Matt Zimmerman, a loyalty professional with years of experience across hospitality, gaming and travel.Matt’sloyalty journey began for with sheer persistence —after two years of consistently calling, they finally secured a role as a Loyalty Analyst at Albertsons (the U.S. equivalent of Woolworths).
From there, the moved into the fast-paced world of Caesars casinos, followed by several loyalty consulting roles that honed their strategic expertise. A move to Australia opened new opportunities, including leading the loyalty program at HotelClub, then joining Menulog during the height of COVID.
Most recently, they transitioned to the product space at Endeavour X, where he designed and launched a new loyalty program, pub+, and app from the ground up.
Hosted by Carly Neubauer
Show notes:
2) Pub Plus
Matt: If you’re an outdoor enthusiast, you want an experiential loyalty offering, you don’t need discounts.
Matt: You’re buying products that are specific to your needs.
Matt: Decided one day I moved to Australia.
Matt: Played basketball in college, and some people were from Australia.
Matt: They said it was a cool place.
Carly: They’re right, yeah.
Matt: They were right.
Matt: It’s not a bad place.
Matt: I’ve been here for 13 years now.
Matt: Well, if you have an actual value, so if you put money into a machine, you put in $10, that’s your actual value.
Matt: But that money can be cycled through.
Matt: If you look at a traditional loyalty program, 2,000 points equals $10.
Matt: Every year, that becomes a cost.
Matt: And yes, it’s driving incrementality.
Matt: There’s ways that it can help deliver bottom line results.
Matt: But we want you to come help us design and launch a loyalty program for our hotel’s business.
Matt: What do you think?
Matt: I was on the golf course at the time.
Matt: And yeah, my boss and I chatted for two or three holes and said, Let’s do it.
Paula: Hello, and welcome to Let’s Talk Loyalty and Loyalty TV, a show for loyalty marketing professionals.
Paula: I’m Paula Thomas, the founder and CEO of Let’s Talk Loyalty and Loyalty TV, where we feature insightful conversations with loyalty professionals from the world’s leading brands.
Paula: Today’s episode is hosted by Carly Neubauer, managing director of Elevate Loyalty, an Australian-based company specializing in loyalty and incentive services.
Paula: Carly is also the managing director of One Tap Group, a UK-based company providing loyalty payment services.
Paula: Enjoy.
Carly: Hi, I’m Carly Neubauer, managing director of Elevate Loyalty and One Tap Group.
Carly: Today I’m speaking with Matt Zimmerman, a loyalty professional with years of experience across hospitality, gaming and travel.
Carly: Well known for his leadership roles at HotelClub, Menulog and more recently Pub Plus.
Carly: Please enjoy this conversation with Matt.
Carly: Hi, Matt, and welcome to Let’s Talk Loyalty and Loyalty TV.
Carly: Great to have you here today.
Matt: Yeah, thanks for having me.
Matt: Got a lot to talk about, it sounds like.
Carly: Yeah, we do.
Carly: We do.
Carly: Lots to chat about.
Carly: As you probably know, the first couple of questions we always ask for these episodes are two very common ones.
Carly: First one being, your favourite non-fiction or business book.
Carly: Please tell us about what you love to read.
Matt: Yeah, so I read it a while ago.
Matt: I’ve read it a few times.
Matt: It’s called the Peter Principle.
Matt: And the Peter Principle is based on the concept of everyone is promoted to a level of incompetence.
Matt: And if you break that down a little bit more, it means that people usually transition into new roles, but continue to exhibit the behaviour that made them successful in the prior role, which doesn’t necessarily translate into the new role.
Carly: Interesting.
Matt: It’s a very, very fun book to read.
Matt: And throughout your career, you can point out different individuals that may or may not have progressed or just said, I’m good at this.
Matt: I’m going to keep doing that.
Matt: And it didn’t work out too well.
Carly: Any key outtakes from the book itself?
Carly: Like what sort of learnings would you take away from having read this book and why it’s your favorite?
Matt: It’s just interesting because if you don’t evolve as your career progresses and you try and stay, I guess, in a safe zone of what made you successful, then you cannot progress in your career and you cannot move up the ranks.
Matt: So some people like to say that they’re an analyst, they protect it.
Matt: But when they’re promoted to a manager, they’ve got to relinquish that, start trusting others.
Matt: So being able to move up means trust and enable others.
Matt: And if you can’t do that, it’s going to be a very hard road ahead of you.
