Paula: Welcome to Let’s Talk Loyalty, an industry podcast for loyalty marketing professionals. I’m Paula Thomas, the founder and CEO of Let’s Talk Loyalty and also Loyalty TV. If you work in loyalty marketing, you can watch our video interviews every Thursday on www. loyalty. tv. And of course you can listen to our podcasts every Tuesday, every Wednesday, and every Thursday to learn the latest ideas from loyalty experts around the world.
Today’s episode is part of The Wiser Loyalty Series, which is hosted by our partners, The Wise Marketer Group. The Wise Marketer Group is a media education and advisory services company providing resources for loyalty marketeers through the Wise Marketer digital publication and The Loyalty Academy program that offers the certified loyalty marketing professional or CLMP designation. I hope you enjoy this weekly podcast, The Wiser Loyalty Series, brought to you by Let’s Talk Loyalty and The Wise Marketer Group.
Aaron: Hi everyone. Welcome to the Wiser Loyalty Series podcast for Let’s Talk Loyalty where we lean into the expertise of The Wise Marketer Group team of CEO Bill Hanifin and myself the CMO Aaron Dauphinee.
We’ve been providing weekly perspectives on the Loyalty Academy curriculum for our Certified Loyalty Marketing Professional, CLMP for short, designation as a part of this podcast series. And each month we select constructs from a specific course in the certification program, where we provide our own perspectives, guidance on what we think you need to have in terms of embedded truths as loyalty marketers.
And this week we’re going to dive into a new set of curriculum from our course 111, which is loyalty operations. Just to let you know, this has been refreshed with new insights and points of view on operations management for loyalty program operators. And in this week’s episode, we’re going to discuss kind of the step change of what that refresh looks like and specifically talk about the outline of a framework for loyalty operators.
That includes the accountabilities for those in your team, in your organization, and really what the crux is of this step change that we have done in our refresh. So Bill, welcome. How are you doing today?
Bill: Doing great, doing great, all things are operating as, as they’re supposed to be. So we talking about that this month.
So, but you know, they say any pun, even a bad one is a good one. So that was my attempt for today, but you know what, this is a really exciting week for us because we’re, you know, we’re giving people An early look at some content that we’re creating in Loyalty Academy. And as you know, we’ve been refreshing the, all the courses in the CLMP certification training program this year.
And in some instances, we’ve done minor updates to the, I call it the thesis. And we’ve been more or less like providing updated examples. We’ve been challenging old, old thinking or traditional thinking. And in, in this case, we’re doing something entirely different. So we created a new course, loyalty operations, number one, one, one, like you mentioned, and we did it in a unique way.
I think we’ll, you’ll see more of this from us when we that we engaged a loyalty operation specialist in this case. To rejuvenate the course in full and just to take this on as a project. And I, and I think the outcome is really exciting. So we found a person, Nadine Rubin, who’s well known to many people, probably listening to this.
She’s been a colleague of yours for a long time. She was a fellow Canadian. Her pedigree is incredible. She was one of the four people originally who launched a shopper’s drug mark optimum program which is, if you don’t know, is one of Canada’s lead largest pharmacy and drugstore chains. She spent time with Alliance Data Systems and Loyalty One launching pilot programs for super regional grocers like HEB in the U.
S. And, and then she led operations at RewardOps, a company that’s just been acquired by Cora Group. So she’s had a lot of interesting experience and she is a hands on operator. So, she has truly been there, done that. And we mentioned this because we want to reinforce that the, This curriculum right now is it’s built by individuals at the wise market group.
Yes, but we’re also enlisting the support and service of experts in the industry. So we’re going to find the people that know the most about individual topics. And we’re going to bring them into the curriculum, into the loyalty Academy. And that that’s all for everybody’s benefit here that gets involved with the curriculum.
So, I mean, Aaron, you’re really pretty close to Nadine know her well, you’ve worked with her a lot. So maybe you can just talk about the step change that we have underway.
Aaron: Yeah, I think for me, it’s exciting because to take a course that, you know, we had previous thinking about that we thought was really strong and in fact is strong, but then to, to, you know, push it into a new realm, so to speak, is, is really quite riveting in, in my mind and to have Nadine’s acumen come into play as well as her experiences, we’re really, really fortunate.
