Paula: Welcome to Let’s Talk Loyalty, an industry podcast for loyalty marketing professionals. I’m your host, Paula Thomas, and if you work in loyalty marketing, join me every week to learn the latest ideas from loyalty specialists around the world.
Just before we share today’s episode, I want to ask you to sign up to the Let’s Talk Loyalty email newsletter. Our email newsletter is by far the best way for us to keep you up to date with all of the latest incredible loyalty stories we’re sharing each week. It’s also the easiest place for you to find our show notes with links to everything mentioned in all of the episodes.
You can sign up at letstalkloyalty.com.
Hello, and welcome to today’s episode of Let’s Talk Loyalty and Loyalty TV. Another exciting opportunity to discuss airline loyalty, my favorite topic. We’re here today to share the story of the launch of Kris+ from Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer program, and specifically in the Australian market. Australia is the largest market for Singapore Airlines outside of its home base. And we were thrilled with the opportunity to hear their achievements in such a mature loyalty market.
Our guest is Udhara de Silva, Head of Loyalty Marketing Australia at Singapore Airlines. Udhara was born in Sydney and raised in Saudi Arabia to Sri Lankan parents, and he’s already lived in seven countries over the decades. As you can imagine, this gives him an incredibly interesting global perspective. I hope you enjoy my conversation with Udhara de Silva from Singapore Airlines in Australia.
So, Udhara de Silva, welcome to Loyalty TV and to Let’s Talk Loyalty.
Udhara: Thank you, Paula. On behalf of Singapore Airlines and KrisFlyer, I just want to say thank you so much for having me on the show.
Paula: Oh my goodness, we’re so excited. It’s been a long time we’ve been talking about doing this. And of course, the timing has to be right in terms of your program. And I know that is the right time now. So thank you to Singapore Airlines. I know your global colleagues have been incredibly supportive.
So let’s get into the conversation today, Udhara. There is a lot to talk about given everything you’re working on in the Australian market. So first and foremost, as you know, my favorite opening question is always very insightful so that I know what you admire as a loyalty marketing professional.
So let’s kick off by asking you, what is your current favorite loyalty program?
Udhara: I love that question, Paula, and I’ve been thinking about it for a few days. Maybe to zoom out a little to those who are tuning in from outside of Australia, looking at the landscape here. It’s incredibly competitive and really sophisticated.
Australians love getting value for every dollar they spend, and there’s virtually no category. That’s untouched by loyalty. So what I think about in terms of a program that I love, I’m thinking about representing and providing value to a broad cross section of Australian society. I’m thinking about simplicity, transparency, and catering to a range of value drivers.
Paula: Yeah.
Udhara: So with that in mind, my program of choice at the moment is Flybuys. Flybuys is the loyalty program of a major Australian supermarket chain called Kohl’s, as well as a bunch of leading national retailers as well. They have a really straightforward way to earn miles and a fantastic redemption ecosystem, including with our domestic airline partner, Virgin Australia.
Paula: Wow. You know, you’ve mentioned so many of the principles that I personally admire Udhara and clearly you have, you know, joined the loyalty profession as a very savvy professional, I’m going to say, from what you’ve just picked up on, because I think as consumers, the most important thing is that we first of all get it.
Like there is absolutely no point having, as you said, a very sophisticated loyalty program unless it has the simplicity that appeals to people that they can immediately understand how to avail of it. So that sounds absolutely amazing. We did have Flybuys on the show, but it was a very long time ago. So you’ve reminded me we must reach back out to them and make sure to get them back on.
Now that we’ve got the whole TV thing going, and I should credit you with that as well as our, I know we’re putting you under so much extra pressure. You are somebody who has done your own podcast as well, which is exciting, but how does it feel to be on the other end of the mic on camera?
Udhara: It’s interesting, you know, in my previous life, I had a little show where I interviewed a bunch of interesting thinkers, and artists and athletes and what have you. And I got to ask the questions, which was a lot of fun this time on the other end, bit more pressure.
Paula: Yeah.
Udhara: But fun, nonetheless.