Carly: And as you said, that evolution into a new skill set as well and transferring maybe some previous skills, but learning the new ones that are really required for that next step.
Matt: Yeah, you got to be ready to move on.
Carly: Yeah, fair enough.
Carly: But I like that concept of everybody just moving to this level of incompetence, which would be quite daunting, no doubt.
Matt: Yeah.
Carly: Yeah.
Carly: Now, please tell us about your favorite loyalty program.
Matt: I did have to go back to the States just because I wanted to pull this one out of the archive.
Matt: So there’s an outdoor company called REI, and they’ve got a very simple model.
Matt: It is $30 for a lifetime, and then you get 10% off all full price goods and a few other things.
Matt: At the end of the year, your 10% goes into a rebate, and it brings you back into the retail environment to spend more money, but it has to go back into REI.
Matt: So it’s pretty simple.
Matt: You like buying outdoor gear, you like doing outdoor stuff, come buy it here, and at the end of the year, if you want to come back and buy something, here are some discounts.
Matt: Pretty simple, easy to explain, easy to use.
Carly: That’s the reason it stands out to you as your favorite?
Matt: Yeah, it’s simplicity.
Matt: If you’re an outdoor enthusiast, you want an experiential loyalty offering, you don’t need discounts.
Matt: You’re buying products that are specific to your needs.
Matt: If I know that I can go there, and at the end of the year, I’m going to get that 10% back.
Matt: It’s basically like getting 10% off at the time of purchase.
Matt: So yeah, I like it because I want to buy specific gear for climbing, for mountain biking, for whatever.
Matt: I don’t have to shop around.
Matt: I know that they’re going to have the products I want, the service I want, and then at the end, I get a remake and go Christmas shopping.
Carly: Excellent.
Carly: This is good.
Carly: I guess that factor of being relatively loyal to the brand and products set anyway, but why you’re shopping with them specifically is your cash back and rebate.
Matt: Yeah.
Matt: It’s a bonus.
Carly: It’s great.
Carly: Lovely.
Carly: Very good.
Carly: Well, if we can talk a little bit about yourself and background and how you’ve landed in the world of loyalty.
Carly: Where did you start out?
Matt: I started out in the hospitality industry with my parents and worked my way up through restaurants and did bartending during college and after college and all the normal stuff that you do.
Matt: Then I tried to get into a grocery store chain called Albertsons.
Matt: After college and it was not a good time.
Matt: For two years, I called them back probably every quarter.
Matt: If my old boss, Laura Price, is watching this, she’ll remember that I called relentlessly and eventually they gave in and let me come in.
Carly: You’re persistent then, that’s good.
Matt: I knew what I wanted to do and there was not a lot of big companies in Boise doing loyalty at the time, so I was lucky and got in and since then just kept moving forward.
Carly: Fantastic.
Carly: So where did you move to after that role?
Matt: Then I moved to Caesars Casinos, so after five years at Albertsons, I moved on to Caesars and that was a wild experience.
Matt: Not just from being living in Vegas, but also just learning from at the time, the best in the business.
Matt: The way in which they designed loyalty, designed reinvestment and structured everything was eye-opening.
Matt: It is different than giving discounts.
Matt: It was different than giving away points.
Matt: It was, how much is this member worth?
Matt: How much are we going to get back to them?
Matt: How much do we expect to get as a return on that?
Matt: It took a while to learn Casino Math.
Carly: Casino Math, this is cool.
Carly: Talk to us about what’s Casino Math and how does that work in loyalty?
Matt: Well, if you have an actual value, so if you put money into a machine, you put in $10, that’s your actual value, but that money can be cycled through because you can win and lose that $10 depending on how many spins or pulls you have.
Matt: So that $10 could turn into a theoretical $1,000, right?
Matt: So your actual worth versus your theoretical worth are two different things.
Matt: And then you have to decide how much you’re going to invest.
Matt: There’s Theo and there’s actual, I think inside of different areas, they use different metrics, but it’s very different because Theo is based on the different games that you play, have different hold rates and everything is variable.
Matt: So trying to establish what a customer’s true value is, is a fun job.
Carly: That would be so interesting in a casino environment when we’re talking about that.
Carly: Loyalty metrics is one thing, but then to overlay the casino and gambling element to that, sounds like it’d be quite tricky.
Carly: So how did you integrate with the team and how did that work when you took over that role?
