Nathan Beaver is a Partner at KPMG UK and in 2020, he shared his insights on the “integrity economy”, and how consumer behaviour evolved during the global pandemic.
With 91% of customers saying they do NOT want to return to the pre-Covid world, he explained some of the principles that loyalty programme managers need to keep in mind to connect with their most valuable customers.
Trust has become an essential ingredient in business and KPMG revealed some dramatic research findings on what they are calling the “New Customer”.
Listen to this short show to capture the key highlights of my interview with KPMG UK.
1) Nathan Beaver – Partner at KPMG UK
2) Let’s Talk Loyalty Episode #50 with KPMG
Speaker 1 (0s): 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.
This show is sponsored by Comarch – a global provider of innovative software products and business services.
Comarch’s platform is used by leading brands across all industries to drive their customer loyalty.
Powered by AI and machine learning. Comarch technologies allow you to build, run and manage personalized loyalty programs and product offers with ease.
For more information, please visit comarch.com.
Hello, and welcome to episode 1 62 of “Let’s Talk Loyalty”.
KPMG is one of the world’s big four accounting and consulting firms, and they actively invest in consumer research that supports business owners and anyone focusing on driving customer loyalty.
In the summer of 2020, the firm invested in two major pieces of research to help brands understand what they were calling the new customer.
Nathan Beaver, a partner at KPMG UK joined me to share his understanding of the underlying changes in consumer behavior through the pandemic and beyond he described the impact of COVID as the trigger for the most profound consumer behavior change since the 1950s and shared his view that the new habits emerging will stay for the term as they are becoming deeply ingrained in our lives. By the time the pandemic has passed. In fact, having researched and tracked customer sentiment, KPMG found that 91% of people said they don’t want to return to a pre COVID world. And they told us they’re questioning a lot of the fundamental ideas that we had previously taken for granted big ideas, like our purpose in life, our health, and even on a practical level, what channels we like to use when we are engaging with brands. Now at the time of the interview in August, 2020, much of the shift to digital channels was driven by safety concerns. But Nathan’s view was very much that these channels are here to stay because people had taken the opportunity to overcome their previous inertia and reluctance to use these new channels. They had actually been very pleasantly surprised about how well they actually enjoyed using them on a more emotive level. Nathan shared the emergence of different values and a new mindset focused on the integrity economy. A way of doing business that’s anchored in trust short term customer said their focus was simply on their health and safety. However longer term, they were clear that they want to do business with brands that are focused on people on purpose and on the planet. Now, clearly loyalty schemes can offer a powerful foundation to respond to these changing customer needs. And in Nathan’s view, they’re taking on an even greater role supporting brands and becoming a core part of the business. And they’re often seen as a key differentiator for companies who in the past have had to compete on price and product. Nathan highlighted the increased use of third-party partnerships, such as charity options and local relevance for programs on their rewards, with a focus on allowing consumers to spend on things that really matter to them. It was a notable change from our focused in the past of CSR led initiatives with charity and community interests becoming critical to both customers. And now also to employees, KPMG’s research covered 25 markets globally. And Nathan confirmed that these trends and the need for integrity and purpose are truly global and all over the world, customers are telling us they want to do business with brands who focus on things that are important to them. Nathan also highlighted the continuing importance of making it easy for customers to do business with us using technology, to be of service rather than to complicate or even confuse customers. So that’s it for this short summary of episode, 50 outlining KPMG’s global research on the impact of COVID on customer’s mindset and priorities. So if you’d like to hear more, you can listen to the full interview on let’s talk loyalty.com and you can connect with Nathan beaver in KPMG, UK on LinkedIn. If you’d like to learn more, that’s it for today’s episode of let’s talk a little loyalty, please do join me again. This Thursday, when I’m sharing an interview with a core, the gorgeous European hotel brand, which has done some incredible work with its live limitless loyalty concept. This show is sponsored by the wise market here. The world’s most popular source of loyalty marketing news insights and research. 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 and marketing professionals. For more information, check out the wise market tier.com and loyalty academy.org. Thanks so much for listening to this episode of let’s talk loyalty. If you’d like me to send you the latest show each week, simply sign up for the show newsletter on let’s talk loyalty.com and I’ll send you the latest episode to your inbox every Thursday, or just head to your favorite podcast platform. Find let’s talk loyalty and subscribe. Of course I’d love your feedback and reviews. And thanks again for supporting the show.
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