Paula: Totally. Totally. So with all that kind of background, Udhara, tell us, how did you get into the loyalty professional?
Udhara: Yeah. So this I joined Singapore Airlines about five years ago almost to the day, actually. And I joined as a management trainee. So the management training program of Singapore Airlines is a global program where virtually graduates from virtually any discipline are encouraged to apply. And when you enter the program, you get exposed to so many different parts of the business. It’s such a fantastic primer on how an airline works.
And you’re put into roles in which you can make an impact from day one. So my first role as a management trainee was in agency sales. A few months later, I joined a team called sales planning. Both of these roles were in Sydney. And then in late 2021, I joined the loyalty marketing team based in Melbourne, primarily. And I’ve been here ever since.
You know, one thing that I find really interesting about working for SQ as it’s known in the airline industry is that the work culture here is incredibly collaborative. It’s agile. It’s very customer centric and it’s cross border. And so with Kris+, which we’ll talk about later on the show I got to work with some brilliant minds in marketing and UX and UI, in finance and legal and get to learn as we open up the next chapter of Kris+ here in Australia.
Paula: Yeah. You know, it’s actually my favorite way to learn as well as Udhara and my background actually way back now, it feels a long time ago, but I worked in British Airways now a bit like you. So I was in an overseas market. But we always had management trainees coming in on global placements. And I loved because first of all, it was so competitive to get into the company because the program was so good. So super competitive. So we had really amazing people flying in from the UK. And then again, they would move around the world and do just very diverse roles. Like as diverse as going into the operations side of the airport and then into the business side as well. So it sounds like you love being there.
Udhara: Absolutely. I’m an av geek at heart. And so when I got the chance to join SQ, it was a real dream come true.
Paula: Incredible. Incredible. And I should say congratulations as well, because from management trainee to head of loyalty marketing in what I understand is actually the biggest overseas market for Singapore Airlines. I mean, that’s a credit to you as well.
Udhara: Thank you so much. And you’re right, Paula. So we have about 8 million members in the KrisFlyer program globally. And out of that 8 million, 1.5 million members are in Australia. So 20 percent more or less of the KrisFlyer base is based here.
Paula: Wow.
Udhara: You know, a big part of that is our presence. Singapore Alliance has been operating to Australia for close to 60 years now.
Paula: Wow.
Udhara: And that with our low cost carrier scoot, we’ve got a significant presence all over Australia. We fly to major Australian cities, all major Australian cities, as well as secondary cities like Cairns and Darwin. And I think with that presence, we can provide value to our members who are drawn to the air proposition of what we do. And then, which are with the rich ecosystem of non air partners, we can really play in that everyday reward space.
Paula: Wow. Very cool. Very cool. So will you talk us through the journey, Udhara and just go back maybe a little bit, because as you’ve said, the airline’s been operating an incredible 60 years. And, you know, given how, you know, Frequent Flyer programs work, obviously you’ve had members there, I’m sure as long as KrisFlyer has existed but obviously a big decision was taken to focus on making the program more locally relevant. So talk us through that journey in terms of how you ended up and what you’ve been working on.
Udhara: Absolutely. So KrisFlyer is 25 years old this year, and we have grown partnerships in Australia on a local level for about 20 years, I would say, starting with our partnership with ANZ in 2004. And since then we’ve grown partnerships with all four major Australian banks where you can earn points and convert points to miles through credit cards.
And since then we’ve really grown our ecosystem here to include hotel chains. We have a fantastic partnership with Virgin Australia, as I mentioned earlier, that began in the early 2010s. And that partnership is fairly unique in that you can actually convert miles and points between each other’s programs.
And Kris+ is really the latest chapter in KrisFlyer in Australia. So Kris+, which is a very well known and very well loved digital rewards app in Singapore. It’s been around for about five years there and very popular. We decided to expand to Australia given the size and the importance of the market starting in Sydney and Melbourne. We launched in November with about, I think it was just over 50 partners. And today, a little over six months later, we’re at about 115 partners and 150 plus outlets where you can actually earn and spend your points in store instantly.