Matt: I was in an environment in which the entire loyalty team was finance degrees, and they all had MBAs.
Matt: So it was a pretty daunting environment.
Matt: So eventually I was able to figure out what they’re talking about.
Carly: Great.
Carly: You speak the same language now.
Matt: I had to figure out what they’re saying.
Matt: They were patient enough with me, but in the long run, it worked out.
Matt: But yeah, it was a great, great experience.
Matt: So I think everything I’ve done since then can all be pointed back to that time in Caesars.
Carly: Fantastic.
Carly: And so how now currently you’re based in Australia.
Carly: So how did that happen?
Matt: I did consulting after Caesars, did some more consulting and then decided one day I moved to Australia.
Matt: Played basketball in college and some people were from Australia.
Matt: They said it was a cool place.
Carly: They’re right.
Carly: Yeah.
Matt: They were right.
Matt: It’s not a bad place.
Matt: I’ve been here for 13 years now.
Matt: So got brought over to help manage and run a multi-program for an agency in Australia.
Matt: And we did that for two years, I think, and then moved on to HotelClub.
Matt: So an online hotel aggregator ran a multi-program and CRM program there and kind of refined the program.
Matt: One of the key takeaways that I was able to uncover quickly was that they had a points proposition, but everybody that was making a booking was getting points, which meant the liability was going up, which meant the finance team was not happy.
Matt: So eventually we just said members need to opt in, right?
Matt: Just a simple change, change the liability, change the exposure and change the program.
Matt: It was interesting.
Matt: The program had I think 13 or 14 different languages that had to be converted in for marketing.
Matt: So that was fun.
Matt: That was a new experience.
Matt: Then we got bought out.
Matt: Well, the parent company got bought out.
Matt: Then we did a migration from our HotelClub to hotels.com.
Matt: That was my first migration.
Matt: That was interesting to try and figure out how do you value your members and then how do you get them to migrate to a whole new brand that they’ve chosen not to use in the past.
Matt: So it was fun.
Matt: Then went to Menulog after that.
Carly: Any key learnings from that migration?
Carly: That sounds like a huge journey.
Matt: The biggest learning is that you need to be persistent with people because they’re not really that involved at the loyalty program is not that big into their experience.
Matt: So the top members, we had to come up with the new, basically a velvet glove path for them to transition because hotels.com did not want to lose those people.
Carly: Of course, yeah.
Matt: Then as you work your way down, you determine if the time and the effort is worth the migration of the lower hanging fruit.
Matt: It was an interesting exercise to figure out how do you move people across, how do you put the carrot in front of them that’s big enough, and how do you wind it down after that.
Matt: It was hard, but it’s fun.
Carly: Yeah.
Carly: Cool challenge.
Carly: That’s for sure.
Carly: Yeah.
Carly: From there?
Matt: Menulog.
Matt: I was lucky enough to join Menulog, let up the CRM and loyalty team for B to C, so B to customer, B to B to manage calls between the business and B to courier eventually, where we had to communicate to the couriers through SMS or email.
Matt: So it was interesting.
Matt: It was during Covid.
Matt: So we were one of the lucky ones.
Matt: Food delivery went absolutely insane.
Matt: Membership skyrocketed and we just had to figure out how do we keep those people going.
Matt: So one of the big changes from other loyalty programs is that this was more about trade driving, and focusing on how are we performing week to week, looking at the trade metrics and then saying, we’ve got to get these people back in.
Matt: How do we do that?
Matt: And you basically come in on a Wednesday and say how we’re performing.
Matt: And then we would pivot immediately on driving targeted offers to individuals throughout Australia, based on different geographic regions, based on their interests.
Matt: So it was quite fun.
Matt: It wasn’t the traditional loyalty program that you think of, but it was more around how do we drive behaviour?
Matt: And what’s the right investment?
Carly: That’s really dynamic, a week to week and sort of almost immediate pivots and campaigns.
Matt: Yeah, it was, you had to, right?
Matt: We were up against Uber and DoorDash and Delivery at the time.
Matt: So it was protect your market share and grow.
Carly: Wow.
Carly: Okay.
Carly: And I guess one of the biggest programs that we can talk about today that you’re totally responsible for, along with a fabulous team, of course, is Pub Plus.
Matt: Yeah.
Matt: Pub Plus kind of came out of left field for me.
Matt: I was at Menulog.
