Paula: Welcome to Let’s Talk Loyalty, an industry podcast for loyalty marketing professionals.
Paula: 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.
Paula: Thank you.
Paula: This show is sponsored by Comarch, a global provider of innovative software products and business services.
Paula: Comarch’s platform is used by leading brands across all industries to drive their customer loyalty.
Paula: Powered by AI and machine learning, Comarch technologies allow you to build, run, and manage personalized loyalty programs and product offers with ease.
Paula: For more information, please visit comarch.com.
Paula: So welcome to the latest episode of Let’s Talk Loyalty.
Paula: And today, I’m delighted to welcome the head of loyalty for the Emirates National Oil Company.
Paula: So Suryaveer Singh is the head of loyalty at ENOC.
Paula: And I’d like to first of all welcome you to Let’s Talk Loyalty.
Suryaveer: Thank you, Paula.
Suryaveer: Thank you for having me.
Paula: And I will call you Sury for short if that’s okay.
Paula: It’s so much easier.
Suryaveer: It is, Paula.
Suryaveer: You can call me Sury.
Suryaveer: Everybody knows me as that.
Paula: Sure do.
Paula: Absolutely.
Paula: And you’re very well known in the loyalty market in the UAE, Sury.
Paula: So I’m sure there’s plenty of our listeners in this region.
Paula: We’d be delighted to know that you’re on the show.
Paula: So before we get into the amazing Yes Rewards program that you recently launched, I would love to just ask you, first and foremost, what is your favorite loyalty statistic?
Suryaveer: My favorite statistic, obviously, customer lifetime value.
Suryaveer: It shows us whether our customers come and spend with us through the long term and whether they’re really genuinely loyal to us.
Suryaveer: But having said that, we’re a three-month-old program.
Suryaveer: So customer lifetime value is still a long way to go for us.
Suryaveer: The current most important statistic would be cross-shop.
Suryaveer: We’re a fuel retailer, but we’ve also got a convenience store brand.
Suryaveer: We’ve got a car wash and a car brand called Lotto Pro, automotive brand called Lotto Pro.
Suryaveer: We’ve got Tasjeel, and we’ve got two F&B brands, Pawas and Popeyes.
Suryaveer: So at this stage, cross-shop would be a very, very important metric that we would look at from a loyalty perspective.
Paula: Wonderful, wonderful.
Paula: And there’s not many groups of fuel retailers that own food and beverage brands particularly.
Paula: So as you said, you’ve got two.
Paula: And even Tasjeel, again, for international listeners, is all about car registration in Dubai.
Suryaveer: Yes.
Suryaveer: So Paula, in Dubai, you have to register your car every year.
Suryaveer: It’s a mandated step that one takes to ensure that your car is in safe driving condition.
Suryaveer: And you go to a center like ours, and you kind of get your car checked and validated so that it’s in healthy top running condition.
Suryaveer: And you register it with us and you drive your way.
Suryaveer: So yes, Thus Chill is an ENOC owned brand, and it’s something that we take great pride in.
Paula: Yes.
Suryaveer: Immense source of customer data for us.
Paula: Absolutely.
Paula: Great.
Paula: Yeah.
Paula: And just again to explain to listeners all around the world.
Paula: So the Emirates National Oil Company is an oil and gas company, but retailing and owned by 100% by the government of Dubai.
Suryaveer: Absolutely.
Paula: And just for listeners who might not be familiar with the Zoom brand, I was also really impressed to read actually on the ENOC website that it was the very first convenience store to start in this country.
Paula: So Zoom is an extraordinary convenience brand.
Paula: And I know you have standalone Zoom stores, which again are part of Yes Rewards, as well as the ENOC fuel station.
Paula: So as you said, quite a lot in the portfolio.
Suryaveer: Absolutely, Paula.
Suryaveer: So in this country, if you see, and especially, I mean, this is very unique to the UAE.
Suryaveer: Today, convenience, the difference between convenience stores and standalone stores is very murky.
