 2018.
Paula: Yes.
Emily: That’s when I found out about the Loyalty Academy and the CRMP.
Emily: So basically, I liberated about taking up the CRMP since 2018.
Emily: But timing wasn’t right.
Emily: At that point in time, I remember that there were two ways to get a CRMP.
Paula: Yes.
Emily: So one was to go fly for this certification workshop in Florida.
Paula: Yes.
Emily: There was on-demand courses, which is what is still available today.
Paula: Yes.
Emily: So at that point in time in 2018, I conceded going for the course, the work in Florida.
Emily: But the timing wasn’t right.
Emily: It kind of clashed with my own children’s examinations in Singapore.
Emily: The timing wasn’t good.
Emily: And then came 2019, that’s where I left the organization and joined the organization I’m with today, Sephora.
Emily: So that’s where I am as the loyalty product owner.
Emily: And still 2019, the CRMP course was on KIV status, right?
Emily: And of course 2020, which is where we are all in today, the whole circuit breaker.
Emily: I’m not sure if you know the term circuit breaker, but circuit breaker basically means you’re grounded at home.
Emily: Not really the full scale of lockdown, but yeah, that’s what we call it here, circuit breaker.
Emily: During those few months, they were all grounded at home.
Emily: I thought, hey, we look at the possibility of me picking up the course again.
Emily: So I went into research and I thought, when else best to invest in myself, right?
Paula: Totally.
Emily: Make the extra time I save on commute and all.
Emily: So basically, yeah, my loyalty journey started in the health industry, today in this global retailer.
Emily: And yeah, so I’ve already decided that this is my love and I want to invest in myself for it.
Paula: Yeah.
Paula: So, and it sounds, Emily, like the rest of us.
Paula: And as Graeme pointed out earlier, you ended up in loyalty by default, as you said, in the government department.
Paula: So again, we’re all coming into it wondering what we don’t know.
Paula: So well done, you.
Paula: And actually, I’m wondering how long I was thinking about doing the course.
Paula: It was probably, you know, over a year as well by the time, as you said, the timing is right.
Paula: And, you know, you’re ready to go.
Paula: And just as a complete…
Paula: Sorry, Graeme, go on.
Graeme: Sorry, no.
Graeme: I just wanted to follow up on Emily’s comment and what she’s actually illustrated is that loyalty is now a career.
Paula: Yes.
Graeme: And many years ago, it wasn’t recognized as a formal career.
Graeme: We were doing it ad hoc.
Graeme: And with some of the leading limelights of the individuals that are referred to and many that have played a part that have helped foster us to understand that the wheel focusing on loyalty is dramatically different.
Graeme: And it is a genuine career.
Graeme: It is a global career opportunity for people.
Graeme: And this is where through the Academy, with our global reach now, we’re trying to help people such as Emily and others aspiring to have a career at whatever level and whatever diversity and whatever the loyalty program they’re working with to have that skill.
Paula: Yeah, it’s a fabulous point, Graeme.
Paula: And in fact, I’ve made, you know, I suppose related points in recent podcasts with interviews with Wharton University, for example, with Bain & Company.
Paula: So big global recognized brands, management consultants, which exactly like this are really saying that loyalty professionals are becoming much more important and much more visible in their organizations.
Paula: And I think actually, as well as the time opportunity that Emily referenced at the current time with COVID, and we’re all at home, I also think loyalty programs are becoming much more important, much more visible, and we all need all of the skills and coaching for even higher level, and I mean board level conversations about loyalty and customer lifetime value.
Paula: Yeah, so.
Graeme: Many of the decisions for a loyalty program are made at boardroom level.
Graeme: And if a loyalty provider is underperforming because of lack of knowledge or experience, they’re putting that business at risk, but also putting at risk the financial outcomes in the reach of what a successful loyalty program could deliver.
Graeme: So we have a responsibility now far greater than I think we’ve recognized in the past to be regarded as professionals in the industry that we serve.
Paula: Yeah, yeah.
Paula: No, it’s a great point, Graeme.
Paula: And I suppose, again, listeners will know, like many of us, the names we’ve mentioned are freelance consultants, and we’re often brought in for exactly the reasons that, as we said, there hasn’t been enough internal knowledge in businesses in terms of professional management of loyalty programs.
Paula: So yeah, love to hear that point being formalized, Graeme, I think it’s a really good one.