Matt: I was kind of reading the tea leaves and realised that traditional loyalty marketing or traditional CRM is going to be very difficult in the future if I don’t have a tech or a product background.
Matt: I saw an opportunity at Endeavour X, went for it and had some good chats and kind of just didn’t move.
Matt: And then got a call back and said, hey, we want you to come help us design and launch a loyalty program for our hotel’s business.
Matt: What do you think?
Matt: And I was on a golf course at the time, playing golf and my boss and I chatted for two or three holes and said, let’s do it.
Matt: So the brief was, build a loyalty program that is digital first and has a non-fixed liability design.
Matt: So we get it.
Matt: It’s app only and it is a non-fixed liability.
Matt: So we did it and it’s going well.
Matt: We’re taking over all the KPIs, people are using it and there’s a whole bunch of new cool stuff coming.
Carly: So there’s two really big parts we really need to talk about in regards to this program.
Carly: And something you’ve mentioned to me in the past is the fact that people in loyalty these days, it’s really important to have a really good tech understanding or knowledge into tech space as well.
Carly: Let’s talk a bit about that and your views on that.
Matt: Yeah, I’ll go back to my Menulog days to fast forward to my Endeavour Day.
Matt: We would be like, guys, we need this new feature because we need it to drive business.
Matt: This is what we want to do.
Matt: We think this is what it’s going to take.
Matt: And they would come back and say, oh, it’s going to take six sprints, five sprints, three sprints, whatever it’s going to take to get done.
Matt: And we bang our head against the wall and go, it’s so simple.
Matt: It’s just a widget.
Matt: Just build the widget.
Carly: Just do the thing.
Matt: Just do it.
Matt: Why does it take so long?
Matt: And they try to explain to us, we’re like, oh, they’re lying.
Matt: It doesn’t take that long.
Carly: So it’s come from a place of not trusting.
Matt: It’s a long take.
Matt: What is going on?
Matt: Why does this take so long?
Matt: And I feel bad.
Matt: Even when I got the job, after a year, I responded, put something on LinkedIn and said, I’m sorry, all product people.
Matt: And I now sympathize.
Matt: So fast forward to Endeavour with Pub Plus.
Matt: Everything has to just be done right.
Matt: You don’t get a chance to just change a formula, like we do in Excel or change a PowerPoint.
Matt: You literally have to design, code, build, test, all that fun stuff for everything.
Matt: And I think there are ways you can make things go faster, but I also now can understand how do you get an idea into reality.
Matt: Whereas, if I didn’t have this experience over the last three plus years, an idea is everyone’s got ideas, but how do you do it is the hard part.
Carly: Do you have the answer yet?
Carly: Can we go straight there?
Matt: The answer is just believe that things that you might want to do in a day will take a week, two weeks, three weeks, four weeks, and reduce your expectations.
Matt: Sure.
Carly: As you’ve mentioned as well, that level of understanding and from what I know, you then spend some time really delving into, not just the ability for tech to be rolled out, but what goes into the sprints and the rollout plan as well, correct?
Matt: Yeah.
Matt: It is interesting to think about if you said, I want to change the on-boarding journey.
Matt: First thing is go out, do discovery, figure out if it’s even a problem, might quantify it.
Matt: If you quantify it and say there’s an opportunity to improve it, then what do you do?
Matt: Then you got to go out and put forward stuff into the market, see what the test subjects say, then come back and then say, okay, now we’ve got our feedback, we believe this is the solution going forward.
Matt: Business then needs to say, I trust you or I don’t trust you.
Matt: Then going forward, you go, okay, well, it’s going to take us two sprints.
Matt: Why is it going to take two sprints?
Matt: It’s already taking two sprints to get here.
Matt: Then they go, well, we have to do our UX, then we got to do our UI, then we got to do our coding, then we got to do our testing.
Matt: You might go, all right, I get it.
Carly: Fair enough, fair enough.
Matt: Yeah, just let them do what they need to do.
Matt: But on the flip side, now I can say, that’s BS, right?
Matt: I can say, nah, no, why?
Matt: Show me, show me the timeline, show me the work that needs to be done.
Matt: And I can at least understand it.
Carly: Yeah, well, I guess that comes from a place of understanding other roles.
Carly: And maybe that leads back a little bit into that favorite book of yours as well, of learning other roles and understanding within the business.
Carly: But I like your point as well around getting the validity of the change first.
Carly: So going out and checking that do we really need to make the change?
