#314: Loyalty in Luxury Hospitality with Iconic Dubai Brand - Jumeirah Group

Today’s episode is focused on the luxury hospitality sector, featuring one of Dubai’s most iconic brands.

The Jumeirah Group is a global luxury hotel company, which operates a world-class portfolio of 25 properties across the Middle East, Europe and Asia.

The group’s hotels together operate over 85 restaurants, including three Michelin-starred restaurants, so we were thrilled with the opportunity to meet with Vicky Elliot, Senior Director of Insights, CRM, and Loyalty for the Jumeirah Group, who shared with us her focus on driving exceptional customer experiences using complex sources of data.

Listen to hear the history, evolution, and some of the future plans that Vicky is focusing on to ensure that the “Jumeirah One” programme continues to create magical experiences for the valuable guests of this ambitious Dubai-based brand.

Show Notes:

1) Vicky Elliot, Senior Director of Insights, CRM, and Loyalty for the Jumeirah Group

2) Jumeirah Group

3) Jumeirah One

4) Feedback Link

Audio Transcript

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.

Capillary’s loyalty solutions offer AI powered next generational technology. Making them a catalyst for enabling meaningful human connections across the globe. The platform is deep and wide, yet flexible enough to meet the needs of any company looking to take its customer loyalty to new height. Visit capillarytech.com now to see how they can transform your loyalty future.

Hello and welcome to episode 314 of Let’s Talk Loyalty, an episode focused on the luxury hospitality sector featuring one of Dubai’s most iconic brands. The Jumeirah Group is a global luxury hotel company. Operating a world-class portfolio of 25 properties across the Middle East, Europe and Asia. The groups hotels together operate over 85 restaurants, including three Michelin star restaurants.

So as you can imagine, I was thrilled with the opportunity to meet with Vicky Elliot, Senior Director of Insights, CRM, and Loyalty for the entire Jumeirah Group. Vicky shared with me her focus on driving exceptional customer experiences using complex sources of data. In today’s conversation, you’ll hear the history, evolution, and some of the future plans that Vicky is focusing on to ensure that the Jumeirah One program continues to create magical experiences for the valuable guests of this ambitious Dubai based brand.

So Vicky Elliot, welcome to Let’s Talk Loyalty.

Vicky: Thank you, Paula. Great to be here.

Paula: Great. I feel like it’s a long overdue conversation, Vicky. We know each other in the same circles, certainly in the loyalty world, but it’s the first time we’ve been able to sit down and have a chat about our favorite topic.

Vicky: Yeah, absolutely. know very well about you, Paula, and it’s a pleasure to, to actually speak to you today.

Paula: Fantastic, fantastic. You represent an extraordinary brand, uh, which we’re gonna talk about today. Jumeirah Group is something that in this part of the world, I think we’re all exceptionally proud of, so we’ll be dying to hear, all about the, the loyalty leadership and the program that you’re running. But before we get into Jumeirah One, let’s first of all talk about your favorite loyalty program, Vicky, either from a personal perspective or a professional perspective. So this is quite a selfish question on my part, just to kind of get, get inside your head a little bit and know what, uh, what makes a difference in your life.

Vicky: Yeah. And I think that has to be the most difficult question to answer. It’s a bit like asking a chef what his favorite restaurant is and there’s, there’s a million reasons why. Yeah. Um, you prefer more parts of one to another. I think from a personal perspective. Being a busy working mom. Um, anything that makes my life easier, um, and literally serves me up what I’m looking for without me actually having to look for it.

Yeah. Uh, wins my vote and gets my loyalty. It’s simple things like Amazon, Amazon Prime, or even, um, When I’m traveling and something that gets me to the front of the, the queue or to the business check-in. Yeah. Uh, such as Emirate, Skywards, that, that just makes my life easier. These are the, these are the programs that I tend to be more loyal to.

Um, there are some that I think are aspirational and speak to my personal purpose, like a Patagonia. Um, for example, which doesn’t really have a program as such, but it’s more l loyalty driven through the, through the brand purpose. And, and that’s really a new twist on loyalty that’s, um, that’s really coming to the forefront, especially post pandemic, which is an interesting angle as well.