So, it’s great. It’s a great opportunity to have that industry expertise to enhance our own way of thinking about these topics and, and. And know for me personally you know, when it comes to operations, you know, my experience firsthand is, is a bit limited, but I do have some key rails where I did do some product management type of orientation.
And, and, and one of those was specifically while I was at Alliance Data, where I worked on a project to secure the rights to operating coalition multi programs in the United States. So we, you know, have a different way of thinking about coalition back then. And, and there was some agreements in place with some of the Europeans that came forward with that particular know how, so to speak anyway, long story short, it was a multi pronged approach to kind of through direct negotiation.
I was in charge of looking at some M& A evaluation. And then also the third part, which is the critical part of the gun into the operations was, was really about building and launching a U. S. based coalition program. So not a food one, but at least something as a starting point as a beachhead into, into that market to sit, say, Hey, we’ve, we’ve done what the requirements were and we need to go forward.
So, when it comes down to the operation side, you know, when I think about that particular exercise my role in that was really to be the quarterback for the entire team that came together out of the core business to build that, that, that new program, so to speak. And the way we went around, it was a bit novel in terms of, we seconded a subject matter experts from all areas of the business, you know, IT, marketing, finance, customer care, rewards, business, sales, the whole gamut, so to speak.
But my role in the project was really leading and being that hub of bringing them all together. And for many years, as I thought about it, I really didn’t think about it much more than I was the, you know, a project manager on steroids. Like that’s how I thought about it from an operational, bringing this to life.
Well, you know, spending some time with Nadine most recently in terms of refreshing this course and, and that whole period of, you know, that short time where I was thinking of myself as a project manager for, you know, less than nine months to design, procure, kind of build and, and launch this coalition program in the United States.
I, I’ve actually had a second thought around what my role was when I think about what I was doing. It was, it was certainly there were project management elements. That’s true in that operational capacity. But by and large, I was a problem solver. That was the majority of my day. It was actually not filling out and charts and kind of moving the peanut to be ahead of the critical path, so to speak.
But in fact, it was working with my colleagues who had come to seek my guidance and advice and, and, and help to get to some decision making. And. You know, remember at that time, everyone had come out of this big machine of air miles, the coalition program here in Canada. So the processes and the policies were, you know, the ways of doing things were embedded and ingrained and this is a group that said, Hey, you’ve got nine months, a short period of time, make it, make it work.
So to speak a little bit of Tim Gunn before Tim Gunn came onto the scene. And, and with that in mind, you know, what we did is we, we had to make some really good decisions about looking at root causes on issues. Getting to the points of, of quick decision making and really, truly being proactive in our problem solving.
We couldn’t wait for problems to come to us. We had to be ahead of the curve. And so, so when I think about that, that’s really the essence of where this refresh of this course is coming in, where we redefine really what it is to be a, you know, on the loyalty operations team in our curriculum. So overset through a bit of an example and how it’s reframed my thinking, which was still consistent, certainly that, that balance of you know, project management type of role less, but Then putting it to a higher order, which is really around this problem solving as a key element as the role of loyalty operations in your program.
So Bill, I know, I know many programs you’ve worked on over the years. Is there anything you can think of yourself where you’ve kind of had maybe thought of it in this lens of, you know, program operator, or have you always been this problem solving kind of, kind of mindset in the terms of when you think about operations?
Bill: Walk us through it. Yeah. There, you know, there, there are a couple that come to mind and you know, if you really simplify it, Aaron, I was thinking it’s, you know, there’s some businesses that require you to work at the counter before you ever become a store manager, before you ever become a district manager before you.
Aaron: And in the all
Bill: call
Aaron: center. That’s a, that’s a thing that we’ve always had to do as well too, to hear Yeah. Customer right.
Bill: Yep. And I think that yeah, the founder of Zappos was famous for that. He always had people working in in just very frontline roles, let’s say, before he would allow them to move up in the organization.
So the danger of being a strategist is you may not be fully understanding of how important operations is. And, and I think I was fortunate because I got thrown into a project early on when I was still sort of just forming viewpoints in the business. Yeah. And it was a project that we did with Shell in Peru.
And we were launching a program there and I was working in conjunction with some people from Shell, as well as people from a large grocery chain and also a third party group. So similar to what you were doing in the U S a third party group that was organizing this coalition. And believe it or not, you know, it was, it wasn’t really glamorous, but we spent a lot of time in the car responding to urgent requests that, you know, somebody tried to dip their card at the pump and, you know, they weren’t recognized.