Carly: Is it one or two people complaining over here or is it really something that needs addressing?
Matt: Yeah, a lot of things I’ve realized throughout the years.
Matt: And is it someone’s personal agenda?
Matt: Is it an opinion or is it a fact that can be quantified?
Matt: Because we measure everything.
Matt: So if you can’t measure it and it’s just somebody’s opinion, you can test that before you got to build something.
Matt: So it’s an interesting position to be in.
Matt: But I would say most people are definitely looking for the best outcome.
Matt: So nobody’s really trying to say, I don’t want this thing to be a success.
Matt: What they’re saying is, I think it might work this way.
Matt: And our jobs then say, let’s put it on the roadmap and let’s see what happens with the feedback.
Carly: Fantastic.
Carly: Now, the other part that you mentioned around Pub Plus was this zero liability.
Carly: Okay.
Carly: That’s not always common in the loyalty.
Carly: So you’ve discussed this in the early stages and said, all right, that’s an objective.
Carly: We’re going to build a new program that has no liability.
Carly: However, we are issuing points.
Carly: So how does that work?
Matt: Carefully.
Matt: Very carefully.
Matt: So I’ve said this before, so it’s not a secret.
Matt: I won’t give away all the backend fun stuff.
Matt: But if you look at a traditional loyalty program, 2,000 points equals $10 every year, that becomes a cost.
Matt: And yes, it’s driving incrementality.
Matt: There’s ways that it can help deliver bottom line results.
Matt: But 2,000 points means $10.
Matt: It doesn’t change.
Matt: The alternative is you dilute the points, you issue less points or you make the hurdle higher, or you change the $10.
Matt: So for us, it was how do you take the pub experience, which is an entertainment, it’s an actual experience going to the pub.
Matt: Just walk in and say, I need this and then leave like you do in a retail environment.
Matt: You could be there for 2 hours, 3 hours, 4 hours, eating, drinking, talking, doing whatever.
Matt: So we had to come up with something that was more, I guess, an experience-led loyalty proposition, which we started with gamification.
Matt: So when we looked at that, we said, why do we just have to say, congratulations, Carly, here’s five bucks.
Matt: That just becomes an entitlement and it’s hard to do anything with.
Matt: So what we did is we said, all right, well, let’s give people the choice.
Matt: So when people collect 200 points for Pub Plus, through their fruit and beverage purchases or gaming points, they get an unlock.
Matt: And that unlock presents them with a beer, a spirit, a wine, a food, a non-alp coin.
Matt: And they get to pick which one they want.
Matt: And each one of those coins will have a range of value between two and $10.
Matt: And it changes each unlock.
Matt: So a member could have $7 in beer, $5 in food and $10 in spirits and whatever else.
Matt: And they could pick the beer because they love beer.
Matt: Doesn’t matter if it was two, doesn’t matter if it’s seven, they always pick beer.
Matt: We now start to learn about that individual.
Matt: And if someone is always picking the most valued coin, we now know that they’re not really that fussed over what they get.
Matt: They just want a really good deal.
Matt: And then there’s a bunch of people in the middle.
Matt: So for us, by doing that, it means that when you get 200 points, it’s not $5.
Matt: It could be 10, it could be three, right?
Matt: It could be whatever.
Matt: That’s kind of made it possible for us to move the dial.
Matt: Right now, it’s all done through machine learning, so it’s randomized and who knows what the future is going to look like.
Matt: But one of the big changes that we want to introduce in the future is, it doesn’t always have to be discounts either.
Matt: So it could be meat raffle entries, right?
Matt: Australians love a raffle.
Matt: It could be a trip to Bali.
Matt: Australians love Bali.
Matt: So we could actually start introducing tickets to adventures or experiences or other things.
Matt: That actually then also reduces the liability or the cost, because now it’s not being put back into the pub, it’s going into a fixed cost and we can make that a little bit happier finance team.
Carly: Great.
Carly: So it’s good.
Carly: You’ve got a successful loyalty program and you’re keeping your finance team happy at the same time.
Matt: Yeah.
Matt: The dream, right?
Carly: Absolutely.
Carly: And interesting as well with the unlocks.
Carly: We’ve talked a little bit about this before.
Carly: It’s that real experience.
Carly: You’ve got the gamification element, but you actually manage to mix the product and the dollar value together.
Carly: So some people might deem a free glass of wine or a free beer in a different way to your next consumer, your next member so that you’ve managed to mix this dollar value versus the product set at the same time.