Paula: For sure, for sure. Yeah. It’s interesting, I think in different parts of the world, um, sustainability has become, you know, an extremely important topic. But I will say to varying degrees, I feel like, for example, in, in Europe, it seems to be a much more dominant part of the conversation, uh, particularly when, uh, you know, when we talk about airline loyalty programs, there’s, there’s a lot of discussion there, and it’s quite controversial, in fact.

Um, but yes, I think a brand like Patagonia, does create that emotional loyalty without the need for points, discounts, prizes, like it’s so on purpose and it’s one of the reasons I suppose I love on this show, that we don’t talk, you know, Let’s Talk Loyalty programs, we talk about the outcome of loyalty and the emotion.

So, so thank you for those examples. Um, and I agree everyone in this, uh, city I think is a member of of Skywards if we’re flying out of Dubai airport, and of course Amazon Prime is an amazing product, um, here in the Middle East as it is in other markets. So, We’re off to a fantastic start, and as I said, we’re here to talk about, um, this incredible luxury loyalty brand, uh, luxury hospitality brand to be more correct.

So just to give people an introduction, Vicki, because again, a lot of people listening around the world might not know The Jumeirah Group themselves, um, given where that the hotels are based. So will you just introduce Jumeirah Group to us first and foremost, and then we’ll talk about loyalty.

Vicky: Yes, absolutely. So Jumeirah Group is, uh, a homegrown Dubai national champion. We’ve now got over 25 hotels, um, luxury properties around the world in Middle East, Europe and Asia. Um, I think most people are quite familiar with. Burj Al Arab here in Dubai. Um, so they probably recognize it as being an icon of the city.

And that’s part of The Jumeirah Group as well. Yeah. We also have our lavish Arabian Palaces. It’s, um, Madinat Jumeirah. Yeah. And then we have the Dja Vita on the island at Capri and Maldives, and three hotels across China as well. So it’s, it’s a diverse product. Um, we are continuing to grow, um, as. . Every year we, we bring on new hotels, new properties, most recent ones being in Bahrain and Maldives.

And really our, our brand pillars are all about service beyond expectations. Yeah. Um, Driving those unforgettable moments and authentic, um, destination dining experiences, as well as, uh, as well as, as well as of course our award-winning, um, architecture and design.

Paula: Totally, totally. And restaurants as well.

Vicky, I was looking on your website Yes, of course. In preparation today. So, uh, tell us a bit about the, the dining experiences at Jumeirah Group.

Vicky: Yeah, so we have, uh, a lot of award-winning homegrown concepts, including Sal, Kayto, Shimmers, Al Mare, Pierchic, and French Riviera, just name a few. Um, and we’ve also now got, uh, three Michellin star restaurants in our group having with Michella having just launched in Dubai last year as well.

So we have, uh, yeah, we have Al Muntaha. Obviously at the top of the Burj Al Arab, which is uh Yes. Are in the, in the city.

Paula: Yeah, totally. Totally. And if anyone doesn’t recognize the name Vicky, I’ll just explain that Burj Al Arab is the world’s only seven star hotel. It is, as you said, visually iconic. Uh, a lot of people would instantly know the, the, the visual.

Um, so of course we’ll be linking to your website anyway in the show notes for this. So it’s a, it’s a spectacular hotel, and I did get the opportunity. Would you believe? Um, it’s one of those, you know, I suppose random. You know, dare I say it, opportunities created by Covid where it was more affordable to stay and do a staycation in Burj Al Arab. Normally it would be out of my price range, I’ll be honest. . Um, but yes, uh, because my wedding had been postponed actually by a year on the day, that should have been my wedding day. We went and stayed in Burj Al Arab as a spectacular way to, to, to celebrate. So I’m a huge fan of The Jumeirah Group.

Um, and even actually, I was living in Dubai when the very first hotel opened in 1997. So I feel like I’ve grown up a little bit in Dubai with, uh, with the brand. So.

Vicky: Yes, celebrating like 25 years.