Suryaveer: Customers want convenience.
Suryaveer: There are people who want to do their groceries while they drive through a petrol station.
Suryaveer: And then there are others who probably also want deliveries at home and many who want to actually visit and touch and feel products and pick them up.
Suryaveer: Zoom actually gives you a holistic experience across all of these formats.
Suryaveer: And we, as a program, want to ensure that we reward our customers wherever they go, whether it’s in the fuel station or at the stand-alone or when we deliver products to their homes.
Suryaveer: So, absolutely, Zoom’s been one of the first brands in the region and been very, very successful as far as convenience and groceries concerned.
Paula: Absolutely.
Paula: And one of my other favorite statistics, in fact, and it goes back to, I think it’s a few years old now actually, Sury, but there was always this idea that actually fuel was cheaper than water in this country, which I don’t think is still true.
Paula: But I think we have a very different profile of customers in this country.
Suryaveer: You know, there has always been this talk, especially in the Arab world, where a lot of people coming from outside saying, is fuel actually cheaper than water?
Suryaveer: Times are changing.
Suryaveer: COVID has changed a lot of that as well.
Suryaveer: And times today people have tighter wallets.
Suryaveer: We are a lot more conscious about how we spend our money.
Suryaveer: There is also this transition to hybrid vehicles and electric cars.
Suryaveer: So there’s a lot happening in the world today.
Suryaveer: So it’s not the same.
Suryaveer: I wouldn’t say fuel is cheaper than water.
Suryaveer: Yes, it may be comparatively cheaper from a lot of other parts of the world.
Suryaveer: Let me look at Asia or Europe and all of that.
Suryaveer: But people are conscious about how they spend.
Suryaveer: They are conscious about how much they spend.
Suryaveer: That ensures that today we want to kind of give back to the customer.
Suryaveer: It’s not just about the money.
Suryaveer: It’s also about the customer experience and whether we can engage with them.
Suryaveer: We’ve got three big fuel companies here.
Suryaveer: So you’ve got ENOC and you’ve got our competitors in Abu Dhabi and in UAE as well.
Suryaveer: And now you’ve also got companies that are delivering fuel to your house.
Paula: Amazing.
Suryaveer: So we are stepping our game.
Suryaveer: We’re stepping up on many of these things and that kind of ensures that we kind of take the challenges head on.
Suryaveer: And yes, we’ll remain in the forefront of that.
Paula: Amazing, amazing.
Paula: And I did see ENOC is actually doing fuel delivery as well, Sury, yeah?
Suryaveer: Yes, we’ve got ENOC Link.
Suryaveer: We are doing fuel delivery.
Suryaveer: We’ve kicked off more on the B2B side of the business.
Suryaveer: And B2C for us right now works perfectly fine with our fuel stations.
Suryaveer: We’ve got extensive reach in Dubai, in the UAE, even in the Northern Emirates.
Suryaveer: And so as and when we do move into the delivery model, we will let you know for sure.
Suryaveer: In the current portfolio, we’re still considering it, but it’s not something that we come up with very, very soon.
Paula: So the focus on loyalty feels like it’s a fairly recent development.
Paula: You launched the Yes Rewards program in November 2020, am I right?
Suryaveer: Oh, all right.
Suryaveer: Paula, we have been working on loyalty for some time, and we had our partners from Poland.
Suryaveer: Comarch has been one of our key partners.
Suryaveer: We wanted to get it right.
Suryaveer: This project was actually started out two years ago, to be honest.
Suryaveer: And we went through a couple of stages of development.
Suryaveer: There was a lot of infrastructural development.
Suryaveer: We wanted to ensure that we get the customer interface right, and we did not want to rush into doing things in a hurry.
Suryaveer: So to be honest, the project has been on for a while, but we did launch on the 1st of November.
Paula: Okay, great.
Suryaveer: And it’s been close to two and a half, three months now.
Suryaveer: It’s been exciting two and a half, three months.
Paula: Absolutely.