Matt: Yeah.
Matt: It’s quite fun because if you think about it, you go into the pub and you could have given someone a $5, right?
Matt: We could have said unlock, they could just get a range of 2 to 10.
Matt: But if you did all that and then you got a $2 coin, you’d be pretty upset.
Matt: But by introducing the category or department level, now people get the choice and they can choose their favorite department or they can choose the bigger coin.
Carly: So for yourself and next steps for you, what are you seeing in the landscape of loyalty?
Carly: How do you see us in the next five, 10 years?
Carly: What do you think is the biggest, next best thing?
Matt: I mean, gamification seems to be popping up every year.
Matt: But I think if we look at the generation coming up, that’s now getting jobs, bank accounts, all those fun things.
Matt: They’ve come up with this as just stock standard as part of their experience, and their online gaming or phone games or even betting has become more and more mainstream.
Matt: So the thought of them doing something and just be giving a low-value investment with little engagement doesn’t seem like it’s going to move the dial.
Matt: So I think gamification done in the right way to drive a behavior change is correct.
Matt: I think a lot of times gamification is used as a gimmick and it’s just a one-off and doesn’t really do much.
Matt: It gives you a quick pop, but doesn’t keep you engaged or retained with the product.
Matt: If gamification is the design, that gets them back into the app or the website or the venue.
Matt: So how do you make that part of the experience rather than just pull the lever, get a boost and turn it off?
Matt: Yeah.
Carly: Well, definitely.
Carly: You’ve obviously got that understanding from the gaming background yourself as well as loyalty, of course.
Carly: What about some of the biggest challenges you see our industry facing and all some key programs in the next year to two years?
Matt: I think the economic environment is really hard.
Matt: I think that’s probably going to be one of the biggest things is if you look at a loyalty program as a cost center, right?
Matt: Everyone’s going to look at the loyalty program and go, this thing’s costing us five, 10, 20, 30 million dollars, prove that it’s delivering results.
Matt: And that seems to be an ongoing discussion.
Matt: So I think in the economic environment that we’re heading into, loyalty programs are going to really need to buckle down and start quantifying their impact.
Matt: And not just having this thing live in a silo.
Matt: It needs to be part of the overall retailer or brand experience to say, we need to drive results.
Matt: And if we keep giving away margin to 100% of our base, it’s going to struggle.
Matt: So maybe we should just start doing a little bit more targeting, a little bit more refinement.
Matt: Let’s take a look at the overall program.
Matt: Some people might realize that the program isn’t doing anything.
Matt: They might just say, let’s scrap it and we’ll revisit it in the future.
Matt: But the ones that stick with it, I think if they do it right, spend the time to look at their CVP, they’ll see the positive results out of it.
Carly: Well, it also links back to one thing that I know you and I chatted about before is like, what is loyalty?
Carly: Do you need a program for someone to be loyal?
Carly: I know you’re laughing because I think in loyalty, this is discussed a lot.
Carly: But bringing it as a bigger picture into a business overall, do we specifically need a program?
Carly: What is loyalty anyway?
Matt: Yeah.
Matt: I mean, you and I chatted about it too.
Matt: I’ll use Harris Farms for those that don’t know Harris Farms.
Matt: Harris Farms is just a more upscale grocery store that has lots of unique items.
Matt: They don’t have a loyalty program.
Matt: They don’t have a discount, they don’t have points, they don’t have anything.
Matt: They tried.
Matt: They have definitely tried and given it a shot a few times.
Matt: But I’d say their loyalty program is they’ve got the right product at the right price, with the right service and they nailed it.
Matt: If they happen to know you because you go there frequently, they may give you something as a bonus.
Matt: They may just know who you are.
Matt: Loyalty programs today, we’re just trying to digitize that and scale it.
Matt: So I think should we have a loyalty program or a loyalty department in the future, I don’t know if that’s going to stack up in the future because everything should just be around customer from start to finish.
Matt: So how do you on board?
Matt: How do you retain?
Matt: How do you drive incremental revenue or change behavior?
Matt: That’s just stock standard business now.
Matt: So if you walk into a meeting like we’ve talked about on a Monday and say, how were the results last week?
Matt: People traditionally say, sales were down.
Matt: What they should be saying is, well, our VIPs or our new customers didn’t return at the expected rate and we lost whatever, 10 percent revenue.