Paula: Well, honestly, that Udhara is something that, you know, for example, I haven’t seen here in Dubai and maybe it exists, but I don’t think so. So highly innovative and very interesting that the core, I suppose, evolution of KrisFlyer is into this digital wallet space because I think we all know there are so many opportunities for frequent flyer programs to grow and to offer like cool stuff as you’ve talked about as a lifestyle program. So why did you choose the digital wallet piece as something that would be most exciting for your members?
Udhara: Yeah. So that maybe I’m at zoom, zoom out just a little bit to explain how Kris+ works. So Kris+ is our lifestyle and rewards app. You can download it very easily through Apple or Google app stores. And essentially what it does is it allows you to scan QR codes at our partner’s point of sale at checkout.
Paula: Okay.
Udhara: And then use Apple pay or Google pay through the app to earn miles. Or alternatively, if you’ve earned miles from one of our flights or from previous purchases on Kris+, you can use these miles to pay for things as well.
Now, what’s really interesting about this is we have a leading miles earned rate up to three miles per dollar in Australia as a default. And the redemption rate is 150 miles for one dollar worth of value, which is best in category.
Paula: Wow.
Udhara: The, so the value proposition is really the ability to instantly earn and instantly burn your miles, which not many players do in this space. The app itself is really clean. It’s really fun to use. And I think for partners as well it’s a really great way to really customize offers for them. We really try to showcase the best of all our partners, whether they’re a cafe, a bar, a retailer, a restaurant. And so it’s a fantastic marketing channel for partners. And ultimately what we’re trying to do is drive traffic into our partner stores.
Paula: Amazing. You know, what I really like about that strategy with Udhara is, you know, I think in some ways, you know, everybody expects, of course, the you know, the complimentary ancillary partnerships that we all know and love our hotels and our car hire.
But the fact that you’ve chosen to go right down to local bars and restaurants in such major cities is first of all, I know from experience a massive amount of work, but also even just, I suppose, a big education process both in terms of those merchants themselves and in terms of your members. Because I think you said to us last time we talked that QR codes are obviously very popular in, in other Asian countries, but not necessarily well utilized in the Australian market. Is that fair to say?
Udhara: Yeah, it’s a really great observation, Paula. I think that was one of the early challenges we had when launching Kris+ in Australia. QR codes, their second nature in Asia, virtually, you know, every major brand has its form of rewards program where you can use QR codes to pay for things. And it’s so easy to use. It’s so seamless, it’s embedded and therefore it makes it a lot easier to recruit partners.
Paula: Yeah.
Udhara: In Australia, you know, what’s really driving adoption of QR codes on mass is the supermarket.
Paula: Okay.
Udhara: So major Australian supermarket chain here, Woolworths is doing a great job of embracing QR codes at their point of sale terminals, and that makes our jobs a little bit easier as well. But you know, once we get over that hurdle of showing how it works, and all it takes is a very simple demo of how it works in person and our partners go, wow, this is super easy.
What’s also really interesting is it, our solution actually doesn’t require any change to their infrastructure. There’s no upgrade required. It’s a very user friendly merchant app that they can also download from the app stores. It works as long as you have a wifi connection, you get instant real time updates whenever transactions are made. And so that’s so of trying to convince managers, front liners, accounts departments on how to use it was so much more easier because of that solution.
And you’re right, you know, typical loyalty partnerships especially in the airline space, take months and months to materialize. What we’re doing here on the ground with Kris+ is scaling partnerships up, you know, at two to three weeks from the point we say hello to a merchant to the point they’re up and running on Kris+.
Paula: Yeah. Amazing. And I think you wanted to extend an invitation as well. If there are merchants that happen to be listening in the Australian market, you’re open to bringing new ones on board all the time. I think you said.
Udhara: Absolutely. I think we’re looking in Sydney and Melbourne. You know, the CBDs are where we focus or the downtown areas of the cities are where we’re looking at the moment because our primary focus is to create a really dense, rich, varied network of places you can earn and spend your miles.