It didn’t the receipt didn’t print out properly. It had the wrong message on it. And, and so we, we were actually, you know, going on site. And I think the point of it is that great operations is about understanding the details and looking at what the user experience really is for your members. And walking through every one of those things and testing them because it’s, it’s getting it to work.
And then it’s also establishing that there’s repeatability and reliability. So that’s a lot of what we were doing with shell at that time, running around between gas stations and sat at the store and just. Making sure that every possible occurrence that could happen between customer and the store would come out the way we intended it to be.
And, and one other quick example, we helped launch a pretty significant program in Jamaica five years ago, let’s say they had multiple lines of business, and so we were getting we were trying to collect and have information from one business to the other. So there were technology issues, but one of the things I remember talking to a being practical is.
There were people that wanted to have a mobile app in the program. And as we worked through it, and as we really talked about how would people interact with the program through this mobile app, we realized that in the population of Jamaica, there were many people, I’d say everyone that had what appeared to be a smartphone, but there was a much smaller percentage, like 20 or 30 percent that had active data plans.
And so we realized like the, you know, the people that were advocating, Oh, let’s get a mobile app. Guess what? Probably only 20 percent of the membership was going to be able to use the mobile app. So it was only by like walking through these scenarios and then thinking about what your membership was composed of that we started to draw the right conclusion.
So I’m such an advocate, like anybody that would say like operations is somebody else I’m, I’m the big strategist. No, no, maybe you should start the other way, or maybe not. You don’t have to start there, but you certainly have to spend time. Really important.
Aaron: Yeah, I would agree a hundred percent. My career has come up that way through.
And even when I was back at Shell, one of the parts of, of coming into the hierarchy and of Shell me getting to senior management required to be in through their program called the new grad program, where you literally went and spent time in all parts of the business before you could go in. And I was working in that time in marketing at head office.
And for me to then get promoted in that organization, I had to go out of the organization, out of head office to come back into head office over time. And. Unfortunately, in the end, that’s actually what kicked off and, and started my career here in loyalty. And so, you know, long, as they say, is, is that particular opportunity long gone?
But but the idea of being on the front lines and having an understanding of how things literally operate and being able to work with your customers or your, the people who are on the frontline staff and solve problems for them, because once it’s come up every day, you can’t, you can’t as much as your strategic and try to.
Go through all the customer journeys that you can, you can get a lot of them you know, roughly right in and pretty close to being darn on spot on, but there’s always going to be some nuances that come up and particularly as, as things change and whether they’re macro or micro thematic elements or, or whatever it is, or new technologies that come play, you know, the, the system always at some point can be broken or adjusted or shifted or changed.
You know, the key part of operations can’t be underscored there to me, the term I use the onset really resonates with they’re the quarterback, right? Like your operations team is a quarterback the organization and how the program functions. And, and so they have to have all eyes on everything that’s running and they call some plays and, and then, and then fulfill upon them and execute on them really, really well.
And in that repeatable fashion that you talked about as, as also. So, yeah. Fantastic. I think I think that perhaps let’s, let’s, let’s pause it there. And then, and now for, for next week, what we’ll be hopping into are some constructs around some important things that we have in place in terms of processes and policies.
So, you know, things like terms and conditions, privacy, and the like that they come into the realm of the program operations team we’ll talk a bit about the best practices and provide a few examples, of course. And in the last week of August, what we’re hoping to do is frame up a conversation that’s.
But clearly controversial, I’d say you know, it’s where should member care ultimately reside in your organization as for it to be the most effective. And so some believe it’s really a core operational component. Others believe it’s a marketing channel and should fall under marketing domain. So that should be an interesting little bit of a conversation back and forth.
As I said Why don’t we wrap up as, as always, for anyone who is of course, interested in joining our community of loyalty marketing professionals you can learn more at loyaltyacademy. org on how to get your designation and join the thousand CLMPs that we have in 54 countries around the world now.
As well, if you want to dig into the previous podcasts if this is your first time joining you and you like what you hear and you want to learn more then certainly you can access those at the access the Wiser Loyalty Podcast series at thewisemarketer. com. Or of course at letstalkloyalty com.
So, with that, I’ll wish you a great week and we look forward to having you listen with us again next. So stay loyal. All right.
Bill: See, see you everybody again next week. Thank you.
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.
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