Paula: And Emily, great to hear that you’ve really decided it sounds long-term that loyalty is going to be the direction you’re going to stay for the foreseeable future.
Emily: Yes, it is.
Emily: I mean, I’m really interested, and I see that loyalty needs to be seen as a key function in any business.
Emily: And that’s the way you really manage your customers well, engage them.
Emily: And that’s how you always, you know, you remain as the top of nine.
Paula: Yeah, wonderful, wonderful.
Paula: So tell us then, Emily, I think you did your course just a couple of months ago.
Paula: And I love that you made the point about originally it was available in a classroom setting.
Paula: And certainly I remember in 2018, I considered going to Singapore.
Paula: There were some courses maybe planned in Asia, which I loved the idea.
Paula: Any excuse to get to Singapore?
Paula: It’s a great country.
Paula: But like you, I ended up doing it online.
Paula: And clearly anybody listening now, the only option obviously at the moment is to do it online.
Paula: So tell us all of your experience doing it, and how much work was involved?
Paula: How did you find the content?
Paula: Was it what you were expecting?
Paula: Were there parts that you found challenging?
Paula: I would love to just hear about how you find the course itself.
Emily: Okay, sure.
Emily: So basically, maybe I’ll start off with why I found this course, right?
Emily: So I decided that I wanted to really invest in myself in this loyalty industry.
Emily: I wanted to get to know all the content I could have available easily.
Emily: Because right now, basically, if you just do a random Google search, you find bits and pieces here and there by different writers, different blogs and all.
Emily: So to make things easier, why not find a single organization or course provider that could give me the latest information and the most accurate, rather than having differing views, different schools of thought, right?
Emily: So I thought that basically this was the only one I could find, and it was a certified, a recognized certification.
Emily: So I thought why not join the Loyalty Academy, find out what it has, and really get a full scope of what you need to know from introduction to intermediate to, okay, maybe exactly the top expert level, but you will get there.
Emily: You see, wherever you learn, you got to have a starting point.
Emily: So I picked up the courses, and basically on the course menu, you have this set of basic courses you have to go for, and then level two, which are electives, so certain topics that you might be interested in.
Emily: But as a Loyalty Academy member, actually, I think you can select for all.
Emily: If you have the time, you can go and sit for all the courses made available to you.
Emily: Yes, only that you get this treasure trove of resources made available as well.
Emily: So many, it’s kind of curated content, so you can information share that you can actually make reference to.
Emily: And I find it very applicable in even the basic work I’m doing in my own organization.
Emily: So I have already used some of the resources in my day to day work as well.
Emily: So in terms of the courses, it’s quite easy for the on-demand.
Emily: You can really get a video link, watch it.
Emily: It’s of course password protected, so you can’t go around sharing it, right?
Emily: And then you basically take your own notes down.
Emily: If you have queries, actually, they’re really helpful.
Emily: You can write into them and they can address your queries or even talk with the speaker.
Emily: So I think they’re very helpful, very forthcoming.
Emily: So it’s really like a community, a network of people with the same like-minded people, you see.
Emily: So I think the community approach and the content covered, basically it covers everything you need to even start your own loyalty program.
Emily: So the basics, of course.
Emily: So from learning a bit about the financials, what are the basics, the fundamentals of running a program, even the technology that’s available and used today, it’s all good.
Emily: So if you are a newbie to this industry or even someone who is already in the industry like myself, I think it’s a good stepping stone.
Emily: It’s a good way to bring yourself up a notch.
Paula: Yes.
Emily: Yeah.
Emily: The content is also very digestible.
Emily: So I believe, I mean, you can, it’s just an hour each course.
Paula: Yes.
Paula: Absolutely.
Emily: I think it’s something that is very manageable for anyone.
Paula: Yeah.
Paula: And I was going to say, like, what I remember going into the program feeling was, I don’t know what I don’t know.
Paula: So, you know, there’s all these, okay, as you said, there’s foundation modules and then there’s electives, which I love the fact that you do have some choice over which elements of loyalty, because as much as loyalty is a niche part of marketing, obviously, then there are niche parts within that as well.
Paula: So, yeah, so I think you’re right.
Paula: I think in total, it was about 20 hours of study in my memory.
Paula: Does that sound about right for you, Emily?
Emily: Yeah, somewhere within 20 hours, but because there are so many electives modules, you basically can go on for more.