Paula: It’s incredible. It’s absolutely wonderful. Yes. Yeah. Plenty going on. So tell us about the journey with loyalty, Vicky then for The Jumeirah Group over that 25 year history.

Vicky: Yeah, so Jumeirah um, launched a loyalty program almost just after the birth of Jumeirah Beach Hotel. Um, so I think it was in 2004 they launched the Sirius program. Okay. Um, which is very much a one hotel program, uh, designed to give rewards. To customers coming into, into that particular property. And as the brand’s grown, the program’s grown.

So we relaunched the program, um, in 2015 to Jumeirah Sirius, being in the brand name to sit alongside the program name, uh especially as we grew the, which was very important, especially as we grew the brand around the world. And then in 2020, um, we didn’t know Covid was coming. But it was actually pretty good timing because we relaunched again to Jumeirah One program and the main reason behind that was we were taken advantage of, um, much more agile, loyalty technology platforms that take us away from the legacy, legacy systems that we had previously, which are predominantly for accounting purposes. Yeah. And be able to deliver rewards and recognition in real time. Yeah. And better integrations with our systems, um, throughout our properties and really being able to deliver, um, insights to our colleagues around the world about who our, our top guests were.

Paula: Yeah. Yeah. Well, congrats on that because a rebrand can be painful. Uh, you know, with the Vesta Times, you know, I’ve been through it myself, , leading on a couple of those. A, a technology architecture replacement. And I do think particularly the travel industry, Vicky, um, we’re almost, uh, you know, dare I say it like we suffer from legacy systems.

Because we’re early adopters, I guess because hotels have had loyalty platforms and programs for so long. So it’s inevitable that you do have to go through this re-architecting type process. So sounds like 2020 was, um, was a really big deal, and I know you are with The Jumeirah Group over eight years, Vicki, so you obviously led through all of those changes yourself, did you?

Vicky: I did. Yes. Yes. So it was, it was, especially the 2020 was quite an eventful and challenging, yeah, very rewarding experience.

Paula: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay. So how, what is the proposition then, currently, so, you know, guests staying at Jumeirah Hotels, as we said, there’s, there’s 25 properties around the world. So how is the program structure, The Jumeirah One loyalty program?

Vicky: So Jumeirah One, we have four tier levels. That’s a tiered program. Um, we have a base entry level. Then obviously you move up to silver, gold, and platinum. Um, depending on the amount you spend with us throughout the year. Uh, we offer a variety of benefits while you’re staying in the hotel. But it could also be when you just come to dine with us or spa with us without actually having an overnight stay.

We have, uh, a host of partners that we also interact with and that’s something, um, we are always looking to expand on as well. Nice. And, um, yeah, and we introduced, I think it’s about four or five years ago now, our rewards store online, so we’re able to be relevant and provide choice and redemption options to our members even when they’re not necessarily able to get to one of our properties. Obviously we’ve still got quite a small footprint. Yeah. So when they go back to the USA, for example, where we don’t have a property, they’re still able to keep engaged with the brands. Uh, it’s one way of doing that. So, yeah. Um, yeah. And I, I think it’s, as the program is now evolving with Jumeirah One, it’s more about delivering, um, recognition on property, the surprise and delight, elevating the experience, The Jumeirah experience for our members, um, by what they’ve told us about themselves.

Okay. Uh, and then being able to deliver things that are only Jumeirah can deliver. I mean, who else can deliver a heli pad photo shoot on the Burj Al Arab, for example?

Spectacular .

Paula: Totally, totally. Yeah. And just before we get into, I suppose, um, you know, the, the extraordinary experiences, cuz I know that’s a core part of your proposition.

You mentioned your reward store there, Vicky, and I love that proposition. Um, and, and I’d love to know how it’s going. I’m sure you can’t give us, you know, too much detail, but, first of all, is it an earn and burn proposition, like a full affiliate program in terms of earning Jumeirah points if you shop online and redeem online?

Or is it, is it uh, more on the reward side?