Matt: You can action that.
Matt: You can literally take action against that and ask for the business to start looking at it and having those discussions.
Matt: So loyalty or the customer should be looked at from everywhere within the business.
Matt: It shouldn’t just be the ownership of a single department to try and scream at the clouds and say, please listen.
Carly: More sales, please.
Matt: Yeah.
Matt: It should be everyone in the business just comes to the table and says, hey, we noticed that this cohort was down.
Matt: We noticed that they also like these products.
Matt: Let’s give it a shot or hey, do we think we can make it up next week by trying to get another group?
Matt: So I think if loyalty does evolve and I hope it does, it doesn’t have to be sitting with an individual department.
Matt: But then that’s the other question is, well, if it doesn’t sit with anyone who’s responsible for it.
Matt: So I think there needs to be some type of customer department that looks from end to end and isn’t just viewed as a points cost center.
Carly: Well, I love your point around the fact that by segmenting the spend or segmenting where the problem is or what was up or down, it gives you an action point.
Carly: So what is the next step to resolve this versus a generalized statement, sales are down.
Carly: So even that in itself, you may be scaring quite a few people listening around the fact that loyalty may not exist.
Carly: So thank you.
Carly: But I take your point as well.
Matt: Everybody got to evolve, right?
Matt: We got to keep evolving.
Carly: Peter Principal, we’re bringing it back.
Carly: But I understand what you’re saying.
Carly: It’s more around that loyalty is broader across a business and within a business versus it being a segment, its own department or a separate siloed area.
Carly: Yeah.
Matt: You can have an online commerce site, and you don’t need a loads program, right?
Matt: You’re capturing every single interaction you’re doing with them, and you just need to be more tailored with what you’re offering, your communication, and that’s loyalty, right?
Matt: It just needs to be incorporated into it.
Matt: I think if someone comes to you and says, I want to do a loyalty program, and their first respond is, we don’t want to do points, right?
Matt: That’s not loyalty.
Matt: So I think there’s a few people out there that have said that a few times.
Carly: Yeah.
Carly: That’s definitely a common one.
Carly: Not every loyalty program is points.
Carly: It’s not always points.
Matt: Yeah.
Carly: Very good.
Carly: What do you think the biggest things we need to avoid in this lovely industry of ours?
Matt: I think the biggest thing to avoid is the fixed exchange value.
Matt: That I said, if you do have a points proposition, if you do have an exchange of something for something, that is a big weight.
Matt: It really makes it difficult for you to be agile and flip, right?
Matt: To a customer, if you dilute the value, they’re not happy.
Matt: You can give them more.
Matt: You can always give them more.
Matt: They’re happy to take that.
Matt: But if you reduce it, they’re not happy.
Matt: And the ones that are the most vocal are the ones that are most engaged.
Matt: So, you know, I would say, take a look at your CVPs.
Matt: Take a look at what you’re offering and going, is there a better way to issue rewards?
Matt: Is there a better way to invest back in these customers that gives them the value exchange they’re looking for, rather than just saying, here’s 100 points and here’s five bucks?
Matt: There’s alternatives.
Matt: There’s always alternatives.
Carly: And I think your example that you gave around Pub Plus was quite a good one.
Carly: And it’s quite simple to understand.
Carly: I’m sure there’s more complexity behind the scenes, but from an understanding point of view, which is so important, really simple to get your head around.
Carly: But that ability to change your conversion and use the machine learning to keep evolving that as well.
Matt: Yeah.
Matt: I looked at it and just went, we can do this.
Matt: I think what was the most eye-opening experience for me within designing this program and building the app is trying to explain to people that were interested the backend.
Matt: The backend of a loyalty program, for the most part, done is complex.
Matt: It’s not just straightforward like do this, get that.
Matt: Try to explain to people, they misunderstood the complexity to run versus the complexity to use.
Matt: When they weren’t used to this area, it was a lot of education, a lot of time spent trying to explain, know the customer, all they need to do is scan their card, and push a button to say unlock and pick their coin.
Matt: That’s all they got to do.
Matt: But what we’re trying to explain to you is how it works, and what’s required to make this thing do what we want it to do.
Matt: I think that was interesting.
Matt: Then having that aha moment, you’d sees people mind click when they went, oh, you mean 200 points doesn’t mean $5, it can mean two, it can mean 10, it can mean whatever.
Matt: It was like the light bulb just went off.
Matt: Yeah.