Emily: And recently, I think they launched more newer ones this year.
Emily: I just attended two or three in the last one, two months as well.
Emily: So the good thing about this Academy is that, you know, they don’t just leave it there and it goes still.
Emily: It does not go still.
Emily: They do update the content.
Emily: Maybe they upgrade your level also from basic to intermediate and so on.
Emily: You have the choice.
Paula: Yes.
Emily: Yeah, I would agree with you that there definitely is some industry-known content already, but there’s definitely even more to learn.
Emily: So I would actually kind of consider it as a one-stop shop.
Emily: You know, you can get everything you need there.
Paula: Great, great.
Paula: I can tell you work in marketing, Emily.
Graeme: Paula, can I just add to Emily’s and Emily, it was lovely listening to you, but I think what’s coming out of this and one of the intentions that we have on our programs is one, that they’re friendly.
Graeme: They’re not onerous, they’re not difficult, but they’re based on the theory that what you learn is you can apply the following day when you go back into work environment.
Graeme: So the return on our investment is as much or more as great as you want to drill down.
Graeme: And if anything, in some of the subjects, they simply whet your appetite to dive deeper and look further.
Graeme: And if people can understand and appreciate that the industry probably is no longer in its infancy, but there’s a demand for us to be professional and with the knowledge that we are there and can deliver.
Paula: Wonderful, wonderful.
Paula: And Graeme, I’d love to just ask about the point Emily also made there just about the ongoing content.
Paula: I have seen a lot myself as well in terms of your adding new courses all of the time and again with new industry experts.
Paula: So that’s obviously the plan in terms of, as Emily said, keeping the course up to date.
Graeme: The loyalty, in terms of this diversity, if we looked at a wheel, what does it encompass?
Graeme: As I said originally, we used to think of it as a reward, and that was a loyalty activity that someone has gained by their performance.
Graeme: But it’s much more.
Graeme: It’s about analytics, it’s data.
Graeme: It’s marketing, it’s communication.
Graeme: So we have to encompass and increase the knowledge that we can provide to the course graduate.
Graeme: And we ourselves are always looking at how can we enhance and develop the product that we deliver.
Graeme: And analytics is a recent one that’s coming out.
Graeme: So there’s more and more that will unfold and develop.
Graeme: But I wouldn’t hesitate to suggest to those in the industry to approach us if they’ve got a subject or a topic that they feel that we’re not addressing, that needs to be addressed, to let us know.
Graeme: We are customer focused and we would respond accordingly.
Paula: Love that, Graeme.
Paula: Absolutely.
Paula: Yeah, there are so many topics that I do think people are developing expertise in and might see a future for themselves in the more academic side, the educational side.
Paula: So thank you for extending that invitation, Graeme.
Paula: So I’ll make sure that any listeners that get in touch with ideas for content will definitely pass them on to the Academy.
Paula: So that’s a lovely idea.
Paula: Great.
Paula: And I know, obviously, after the 20 hours of study that we talked about, all of the modules, to make sure we’ve got a great foundation, there is a case study, which feels a bit like an exam.
Paula: So that was a bit scary for me anyway.
Paula: I don’t know about you, Emily.
Paula: How did you find the case study presentation?
Emily: Okay, the case study was probably…
Emily: It’s good because it’s applicable.
Emily: You imagine yourself as really running a business, and you have to pitch it to your senior management and all that.
Emily: So case study is one of the methods that you need to get.
Emily: It’s like a final exam, right?
Emily: To clear the CRMP.
Emily: But if I’m not wrong, there is the second version now on how to clear a CRMP.
Emily: And I took the second version.
Emily: So what I had to do was I had to go through this list of MCQs, multiple choice questions or something, and fill your answers.
Emily: Not only that, it gave me a real scenario and asked me to create a case ROI on a case study of a food program, something like that.
Emily: But I can’t really recall, it happened two, three months back.
Paula: Totally.
Paula: Yeah.
Paula: Great.
Emily: You get to run the numbers, and you get to decide whether it’s going to be like a subscription kind of loyalty program or not.
Emily: And basically, you come up with a suggested strategy and all that, and you submit it.
Emily: They take some time to go through it and see whether it will work out.
Emily: And they do come back even with feedback.
Emily: So I really have a feedback.
Emily: I think I learned a lot more from the feedback.
Paula: Yes.