Paula: And I think it’s difficult enough launching Loyalty at the best of times, never mind in the middle of COVID.
Suryaveer: Absolutely.
Suryaveer: Now, we didn’t plan that.
Suryaveer: But we said, okay, COVID did dampen a few spirits here and there, but being Dubai, we opened up.
Suryaveer: COVID has been managed pretty well here, and we did see a lot of people come back on the road.
Suryaveer: Traffic did kind of pick up.
Suryaveer: And we think it was going to be a better time.
Suryaveer: Yes, we would have liked to launch sometime earlier, but having said that, I think it was just when the market had started opening again, and there was this sense of positivity coming back into the city.
Suryaveer: And yeah, we made the most of it.
Suryaveer: We’ve launched in a big way.
Suryaveer: It was in fact one of the biggest campaigns that we did in ENOC in a couple of years, and we put everything behind it.
Suryaveer: And we saw a considerable, in the first two months, to be honest, we had over 180,000 downloads.
Suryaveer: So the numbers looked very, very good.
Suryaveer: We’ve seen considerable engagement from our customers.
Suryaveer: Members have been coming back.
Suryaveer: The application had a lot of positive reviews.
Suryaveer: And we will continue to grow and develop the app further to ensure that we kind of keep giving back to our customers and growing this program considerably.
Paula: Wonderful.
Paula: What I really loved, Sury, actually, as you said, you launched in a big way.
Paula: Massive above-the-line spend.
Paula: So I’ve seen Outdoor and all sorts of fantastic communications going on.
Paula: But also, there’s a really big appetite, I think, in this country for raffles and draws.
Paula: And you took that to a whole other level.
Paula: So tell the listeners exactly what you did to launch the program.
Suryaveer: Yes.
Suryaveer: Dubai has done things big.
Suryaveer: And we just didn’t want to be a run-the-mill program.
Suryaveer: We wanted to come up with something that our members would love.
Suryaveer: We came up with the chance to win a car.
Suryaveer: And why not?
Paula: And not just any car.
Paula: It was a pretty special one.
Suryaveer: It was an Audi Q5.
Suryaveer: We saw massive engagement with that raffle draw.
Suryaveer: Very recently, did we actually hand over the car to one of our winners, and she was elated.
Suryaveer: And we did spend considerable money behind this campaign.
Suryaveer: And I think we’re seeing the benefits now.
Suryaveer: It’s resulted in considerable engagement, cross-shop.
Suryaveer: We had our staff excited about it as well.
Suryaveer: So with any program, there are two things.
Suryaveer: One is obviously you have an above-the-line spend and a huge digital spender.
Suryaveer: But at the same time, you also need to get your on-ground staff who are in your petrol stations, in your Zoom stores, in AutoPro, all of these guys to be excited about something coming up.
Suryaveer: And I think this was the bright light that came out after all the darkness that we’ve had in 2020.
Suryaveer: So, yes, exactly, and we did see a lot, so yeah, we spent a lot on it.
Suryaveer: The car was one of them.
Suryaveer: We’re looking at giving another one.
Suryaveer: And why not?
Suryaveer: But other than that, we did give away a million points to customers as well.
Suryaveer: We had a reward for joining the program, and we’ve ensured that even from a points perspective, we do not cut corners in terms of what the value of points is for customers.
Suryaveer: Because, you know, many a times, you see, customers are not aware of what this, you know, whatever the currency they own, what it actually means.
Suryaveer: We’ve been very, very transparent on the application, and I guess you’ve downloaded the app.
Suryaveer: On the application, you can literally translate what the points mean in terms of currency value.
Suryaveer: So that sort of transparency is something we want to retain in the program because, you know, there are many loyalty programs today in the market, and I think no one knows this better than you.
Suryaveer: But what we see is that there are many customers, members across the group who are confused about what they really mean, or, you know, how much do I earn, what is the burn rate, and what is the value that I get out of it.
Suryaveer: So, that is something we wanted to ensure that we are transparent about as part of the program.