Our kind of rule of thumb locally within the team is, you know, anywhere you are in the CBD, a 10 minute walk away, you should have at least a couple of options to earn and spend miles. So anyone interested we’re always looking to chat to new partners and we’re looking at growing quite ambitiously this year, for sure.
Paula: Amazing. And sorry, I don’t understand CBD, Udhara. What does that acronym mean?
Udhara: That is a good question, Paula. So in Australia, it’s very well known. It means Central Business District outside of Australia, more commonly known as downtown.
Paula: Got it. Okay. It’s amazing. We all have these things that we use in our language and I love language. I think anybody who listens to me knows that. And so if there is something new, that’s an interesting simplification of something, then it’s important. I know it both for myself, of course, and for the audience. So brilliant. So over a hundred partners, you said, and remind me, sorry, the membership numbers is at 1.4 million at this stage?
Udhara: We’re actually at 1.5 million in Australia.
Paula: Okay.
Udhara: Huge milestone for us. And we’ve grown really rapidly over the past couple of years. And we’ve maintained really healthy active rates as well. One thing that’s, you know, worth noting, you know, as a global airline, our membership base is smaller than other programs. This is by design. You know, one thing we’re very focused on is making sure we’re relevant and we’re providing genuine value to our members. And so our program policy has a couple of rules to it. A couple of policies where miles might expire after a certain period. If you haven’t engaged with the program, your account gets removed from our system. And that’s purely because we want to make sure we’re not spamming our members and that we’re constantly providing value, whether you’re flying or whether you’re not flying.
Paula: Absolutely. Yeah. I think it’s a lovely demonstration of your interest in having that I suppose, depth of proposition to build the opportunity to make it engaging. And then as you said, if people aren’t engaging, then it’s obviously not relevant and probably better to remove them from the database. It’s probably a controversial one. I know lots of brands struggle with, you know, do we keep them? Do we just archive them or do we fully remove them from the database?
Because, you know, at the end of the day, even a siloed from the legal implications, which of course is always the first consideration, what you don’t want is, you know, just to have almost vanity numbers where you feel like you’re growing. But if it’s not growing with engagement, then obviously it’s not real growth. So I like the integrity that’s coming through in terms of how you’re keeping it super clean.
Udhara: Absolutely. I think that flows on to the value we provide our partners as well. We would much rather say we’ve got a base that trusts what we have to recommend and what we curate. And when we share new partnerships, they’re more than likely to engage with them and actually take our comms, take our comms seriously.
Paula: For sure. For sure. So what would you say then in terms of challenges, Udhara, you’ve talked about, for example, first of all, the early adoption of QR codes. And I just actually, while I think about one to mention, I have sometimes Googled in the past, because I had heard how successful this, you know, you know, dare I say a technology is in other Asian markets.
And if you look on Google images and just put in QR code and begging, it’s such a simple technology that I’ve certainly seen in China. And I think in India as well, where even on the street or small vendors have QR code. So to have that level of adoption across all levels of society just kind of blew my mind. So I love that you went for that ultra simplistic approach, even though it wasn’t commonplace in Australia. And great to hear that the supermarkets are coming on board with that as well. But what would you say then your overall challenges were other than that initial education piece?
Udhara: I think that was certainly one of the big ones. I think the other challenge that we would probably have from a local level is learning how to scale up our partnerships at such a rapid clip. As I said before, you know, typically frequent flyer partnerships take months to materialize the way you communicate partnerships as well as a very different beast to promoting via an app.
And so a lot of the comms, a lot of the partnerships work, it’s driven locally. And so building the capability of the team was a fantastic project to work on and building the skill sets within the team to promote on a very regular basis, partnerships through the app. Whether it’s, you know, highlight tiles which are heavily featured at the top section of the app.
Paula: Yeah.
Udhara: One of the other great features of Kris+ is besides the ability to earn instantly earn and instantly use your miles, you can pre-purchase these deals called vouchers or promo codes.
Paula: Okay.
Udhara: So those also enable the ability to instantly earn miles. What’s really great about these is that we’ve actually got several stories of customers, you know, hearing about spontaneous escapes, which is our monthly redemption discount campaign that we do some amazing discounts on flights across the network.