Emily: That it’s not just submit and pass and fill.
Emily: You submit and they give you feedback, and you think about it, and you actually try to run the numbers again.
Paula: Yeah.
Emily: So it’s a process.
Paula: Wonderful.
Emily: It was interesting.
Paula: Yeah.
Paula: And I remember myself actually, I think it gave me more respect for the qualification because it wasn’t just a box-ticking exercise, or we just want to have a lot of people that are using this accreditation.
Paula: I felt like I was being tested.
Paula: I felt like if I hadn’t done the study, then I wouldn’t get my certification.
Paula: And therefore, I will now be looking out for that qualification with other loyalty professionals because I know they’ve gone through, as you said, run the numbers, they’ve had to think about things, and there is an element of proving that you are a loyalty professional in order to be accredited.
Emily: Yeah.
Emily: I mean, you can’t get numbers that don’t work, right?
Emily: Then you’re unproductive.
Paula: Totally.
Paula: Go back and do a few more modules.
Paula: Is that the approach?
Graeme: Paula, that was a good analogy that you felt you were being stretched.
Graeme: If we apply that to a loyalty program, that’s in effect what we are attempting to do.
Graeme: When we work with a customer, we’re trying to stretch the performance of the program to maximize the return.
Graeme: And so Emily’s comments and your comments, relative to your experience with the program, have been very, very well received.
Graeme: I think they’re great.
Graeme: Thanks very much.
Paula: Wonderful, wonderful.
Paula: Well, there’s a couple of themes, I think, coming through on my side.
Paula: I’ll probably summarize at the end just what I’m hearing.
Paula: But Emily, just to, I suppose, finish up with you, do you have further plans to study or what’s next for you in your loyalty career?
Emily: Yeah, actually, I think that I believe in lifelong learning.
Emily: And as the world progresses, there’s always going to be something new.
Emily: It’s going to be a new way to run loyalty.
Emily: For example, now there’s a loyalty and payment integrations.
Emily: So there’s going to be changes along the way.
Emily: So with every change, you just got to keep, you know, keeping up the trend, learning about what’s available.
Emily: I definitely hope that the Loyalty Academy will produce more such courses for me to make sure I’m still in the know.
Emily: Yeah.
Emily: So these are still research on myself.
Emily: And yeah, continuous learning is important for me.
Paula: Yeah.
Paula: Yeah.
Paula: And also what impressed me about you, Emily, was that before you decided to invest, and it is an investment, we’ll talk about that now, but you did reach out to me as a graduate.
Paula: I think you were already listening to the podcast, and you reached out to ask about whether I thought it was worthwhile.
Paula: And I think the community will do that and should do that, because at the end of the day, we all know, again, loyalty through word of mouth is so much more powerful actually than any marketing that any of us can do.
Paula: So I’m certainly available, I suppose, for any listeners who want to talk about the Academy.
Paula: And again, I’ll make sure there’s links to Graeme and the whole Board of Regents for the Academy, for people who have further questions on it.
Paula: Graeme, anything else you wanted to say about the certified Loyalty Marketing Professional, CLMP, overall, before we start to wrap up?
Graeme: I’d just like to highlight that we are global.
Graeme: We’re now currently in 20 countries, and we have close to 170 CLMPs.
Graeme: And as I said, we’ve been tracking now for five years.
Graeme: And to celebrate that, we’ll have something to announce very shortly.
Graeme: But we are constantly aware the need to deliver professional certified programs that position us to, with the likes of Emily, who can foster and increase her well-being in the world of loyalty.
Graeme: In other words, her career prospects.
Graeme: And we’ve talked about the individual training online programs.
Graeme: We also offer the group ones.
Graeme: And certainly, I’d encourage people that once we’ve gone through the pandemic days, and hopefully in the foreseeable future, we’ll be able to have group dynamics, which are effectively for two or three days of intense group discussions, going through the modules in a condensed format.
Graeme: But the benefit there is that you’ve got an interaction with a diverse group in terms of the audience.
Graeme: And the diversity is people from the B2B environment, or from the retail environment, or airlines, banking, or whatever.
Graeme: So what we endeavour to encompass is not just the retail market, but we encompass the greatest spread in terms of the reach of where Loyalty is.
Graeme: And it will continue to escalate.
Graeme: Wonderful.