Vicky: Um, so it started out more on the reward side, so it was really an opportunity for our, um, members to be able to, to use their points even when they’re not staying with us, um, and in their everyday life. Um, and, but last year we also launched with a, a proposition with the same, with the same provider, where members can go onto certain, um, online stores and they can collect and redeem points and or part paying points on, on those, on those websites as well. So Excellent. We, we have extended that proposition out. Yeah. And we’ve also, they’ve also got the very bespoke, um, platform called Deserved, which allows our members, uh, our tiered members to be able to go in and have exclusive access to, um, special offers or events.

Or experiences with some of the high, very high end luxury retail brands, which you wouldn’t normally. It’s which you wouldn’t normally have access to. Yeah. And they don’t, they don’t promote themselves in that way, uh, in public, because obviously that’s, that’s the, not what’s totally their rallied is all about.

Paula: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s all about the exclusivity and, and I love that. So I’m, uh, it’s great to hear that you’ve managed to go get that earned side as well for the currency. Uh, and I, I definitely believe in the travel loyalty space, were perfectly positioned, I suppose, to, to leverage those online stores and the opportunity to drive that engagement in between, you know, my opportunity to stay at a Jumeirah Group hotel, so, um so a really nice strategy, and it’s been around for a few years, you’ve said so, so would you say it’s going well? I tend to feel. In my experience, it takes, I think, a while for members to understand the first time, like the, the education process, I feel can take some time, but then once they’ve done it once, I kind of feel like it accelerates and the engagement really grows quite quickly because it’s kind of like, well, If I’m gonna shop online anyway, I might as well get by Jumeirah points, for example, um, through the particular way that you would guide their journey.

So do you have that same experience or what’s your view on, on its role in your overall kind of strategy?

Vicky: Yeah, absolutely. I think definitely the rewards story in terms of the burn proposition, um, increases year on year. The earned proposition is a little bit more difficult cuz when you go online to some of these stores, yeah, you can forget that you’ve got that link up where you could, unless you go through a, a specific pathway to, to get there, that you have that link up.

Ok. You know, I’ve seen other brands do it with payment solutions where it’s, it’s a, it just makes life easier. Um, and it’s, yeah, like I said, I, I’m all about making life easier.

there is

so they can continue to collect their points, but yeah, and again, it depends on who you are and if that, that’s of value to you, or you may want to prefer, especially if you’re living in somewhere like Dubai where we’ve got plenty of experience, opportunities to use your points, then, uh, you may well decide that you want to go and treat yourself to, um, dinner at the beach or, yeah. Uh, yeah, or a spa treatment in, in one of our, in like. Totally, spa’s, something like that.

Paula: Totally, yes. Yeah, no, I was like literally dreaming as I was on your website there, so , so many wonderful things.

Actually, what did catch my eye was the padel tennis court. Yes. Down in, I believe one of the, I think it’s Jumeirah Al Naseem down in the Matinad complex. And I have been promising myself and my husband that I will go and learn to play padel tennis because it’s such a fun game and it seems to be super popular, particularly here in Dubai.

Vicky: Yes, exactly. It’s so accessible to everybody. You don’t have to be, you know, tennis is quite technical. Yeah. squash is extremely physical. Totally. It’s kind of in between the two .

Paula: There you go. I have no excuse. I have no excuse. So I wanted to ask you as well, Vicky, um, I guess what I’m curious about is, I suppose along the lines of the internal perception of The Jumeirah One program, and, and the reason I’m, I’m curious about it is, I suppose the, the, the luxury hospitality sector really does have a very well established, of course, loyalty industry.

Um, so it is, I believe, a hygiene factor to have a loyalty program. So, uh, there’s absolutely no way that any brand like Jumeirah would, would, would not consider having a loyalty program, but I think it has a role above and beyond that. And as loyalty professionals, I suppose we see it as being much more significant than just a hygiene factor.

But I’m curious as to what your experience is within The Jumeirah Group. You know, is there an awareness and an understanding of the power of a loyalty program? Would you say in terms of, you know, obviously the investment required, the time and the effort. Do, would you say that there is that understanding in the business?