They see them through the email comms we put out, realize they’ve got, you know, just a couple of thousand miles left to get to that business class redemption. And they’ll jump on Kris+ buy a bunch of deals and vouchers and get those miles to book that flight and then they’ve got, you know, deals and vouchers that can use over the next year.
And we’re talking about, you know, movie tickets. We’re talking about high end omakase meals. We’re talking about retail value in store as well. And so the challenge here was about understanding the needs of our various partners, getting very granular with them, understanding the seasonality of their various menus and products and finding ways to package that within the app in a way that makes sense to our consumer.
And so, that was a fantastic learning journey for us in the team. And we’re really enjoying the process of rolling out regular vouchers deals and exclusive privileges, which are discounts and additional value as that you really can’t find anywhere else.
Paula: Yeah, I love that. And of course, tapping into the aspirational nature of getting the redemption flight to a, an exciting destination. I mean, at the end of the day, that’s the ultimate promise, of course, for any airline frequent flyer program.
Udhara: Absolutely.
Paula: So I guess your partners love to be part of that, huh?
Udhara: Yes. And do you know what it makes Kris+ makes it so achievable and realistic to actually get that much closer to your free flight or upgrade, you know, to put it into real numbers.
If you spend about 23 dollars a day at various merchants, whether it’s a cafe or a bar or store by the end of the year, assuming you’re earning three miles per dollar, which is the standard with most of our partners, you’ll be getting a free flight from Sydney to Singapore. If you just over double that to about 62 a day, you’ll be getting a business class flight. So how exciting is that? That you don’t have to have a credit card rewards program to be able to get that much closer to your free flight. You don’t have to fly several times a year to get that free flight.
Paula: Yeah. Yeah. That makes it very tangible, Udhara. So again, a credit to you for keeping it simple, keeping it real and making it in a way that members can just go, I can see it working.
And also within a dedicated app as well. I did want to pick up on that point because I’ve seen different strategies, but more and more recently, it does seem to be that if everyday earning and burning, of course, in your context, if that’s going to really work, almost having a separate app gives it that extra visibility that the member really appreciates and engages with much more because they understand the separation from the airline and the complimentary overlap. And I don’t know if I’m oversimplifying it, but I feel because I’ve got like a dedicated app for everyday rewards from my airline, I feel that’s an important distinction.
Udhara: Yeah you’ve nailed it, Paula. I think Kris+ is a platform that attracts eyeballs on a very frequent basis. You know, we’re different to card linked rewards, you know, card linked rewards are where you attach credit card details to your loyalty program. And if you happen to shop at one of a partnering organizations, you get bonus points which is great for the consumer, but from a partner perspective, are you really doing the best you can to promote what they have to say to the world. And so Kris+ is that opportunity to do exactly that.
We’ve got really great placements for each partner’s listing. We have highlight tiles that we update at least once a week to showcase specific partners. We’ve got bonus miles campaigns right within the app. In fact, from May to June, we just launched it on the day of recording. And it’s a campaign called Feast to Fly where virtually all of our dining partners in Australia and Singapore offer a whopping 10 miles per dollar instead of the usual one to three miles per dollar. And so, you know, we couldn’t do this within the Singapore Alliance app as a standalone, we had to make it a dedicated app to really, really showcase the best of non air partnerships.
Paula: A hundred percent. Yeah. My one big learning, and you probably know that I started in loyalty and partnerships actually negotiating within a telco brand. So not immediately the same, but absolutely the single biggest challenge for me, like, week in, week out was access to promote those partners. Because it’s one thing, a big global brand like Singapore Airlines coming and saying, we’d love to work with you. But if they’re not getting the actual footfall or the response rates, then absolutely they of course get disappointed. And over time you can’t retain them as partners. So I think that’s a really important learning is that you’ve got those highlight opportunities. So you’re continually marketing them in return for them supporting your members.
Udhara: That’s right. That’s right.
Paula: Amazing. Talk to me a little bit about your KPIs then, Udhara. You’ve talked a little bit about for example, the engagement, keeping the database clean and absolutely only with active members. What else are you focused on given that, as you said, particularly it’s only six months old in the Australian market for Kris+. So what is it that you’re, I suppose, laser focused on?