Graeme: No, we’re very comfortable, very proud of ourselves, of where we are, and I acknowledge the likes of Bill Hennephan and Mike Capisi for the tremendous work that they’re doing.
Graeme: And thank you for the opportunity to be on here tonight with you.
Paula: Yeah, not at all.
Paula: I love the way you summarized that, Graeme.
Paula: And actually, Emily used a great word earlier, which is what I’m hearing coming through.
Paula: Your point is, it is a community, so CLMPs around the world.
Paula: Like, I know, for example, if somebody, you know, reaches out on LinkedIn, for example, and has CLMP in their title, I will automatically feel like we’re part of that same community.
Paula: So, and Emily made the point about the professionalism, the support, and I really feel it can be a very lonely world in loyalty when you’re running particularly big programs which do have massive impact.
Paula: But again, you want to make sure that you have a community of people you can reach out to if you have particular questions, I suppose.
Paula: So, well done on creating that.
Paula: Great, great.
Paula: Okay, well, then the last piece I just want to mention for listeners is the competition.
Paula: So, I believe it’s the first time the Loyalty Academy has had a scholarship.
Paula: So, I’m super excited that it’s in conjunction with us here on the show.
Paula: So, it’s going to be very simple and straightforward.
Paula: And essentially, what we’re doing is anyone who subscribed to the Let’s Talk Loyalty email newsletter for one month from today, August 20th, will literally automatically go into a competition to win a Loyalty Academy certification.
Paula: Now, in value terms, that’s worth over US$1,750.
Paula: And quite simply, it means that all of the fees and the lifetime membership to the Loyalty Academy will be covered courtesy of the Loyalty Academy.
Paula: Now, obviously, the lucky winner will have to go through and complete all of the modules that we talked about and prove themselves as worthy of the certification, but you will have a full 12 months to complete that training program, and you can do it online.
Paula: So, I won’t try and cover all of the details now.
Paula: What I would say is literally go to letstalkloyalty.com, look for the competition page, and all of the details are there just to quite simply enter.
Paula: And the final point I wanted to make about the scholarship and competition is if you yourself are already a CLMP, but you want to enter and gift it to somebody else, that’s also completely fine.
Paula: We’ll be talking in future episodes exactly about how we’re going to pick the winner.
Paula: I think I might ask Graeme actually to do the picking when it comes to the end of the month of entries as they come in.
Paula: So would that be okay with you, Graeme?
Graeme: Absolutely.
Graeme: Pleasure.
Paula: Wonderful.
Paula: Wonderful.
Paula: Okay.
Paula: So yeah, I think the summary I wanted to say is, first of all, it is all about career, giving people the tools that they want.
Paula: Secondly, what I’m hearing is it’s all about the community, so all of us coming together to learn from each other.
Paula: And thirdly, it’s all about the competition, celebrating in partnership with the Loyalty Academy one year of Let’s Talk Loyalty.
Paula: So it really feels like a feel-good episode.
Paula: So from my side, first of all, Emily, I wanted to say thank you to you.
Paula: Is there anything else that you wanted to mention from your side in Singapore?
Emily: I really think that this YALMP that the Loyalty Academy has created is really useful for anyone in this industry.
Emily: I mean, this recognized certification has beautified my portfolio for one.
Paula: Wonderful, wonderful.
Paula: Thank you so much.
Paula: So, Emily Ong, thank you so much, regional loyalty product owner for Sephora in Asia.
Paula: And Graeme Thompson, chairman of the Board of Regents of the Loyalty Academy.
Paula: Thank you both for joining us on the first birthday of Let’s Talk Loyalty.
Paula: This show is sponsored by The Wise Marketeer, the world’s most popular source of loyalty marketing news, insights, and research.
Paula: The Wise Marketeer also offers loyalty marketing training through its Loyalty Academy, which has already certified over 170 executives in 20 countries as certified loyalty marketing professionals.
Paula: For more information, check out thewisemarketeer.com and loyaltyacademy.org Thanks so much for listening to this episode of Let’s Talk Loyalty.
Paula: If you’d like me to send you the latest show each week, simply sign up for the show newsletter on letstalkloyalty.com, and I’ll send you the latest episode to your inbox every Thursday.
Paula: Or just head to your favorite podcast platform.
Paula: Find Let’s Talk Loyalty and subscribe.
Paula: Of course, I’d love your feedback and reviews, and thanks again for supporting the show.
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