Vicky: There’s definitely the understanding in the business, and I think I am the emphasis of a loyalty program in a luxury brand, whether it’s Jumeirah or um, a luxury fashion brand, whatever it might be. It’s more about driving, that repeat custom and that repeat business and being able to have a mechanism, um, to reward the customer on the basis, that’s not necessarily discounts. We wouldn’t put points up first either. It’s there, it’s behind the scenes, it’s just, something that, um, needs to be there and everyone expects today. But as a luxury brand, you have to turn the magic on, um, when it comes to delivery, memorable moments.

Okay. Creating exclusivity, um, providing status, um, , and, and that can be through many different ways. It could be through sharing UGC, it could be through gamification, it could be through co-creation. Um, and creating exclusive clubs or segments within your program as well. So I, I think that’s, I think, I think that’s really how we put the program across.

And I think also I’m, I’m trying to move away and, to calling it from calling it a program. And again, going back to what we said at the beginning, loyalty Yeah. Is something that the brand, um, strives to drive forward. Yeah. Um, across our customers. It’s a two-way conversation, so we also have to show that we are genuinely invested in that relationship as well.

Yeah. Yeah. Um, and it’s really the a, a way now to differentiate ourself from the competition is being able to deliver experiences that, um, only Jumeirah can do. Oh, yes. For example. And, and creating those moments. That generates a longer lifetime value. Um, with our customers.

Paula: Yeah. Yeah. I love that actually.

Um, you used the words turn the magic on and I think that actually is a lovely encapsulation of, of what we as loyalty professionals. I really feel that, we love that, that intention, this idea that we have the power. To, to truly wow our members. Um, and I know with Burj Al Arab, for example, particularly again, as the, the most exclusive of your, of your luxury properties, there is that incredible commitment, um, and really is extraordinary in terms of the, the amount of the attention to detail.

And actually just as a funny anecdote, I will say it was very unexpected and that was clearly the point. But when we did stay there in the Burj Al Arab. I did, um, end up with a, just a headache, um, in the evening, maybe just all the excitement and the missed wedding and everything was bit of an emotional roller coaster for me.

But I did call, um, the butler and, uh, we did have our own butler of course for, for our suite. And I just asked if there was an aspirin, uh, available. And honestly, a paramedic arrived. I just thought, or it looked like a paramedic, but somebody with, you know, everything I could possibly need if I wasn’t feeling well.

It was just incredible. So that became my talking point and talk about turn the magic on. Thankfully I wasn’t ill enough to need much more than the aspirin that was in his, um, his pack. But I mean, talk about taking exceptional care of your customers when they’re not feeling up to it for some reason.

Vicky: Yeah, no, absolutely. I think that is really well loyalty becomes everybody’s business and not just the few that actually work. Totally. The loyalty program and um, and being able to empower and put the, the data in, the insights in the hands of our colleagues across the business that’s relevant. Um, For what they need to be able to do to deliver that magic. Yes. Uh, is really at the essence of, of Jumeirah One.

Paula: Yeah. And last time we spoke as well, Vicky, you, you briefly mentioned a data transformation, which I know is quite different to a digital transformation. It’s, it’s obviously laser focused. So I’d, I’d love for you to tell us how are you getting on with your data transformation in The Jumeirah Group?

Vicky: Yeah, it’s a long, I mean, I think anyone that goes down this path realizes it’s a long-term commitment. It’s a long journey. Yeah. Um, we have, I mean, I’m sure everyone listening to this is, has been bombarded by a lot of the vendors out there that can offer personalization platforms, how they’re gonna manage your contents.

Yeah. Um, how we’re gonna deliver, uh, the best personalized experience across every customer touchpoint. And it’s somewhat overwhelming and knowing where to start on that. So we kind of, took a step back and said, all right, let’s, let’s look at what we have currently, how that’s being used, what our business user cases are for data.

Um, align that to our business objectives and then understand what our priorities are and if we’ve got any gaps that are needed to achieve that. So, that’s kind of where, where we are right now. It’s doing that self-assessment, analytical stage, uh, and I think, again, like many companies, data has, um, historically belonged to a certain technology platform.