Udhara: Great question. I think, look, with KPIs, growth is important, of course. But for us, what we look at is quality growth. How do we fit into the Australian KrisFlyer members lives? And how do we do that beyond the air proposition? The air proposition is really strong. It’s very easy to earn miles. It’s very straightforward to earn status, whether it’s a KrisFlyer Elite Gold, whether it’s or a high net worth tiers PPS club, right? It’s very clear. It’s very transparent, but beyond flying, how can we provide value to Australians? You know, not everyone in this country flies through Singapore on a regular basis, they might be flying SQ a couple of times every couple of years.
So with that audience in mind, the key to us is strong non air partnerships and a strong ecosystem of non air partnerships, whether it’s our banks through our credit card partnerships whether it’s the HSBC star Alliance credit card, which we’re part of, which is a really innovative product. It’s an world first at launch here in Australia. Or whether it’s, whether it’s our Kris+ partnership base. So that’s what we really look for is, and that’s our North star. Are we relevant? Are we meaningful to the Australian consumer and are we providing them the value to earn miles towards their next Singapore Airlines holiday and being fully aware of the fact that you know, your miles don’t last in your account forever. How can we provide avenues to burn those miles if you’re not able to get to that free flight or upgrade? And I think that’s where Kris+ really shines.
Paula: Yeah. Yeah. I love the fact that you have that burn proposition as well, Udhara, because what I’m certainly hearing more and more, just in terms of, I suppose, trends in airline loyalty is the importance of the liquidity, because I think there’s just so many people who maybe join airline frequent flyer programs and never earn enough to do the upgrade or the free flight. And therefore it’s just like fundamentally, of course, just not a quality member for you and not a quality experience for them. So if they can even redeem at the point of sale, as you said with, I guess even a low balance, that sounds like something where there’s just no reason for them not to engage.
Udhara: Absolutely. You can really start enjoying the benefits from Kris+ from day one, you know, in, in Melbourne just down the road from our office where we’re based, there’s a iconic cafe here called Brunetti and I’m there every morning, at least a couple of times a day buying, buy my coffee because I get 10 percent off with no minimum spend plus three miles per dollar.
Paula: Wow. Okay.
Udhara: And so, you know, young people, you have students who are looking for a good deal, can get value from Kris+ families who are looking for a cheap and fun way to enjoy a movie night can buy movie tickets from Kris+ and earn three miles per dollar. You can have a really nice date night and get a couple of complimentary cocktails at certain partners of ours.
So we’re thinking about we’re not going with the core earned proposition. That’s obviously the big driver of Kris+, but we’re really looking to compliment that with so many other parts of the Kris+ feature set.
Paula: Yeah. And I think what that does as well, of course, is it means as you’ve identified, you get access to a different demographic who may never be frequent flyers actually. So it’s probably a different life stage. You have an opportunity to tap into them in a way that is relevant in their current everyday life.
Udhara: Exactly.
Paula: Whether, you know, I’m a university student and, you know, not yet traveling, for example, but of course, then you build the brand love and the lifelong loyalty, I guess, huh?
Udhara: That’s exactly right. And, you know, the other end of the spectrum, we’ve got our high net worth members as part of the PPS club program, you know, they find value in Kris+ as well because there are offers that only they can access at certain partners and the curation of partners that we have in our pipeline is very much factors in that base as well.
We also think about the corporate traveler, you know, where could they take partners out for business lunches? Where can they spend money on the retail side that might be relevant to their businesses as well? So we try to think about Kris+ from all angles, given the fact that we carry more people into and out of the country than any other carrier once you, once you exclude New Zealand flights.
Paula: Oh my goodness. Okay. Well, another kudos to Singapore Airlines. That’s amazing.
Udhara: Thank you.