Suryaveer: We want our customers to know what they get, what they can redeem for, and we want to kind of move out of this plastic manual, you know, format of doing things and take our first big leap into digitization.
Paula: Absolutely.
Paula: So, you’ve only executed in digital form.
Paula: I certainly haven’t seen any plastic cards.
Paula: Is that correct?
Paula: It’s purely digital program?
Suryaveer: Absolutely.
Suryaveer: So, it is a purely digital program.
Suryaveer: We don’t want to go down that cards route.
Suryaveer: I think all of us have way too many cards in our pockets today anyway.
Suryaveer: And the platform allows us to do a lot more.
Suryaveer: And we will stay that way and only evolve from here.
Suryaveer: So, that’s how it’s going to be for now.
Paula: Good, good, good.
Paula: Because your background was actually in fashion retail with the Altair Group, again, another huge retail group in this region.
Suryaveer: Previously, yes, well, I worked with Altair for a couple of years, again, looking after the Amber program.
Suryaveer: And I guess, and there we did have a plastic card and we moved digital as well.
Suryaveer: So, I guess that kind of also helped me understand customers better.
Paula: Totally.
Suryaveer: I always believe customers are the same, whether they’re buying fashion or they’re buying fuel, because all of us buy a bit of everything.
Suryaveer: And it’s just how you reach out to them with different segments and understand them better.
Suryaveer: And yes, that kind of also gave me a lot of insight into building the Yes program.
Paula: Totally.
Suryaveer: So, in not making mistakes I would have made otherwise, or we as a group were able to kind of ensure that we do it the right way.
Paula: Absolutely.
Paula: But I loved your point particularly Sury, about the staff and the point of sale.
Paula: And I think you’re right.
Paula: I think you tapped into a mood of optimism, actually, in the first instance, to actually give the guy something different and something new to talk about.
Paula: And I’ve often said on this show before, I’m quite resistant to joining loyalty programs because I want to challenge the staff.
Paula: Like genuinely, I’m a nightmare.
Paula: So, I was convinced in a Zoom store in a Rove Hotel.
Paula: Actually, you probably know the Rove Hotel.
Paula: It’s very big here as well.
Paula: And you know, she was like, absolutely, you can’t miss out, you got to join this program.
Paula: She had the URL on the desk.
Paula: So, I immediately downloaded it.
Paula: So, I have to say, you’ve done a great job on that front.
Suryaveer: Thank you so much, Paula.
Suryaveer: I mean, getting staff excited isn’t easy.
Suryaveer: Loyalty for loyalty practitioners seems very simple and very understanding.
Suryaveer: You know, we are able to take our different shows from different programs and all of that.
Suryaveer: But the biggest challenge, and I can tell you this today, was the fact that we didn’t have access to training facilities because of the pandemic.
Suryaveer: And cascading that information down to staff, especially in a business like ours, where we’ve got so many people on the floor, was not easy.
Suryaveer: So, I mean, all credit to our staff, devoting their time trying to understand it, downloading the app themselves.
Suryaveer: We got a lot of feedback from them on ground because at the end of the day, they’re the ones facing the customers.
Suryaveer: And we really take their feedback seriously.
Suryaveer: So that every time we improve the application or we have a different offer or even messaging for that matter, we’re able to kind of optimize all of that better.
Suryaveer: It’s still early days for us.
Suryaveer: Again, we’re three months old at the moment.
Suryaveer: But I look at it with positivity because we’ve got a lot of insight, a lot of feedback, the nature of business we’re in, the frequency with which customers fuel their cars here or someone shops in a convenience store or any of our existing businesses.
Suryaveer: And I wouldn’t want to miss out the touch shield business because in UAE you have to register your car every year.
Suryaveer: You get it tested and you do a health check and all of that.
Suryaveer: So that’s also a bucket load of data.
Paula: Oh my goodness.
Suryaveer: So that kind of insight.
Suryaveer: And within three months we’ve got to learn a lot.
Suryaveer: Yes.