Totally. And they were never built to speak to each other. So it’s how can we, how can we bring all that. Information together that the customers either given to us or shown us in their behavior and how they transact with us. So we really know, uh, who they are when they’re staying with us, and we’re able to surprise and delight them and, and take that extra step, um, to make their stay with us time exception. You well spent.

Paula: Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it’s incredibly complex and you’re absolutely right. Uh, none of these systems were designed to, to necessarily integrate, uh, with each other. Um, you know, and, and I think you used a term around, you know, the golden record actually, which I thought was a lovely, simple and easy way to, I suppose, help particularly your colleagues understand that there does have to be a single source of truth.

So would it be fair to say that that’s the ultimate goal, as you said, the, the, the, the, the journey will never be done as you build your proposition out and continue to expand, but it sounds like this golden record is, is basically what you’re going for.

Vicky: Yeah, and I think that golden record is never, finite solution. I think that continues to grow and it’s understanding what attributes of that record to deliver to what parts of the business. Yeah. To enable them to do their job properly. They don’t need everything. Yeah. That’s there. And nor do we want to share that with everyone from a, from a privacy perspective, neither.

Yeah. Um, but it’s just making sure that everything that we. We have, and we know, and and the customer would expect us to do Yeah. Is, is, um, is in the hands of the right people. So they, to enable them to do that. Yeah. Uh, yeah. In a consistent manner.

Paula: Yeah. And you mentioned, uh, I know the acronym U G C or User Generated Content for anyone who’s not familiar with it.

And actually, uh, you’ve, I’ve just remembered, I was talking to somebody a couple of weeks ago as well, Vicky, and she used to work. In the reception of the Burj Al Arab Hotel, and she was sharing with me some of their, again, I suppose, um, delight in, in using the data from Jumeirah One, um, paying attention to any clues or hints or, or, you know, insights that they could capture.

And then transforming that into surprise and delight as you’ve alluded to, and what she specifically said as well, which I thought was really, insightful was the fact that their TripAdvisor responses were, were they could, they could almost, you know, immediately see the results of that attention to detail coming through in the social media content and then other guests coming in, going.

I saw this on TripAdvisor. I want to have the same experience in Burj Al Arab. So I thought that was incredible in a very tangible way, because I think we all know that we go to TripAdvisor, whether we love it or hate it. It definitely has a role to play in deciding, you know, particularly I think for luxury properties and hospitality.

And again, maybe for people who’ve been saving for a long time for a special experience like mine. Um, so would that be fair to say as well, from your perspective? You can almost see the, the social impact and the, the NPS scores, I guess, going up as a result of that overall data collection and the activities that come out of it.

Vicky: Yeah, absolutely. And I think, um, we’ve still got a long way to go there, but, um, listening to what our customers say, uh, really putting an emphasis on understanding voice of customer. Whether it’s through surveys, whether it’s through, um, what they’re saying on social media, the reviews that they give us, um, bringing all that together and being able to tie it back to the experience that they’ve had and taking learnings from that.

Yeah. Um, to either, respond to them, uh, enhance their future stay. Yes. Or just improve our products and services moving forward further for other guests as well. It’s, it’s incredibly important.

Paula: For sure. For sure. And that actually leads perfectly to, to my last question for you, Vicky, and that is about, you know, the future.

Um, you know, specifically, I suppose for loyalty. There’s a lot of conversation as we know around all the cool new technologies that Web 3.0 is bringing, whether it’s the Metaverse or, you know, NFTs, for example, I was reading some of the, the posts that you re-shared on LinkedIn as well. So I think we’re all familiar that Starbucks is, you know, hopefully bringing some mainstream understanding of some of these technologies in, um, at least in 2023.

I don’t think they’ve launched anything particularly other than announcing them at the moment. So have you any thoughts in terms of where Web 3.0, is something that could be a use case within Jumeirah Group, or is it not something you’ve explored as yet?

Vicky: Um, I think generically and not speaking, uh, as Jumeirah as such, but I think there’s um, definitely, uh, it’s definitely something to keep an eye on.