Paula: So there we go. So I guess just thinking ahead now, Adara, as we’ve said you’re six months old with Kris+ in the Australian market. Sounds like a resounding success. An incredible number of partners onboarded quality growth, as you’ve said. What are you thinking about as you, I suppose, look around the world first and foremost? Cause I know you’re paying close attention to what’s going on in the industry, both the loyalty industry and the airline industry. What are you thinking about might be in the future for yourselves?
Udhara: You know, I think the real innovation that you’ll see in loyalty for KrisFlyer is going to be in Kris+ you know, Kris+ by launching in Australia makes it the world’s first app associated with the frequent flyer program. That’s available in multiple countries. And so, you know, when you think about the huge potential for inbound traffic, the fact that we’ve got a loyal audience in Singapore that visit Australia, the fact that you know, different parts of the world that Europe, our core markets coming into Australia and how they can see value in Kris+, and by extension, how we can extend that value to our partners. That’s where we, that’s where we want to put, that’s where we want to put most of our focus.
So what you’ll probably see in the next few months is certainly most more partners in this, CBDs or downtown parts of Sydney and Melbourne, we’re definitely going to add some more suburbs where we feel there’ll be a good spread of partners. And in the long run, we don’t have any definitive timelines at this point, but eventually we want to have a presence in every city we fly to.
Paula: Okay. Yeah. Makes sense, I guess. Yeah, totally. Fantastic. Oh my goodness, Udhara. And I should mention I am coming down in fact, to Australia to the Australian Loyalty Association conference that’s happening now just in August.
Udhara: Brilliant.
Paula: So it’s my very first time to really experience firsthand, you know, the expertise, cause I know you referenced that on our previous call, the actual maturity of the Australian loyalty market is incredibly impressive. So to hear the case studies and to hear how you guys as, you know, not an Australian carrier and a carrier from overseas are finding ways to distinguish yourselves. And Make Yourself Relevant is incredibly inspiring. So really excited that you took the opportunity and took the time today to share the story about Kris+.
So I don’t think I have any more questions for you, Udhara. Is there anything else that you’re either particularly proud of or anything else you wanted to mention before we wrap up?
Udhara: Thanks, Paula. Well, first of all, when you are down in Australia, you’ll definitely have to give us a shout so we can take you to one of our Kris+ partners for coffee. But look, thank you so much, for thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us. We’ve been working very hard to get to a place where we have a really rich ecosystem of options to earn and spend miles in Australia.
My closing remarks are, you know, if you’re listening in from wherever you are in the world and you happen to be passing through Singapore or coming to visit Australia, Sydney or Melbourne, please do download Kris+. Check it out. Love to hear your thoughts as loyalty experts tuning in.
If you’re a partner, please get in touch. We’re looking for interesting collaborations. Both on the Kris+ side whether you’re a cafe, a bar, a retailer, a wellness wellness player and also on the loyalty side through our more traditional KrisFlyer partnerships as well. We’d love to hear from you.
Paula: Amazing. Great stuff. Well said. I love to hear the belief and the passion coming through there because that’s exactly what we love as loyalty community members is to hear how much you believe in your own program. So Udhara de Silva, Head of Loyalty Marketing for Australia for Singapore Airlines. Thank you so much from Let’s Talk Loyalty and Loyalty TV.
Udhara: Thanks Paula.
Paula: This show is sponsored by Wise Marketer Group, publisher of The Wise Marketer, the premier digital customer loyalty marketing resource for industry relevant news, insights, and research. Wise Marketer Group also offers loyalty education and training globally through its Loyalty Academy, which has certified nearly 900 marketers and executives in 49 countries as certified loyalty marketing professionals.
For global coverage of customer engagement and loyalty, check out thewisemarketer.com and become a wiser marketer or subscriber. Learn more about global loyalty education for individuals or corporate training programs at loyaltyacademy.org.
Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Let’s Talk Loyalty. If you’d like us to send you the latest shows each week, simply sign up for the Let’s Talk Loyalty newsletter on letstalkloyalty.com and we’ll send our best episodes straight to your inbox. And don’t forget that you can follow Let’s Talk Loyalty on any of your favorite podcast platforms. And of course, we’d love for you to share your feedback and reviews. Thanks again for supporting the show.