Suryaveer: Which is going to help us kind of evolve the application.
Suryaveer: Not just the application, but also what we offer to our customers going forward.
Paula: And I was just thinking as you were saying that, Sury, as much as COVID is a huge challenge operationally, apart from all of the other implications, it actually, the fact that you’re going digital, actually there’s an underlying reassurance that there’s no need for a plastic form of contact.
Paula: So actually, I think there’s an inherent benefit that you made that decision, which is really just proving that digital is the only way to go, particularly now.
Suryaveer: I guess, Paula, I mean, if you look at the vision of the UAE in today’s times, the way people interact with each other, be it social media, be it any platform, it’s all moving that way.
Suryaveer: So going back to cards, I don’t think would be the right thing to do anyway.
Suryaveer: I know there are a certain set of customers who still like the touch and feel of a plastic card, but those numbers are really thinning down today.
Suryaveer: And digital is the way forward.
Suryaveer: It is easier.
Suryaveer: It’s cost effective.
Suryaveer: I guess it’s also better for the environment that you’re not printing plastic cards today.
Suryaveer: And you’re able to do a lot more.
Suryaveer: I mean, if you’ve seen the Yes application, when a customer transacts with us, not only do we reward him with the best offers and points and all of that, but on the other hand, he also receives all his shopping receipts and everything on the phone.
Suryaveer: So if tomorrow you want to go and exchange a product and all of that, it’s a simple scan.
Suryaveer: So we want to make the customer experience in line with what we set out to do.
Suryaveer: And yeah, I mean, as you rightly said, digital is the way forward.
Suryaveer: And this experience is only going to get better.
Suryaveer: So we will look at payments through the application.
Suryaveer: We’ve got a host of third parties that you can integrate.
Suryaveer: Way easier when you’re using a digital card.
Suryaveer: With a Wii, you have a plastic card.
Suryaveer: And that kind of sets you up for a much stronger launch pad going forward with a Wii, going the old way of printing plastic cards.
Suryaveer: Though sometimes the feel of a little stamp on your coffee card still feels nice.
Paula: Totally.
Suryaveer: But most of us actually lose those stamp cards.
Paula: There’s some scary numbers around that for sure.
Suryaveer: Exactly.
Suryaveer: And the chances of losing your phone, I guess, are totally less than losing your stamp coffee card.
Paula: Brilliant.
Paula: And was the digital receipts part, I suppose, a conscious intention or was it more just an added benefit in terms of when you were developing the program?
Suryaveer: So to be very honest, Paula, the digital receipts came out of my past experience.
Suryaveer: And what I had noticed in programs is that when customers actually went to refund something, you always wanted to have that receipt with you.
Suryaveer: And let’s be fair, how many of us actually keep our receipts with us today?
Suryaveer: I mean, especially when we are looking at convenience or changing a car tire, you keep the warranty, but 99% of the times, you would throw that receipt right down in the moment you walked out of the store.
Suryaveer: And that was a challenge previously, I had noticed, where we would be looking out for receipts and making sure that you’re actually doing it the right way operationally.
Suryaveer: And we wanted to make sure that we kind of kill these operational challenges right from get go.
Suryaveer: So yeah, this was something that we just thought of from day one.
Paula: And I think it’s actually genius, to be honest with you, and it’s possibly one of the benefits.
Paula: I think you made the point earlier about having a whole world of programs to look at.
Paula: We’re in quite a sophisticated part of the world, actually think in many ways.
Paula: Obviously, the work you do with Comarch as well kind of gives you good insights.
Paula: And I think there’s just a lot of brands that just haven’t had the benefit of, you know, launching at a time like this, where digital receipts have already been seen in other markets, and therefore you can leapfrog straight into the latest technology.
Suryaveer: Absolutely, Paula.
Suryaveer: I mean, as you rightly said, today, innovation is one thing.
Suryaveer: But many a times, brands spend too much time innovating and then realize, do we actually need this?
Suryaveer: Sometimes it’s not bad to copy.