Matt: That was pretty good experience when you’re trying to unpack fixed versus variable.
Carly: For sure.
Carly: You definitely, I think, achieved that simplistic goal for the program around the fact that it’s extremely simple and frictionless for someone to use at the venue.
Carly: It’s almost unbelievably so easy to use, which is great from the customer, the member point of view, and no doubt the actual staff at venue.
Carly: Yeah.
Carly: They don’t need an extra role all the time along with managing the pub.
Matt: No.
Matt: That was one of the other things is change management, right?
Matt: It is early on people were excited to be like, oh, we want to tell customers what the offering is, and we want to explain how the program works.
Matt: They were trying to use its AI, its algorithm based, it’s all this stuff, and it just wasn’t helping, right?
Matt: It was causing more confusion.
Matt: So the team inside of ALH for Communications did an amazing job communicating out to the team members across the business through what we set up, which was called a Champions Chat.
Matt: And a Champions Chat was that every venue, the 350 plus venues had a designated person that would represent that pub.
Matt: So we could send all the communications that they need, and then they could also send back chats.
Matt: So we had Google chats set up for every state, and all venues could communicate back and forth.
Matt: And in the end, we just kind of said, we just need the team to say, are you a member and check your app for more deals.
Matt: Right?
Matt: That’s it.
Matt: Two things.
Matt: And those two things means that we go from pushing and telling people, hey, do this, do this, do this, to where it’s an automatic behavior.
Matt: Just come in, open their app, scan it.
Matt: They get their discounts.
Matt: And if they happen to get the points for an unlock, they just click on unlock and pick their coin.
Matt: So it’s starting to get in the traction that we need it to do.
Matt: I think there’s new cool stuff coming.
Matt: So hopefully people can see that soon.
Matt: But yeah, making it simple, making it simple.
Matt: You got to make this thing simple or it falls over.
Carly: For sure.
Carly: And you’ve made it simple for two key players in this.
Carly: The end user, the member, but also the person who has to implement, which I think, you know, on site, which I think is so important because either of those things are complex.
Carly: It’s just a huge level of additional strain that all the great work you’re doing behind the scenes, it just lacks conversion rate on site.
Matt: Yeah.
Matt: It was challenging, right?
Matt: We did multiple different waves of launch and testing, and we did team, and then we did a certain state.
Matt: We got our feedback, we adjusted, we pivoted.
Matt: They have enough going on inside the pubs.
Carly: Yeah.
Matt: There is enough.
Matt: They’re just trying to run the pub, and we’re sitting there saying, oh, now you got to do all this new stuff, right?
Matt: Eventually, everyone just figured out the right way to communicate it.
Carly: Two things are done.
Carly: Two things are done.
Carly: Great.
Carly: Before we end up this discussion as well, and thank you so much for all your knowledge and sharing, what are you most proud of?
Matt: I guess I’m older now, so I can say wiser things.
Matt: It would be being able to look back and see the people that have been on my teams in the past and watching their progression, either in digital, retail, or loyalty, or CRM, and watching them build, right?
Matt: So hopefully, they took a few things that I’ve said to heart, implemented them and move forward.
Matt: But it’s always fun to go back and watch people that were part of your journey and their success.
Matt: So I’d love to say it was a little to program, but I mean, it’s fun to watch people grow.
Matt: That’s the coolest part.
Carly: Fantastic.
Carly: I’m sure they’ve enjoyed working with you and learning from you as well.
Matt: Sometimes.
Carly: Maybe not every day.
Carly: Oh, that’s awesome.
Carly: And what about life and loyalty?
Carly: What do you know for sure?
Matt: I don’t know.
Matt: I think some days people will join a loyalty program and then they’re never going to come back.
Matt: And you’ve just got to accept that kind of in life, right?
Matt: You meet new people, they make an impact, they disappear.
Matt: So enjoy what lasts and enjoy the moment and make sure that you’re taking care of each other.
Matt: I think that’s the biggest thing is life and loyalty is kind of the same for me.
Matt: It’s do good, be good, and you’ll get some reward in return.
Carly: Thank you so much.
Carly: It’s been awesome to chat with you, not only to hear about your experiences, but some of the background behind these great programs and all loyalty experience.
Carly: And really, really appreciate your time.
Carly: So thank you, Matt.
Matt: Yeah, thanks for having me and I’ll chat some more.
Paula: Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Let’s Talk Loyalty.
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