Um, it’s. Very much the unknown. Who’s there and who’s engaging in, in that environment is still Yeah. Um, is still to be discovered. And what I liked particularly about the Starbucks is that they’re, slowly taking the everyday person like myself, uh, into the 3.0 environment without us really knowing and without us really realizing that, that we’ve stepped across that, that virtual threshold.

Yeah. And um, a lot of other luxury bands like Louis Vuitton, they’ve started doing gamification in there. And, uh, I think knowing, where to be in the metaverse, knowing what you should be doing in the Metaverse. I think there’s gonna be a lot of, um, testing and yeah, it, it, it’s an interesting space to keep an eye on, that’s for sure.

Paula: Yeah. Yes. Well, with that said, I think we will have to stay in touch closely with you, Vicky, and, uh, See where The Jumeirah Group and Jumeirah One program goes, certainly as, uh, as Web 3.0 gets a bit more sophisticated. Um, so that’s all of the questions I have from my side, Vicky. Um, really fascinating to hear all of your thinking, your focus on the data transformation, which is clearly the, the focus for the moment in terms of delivering that, um, you know, opportunity to turn the magic on as you’ve said.

So are there any other points that you wanted to mention in our conversation today?

Vicky: I don’t think so. I think, I think the key part about, um, taking data and all the data that we have about our customers that we can bring in externally from external sources, whether it’s our brand health tracker, understanding trends, um, and, delivering that insight across the business. I think we need, we also need to look at, we’ve typically looked at results. Okay, what’s our redemption rate look like? How’s my revenue doing? But I think we need to start peeling back those layers. The KPIs might look good. Yeah. Um, but is there an underlying trend in a particular market or with a particular customer segment?

that’s either showing an opportunity, something we’ve missed, something that we could build on. Yeah. And then always ask, always asking that, so what, what does it mean to the customer? And I think loyalty programs have historically been very business centric. Yeah. And moving them across. to that customer centricity, is gonna take a long time. It’s gonna take a, it’s quite a journey to do. Yeah. Um, but yeah, I think with the AI technology, predictive analysis and everything else that we have at our fingertips today Yeah. When we’re, when we’re in a position to be able to, um, deliver on that accurately, I think, I think it opens a whole new world for loyalty as well. Yeah. And put, and, and it puts a different spin on loyalty as well. It’s not all about points and programs and benefits and Yeah. Yeah. It, it becomes across all customer touch points and all colleagues across the business. Yeah.

Paula: For sure, for sure. You’re absolutely right. Uh, the, the, so what question is, is absolutely critical.

And I know you’re really focused on, on, you know, extracting the insights from the data. It’s no point collecting the data unless you actually do manage to get something that’s useful. Um, so yes, some, some wonderful opportunities and insights there. And with that said, I suppose the final thing I wanted to make sure that our listeners are aware of is this very exciting, new feedback opportunity that we’re, we’re gonna have for people to talk and, and I suppose, you know, let you know and let me know their thoughts on this conversation.

Um, and you already mentioned it as well earlier, Vicky, in terms of Jumeirah one is a two-way conversation and now Let’s Talk Loyalty is, is a two-way conversation. So for anyone who hasn’t seen it already, within the show notes for this episode, after the links, obviously to Vicky’s LinkedIn profile and, and to The Jumeirah Group website, you’ll see a link that’s just called Feedback link.

And if you click that, and I mean anywhere, it could be an Apple podcast, it could be in Spotify, it could be on our website. Um, you can literally type in free format text, any kind of thoughts for, for myself and Vicky. Any questions you have for us, and you can also even do a voice note. So there’s a super way, again, it’s really easy, so I know Vicky’s gonna be very impressed with how easy we’ve made it. Um, and you can even, you don’t need to download any apps and you can put your name there or you can leave it anonymously. So totally up to you. And we will look forward to having a two-way conversation and hearing people’s feedback on, uh, The jumeirah One program.

So with that said, I really enjoyed the conversation, Vicky, uh, definitely wanna make sure that we come back and do it again from time to time. So, Vicky Elliot, Senior Director of Insights, CRM, and Loyalty at Jumeirah Group. Thank you so much from Let’s Talk Loyalty.

Vicky: Thank you, Paula.

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