Suryaveer: If you’ve got 10 programs that work really well, and there are 10 features in those programs that you can get on yours from GetGo, just do it.
Paula: Absolutely.
Suryaveer: And receipts was one of them.
Suryaveer: I can tell you this, one of the biggest challenges we had was with fuel.
Suryaveer: I mean, as you know, in a fuel station, you don’t have a scanner.
Suryaveer: So how do you link a customer’s transaction to his account, to his car, and ensure that your staff doesn’t have to roam around with physical scanners to make sure the car is linked?
Suryaveer: So that’s another thing that we thought of with this whole one-time password thing where we could literally get the customer from his car to communicate the password to the attendant.
Suryaveer: So there was no physical contact.
Suryaveer: It was completely contactless, and he could earn a million points literally sitting inside his car.
Suryaveer: So that for us was a big win.
Suryaveer: It took us some time brainstorming this with Comarch and our fuel partners.
Suryaveer: But at the end of the day, I think that was one of the big wins that we were able to get.
Suryaveer: Coming out of it, yes.
Suryaveer: And as you said about digital receipts, contactless and all of it.
Suryaveer: I mean, these are things that today in the market you’re seeing across America, across Europe, a couple of programs in the region as well.
Suryaveer: What we are trying to do as a brand is obviously be innovative.
Suryaveer: That’s at the forefront of what ENOC would want as a brand itself.
Suryaveer: And we have been the first in many ways in many things in the UAE.
Suryaveer: But having said that, ensuring that the right innovation and there’s the right balance between innovation and customer need.
Suryaveer: So many a times you can have a lot of frills in the program, but are they really relevant?
Suryaveer: So a healthy balance is something I believe and I may be proven wrong, but that I feel would work for a program like ours.
Paula: Absolutely.
Paula: And I love that you mentioned about, you know, you don’t have to be the very first with everything, you know, that there’s a simplicity in looking for great ideas.
Paula: And I do so much work in fuel and convenience retail, as I think you know, and we often talk about this concept of copy with pride.
Suryaveer: Absolutely.
Paula: I think everybody should literally just kind of go, yeah, there’s superb ideas there, and we can make it our own, you know.
Suryaveer: Absolutely.
Suryaveer: If you were thinking of an idea today, trust me, there are 10 people in the world thinking of the same thing somewhere else.
Paula: Yeah.
Suryaveer: But having said that, whether that idea works, whether it works with the customers, is something that you’ve got to test, pilot and run.
Suryaveer: Now, being digital and on the app platform, that kind of allows you to do that.
Suryaveer: You are far more agile.
Suryaveer: Being back in the day when you had to test something like that, and you had physical cards, and you were printing coupons and vouchers and all of that.
Suryaveer: So, as far as looking at offers and capabilities and innovation from outside and making that your own, why not?
Suryaveer: If it works, do it.
Paula: Absolutely.
Paula: And lovely, actually.
Paula: I think I’m quite envious of you because you’ve had that blank sheet of paper and enough time to look for the ideas, to brainstorm the solutions.
Paula: And again, this region, I think, from a fuel perspective is probably quite unusual because of the attendance.
Paula: So, you know, not every market around the world, obviously, has fuel attendance that literally fuel your car for you.
Paula: So that adds, I suppose, maybe even sometimes some complexity, as much as I love it as an experience.
Suryaveer: No, you’re absolutely right, Paula.
Suryaveer: Attendance is something very prominent to, let’s say, the UAE or Asia for that matter.
Suryaveer: I mean, if you look at India, Pakistan, these are countries where you have a fuel attendant fueling your car.
Paula: We’re so lucky.
Suryaveer: Yes, we’re lucky.
Suryaveer: It’s convenient.
Suryaveer: You don’t want to get out of your car in 50 degrees heat in the summer.
Suryaveer: But having said that, that’s set up a completely new challenge for us and which was actually linking your transaction.
Suryaveer: Because back in Europe or in America, what would happen is you walk into the convenience store and pay for your purchase, ensuring that you’ve linked your loyalty card and you earn those points.
Suryaveer: That wasn’t the case in the UAE.
Suryaveer: So it was a very different challenge that we had.
Suryaveer: In fact, it was a very different challenge even for our consulting and technology partners to say, OK, you know what, this is something unique and how do we link this?
Suryaveer: We did have the option to say, can we get Emirates ID scanners or do we ask customers for information like that?
Suryaveer: We didn’t want to go down that route to start with.
Suryaveer: And we wanted to find a different solution.
Suryaveer: So here we are.
Paula: And along the way then, I guess, yes, loads of learnings.
Paula: Anything you would have done differently, Sury, if you were to go back two years, three years, how are you feeling about all the decisions along the way?
Suryaveer: I guess a lot of it has got to do with the technology that you have.
Suryaveer: You know, many a times there’s a wish list of things that you can say that we would have done differently.
Suryaveer: But having said that, in reality, there are challenges that you have with the tech you work with and the tech you’re getting.
Suryaveer: And it will never be 100% fit every time.
Suryaveer: And it’s not going to happen.
Suryaveer: So you’ve got to accept that.
Suryaveer: You’ve got to kind of move forward the best you can with what you have.
Suryaveer: But having said that, keeping it simple is important.
Suryaveer: Because as loyalty managers and practitioners, we tend to fall in love with the product that we’re building.
Suryaveer: And that can be dangerous.
Suryaveer: Because you get carried away with ourselves.
Suryaveer: Absolutely.
Suryaveer: You get carried away with design.
Suryaveer: You get carried away with the way you want to structure an offer.
Suryaveer: And that you think that you understand or customers will accept.
Suryaveer: But at the same time, you need to ensure that you are in the minds of customers all the time and keeping it simple.
Suryaveer: So that it is not a challenge for them to say, hey, I’ve got this offer and how do I use it?
Suryaveer: Or what does it mean?
Suryaveer: Right.
Suryaveer: So if you mean back in the day, the simplest programs, like your stamp cards, worked well.
Paula: Everybody gets it.
Suryaveer: Everybody gets it.
Suryaveer: You had the biggest programs globally running them.
Suryaveer: And loyalty was literally built off that.
Suryaveer: So today, when everybody’s talking about loyalty as this next big thing and customer data and all of it, the factor of the matter is loyalty is earned, it’s not bought.
Suryaveer: And you’ve got to let your customers love your brands first and foremost.
Suryaveer: And only after that can you actually expect them to come back to you and whatever you give them is more a thank you for coming and shopping with you.
Suryaveer: And so that’s something we at ENOC believe.
Suryaveer: We are lucky to have our members and the fact that they keep coming back to us.
Suryaveer: Hopefully, we are doing something right.
Suryaveer: And we’ll continue to evolve to make sure that they do accept us as a brand of choice.
Suryaveer: And not because we are giving them a next number of points.
Suryaveer: But it’s the holistic experience that we’re talking about.
Paula: And you made the point as well, Sury, which is around being intentionally generous.
Paula: And I think that’s a really nice way to really have that kind of customer focus.
Paula: Because genuinely in my experience, two or three years after intending to launch a program, sometimes that intention is lost by the time it launches, despite everybody’s best intentions.
Paula: So to have that level of, we actually really do want to reward them.
Paula: I think it’s fantastic to hear.
Suryaveer: Absolutely, Paula, and as you said, many times when we get into building such programs, we start with the customer in mind, and slowly you start looking at the financials, and you look at other trade-offs.
Suryaveer: And what happens down the line is you’ve forgotten why you started out.
Suryaveer: That was something we did not do at all.
Suryaveer: The customer was at the center of the program.
Suryaveer: Our CEO has said it.
Suryaveer: Customer centricity was key to us.
Suryaveer: And we didn’t want to lose focus of that.
Suryaveer: Because the moment you do that, then in your mind you’ve built a very commercially viable program.
Suryaveer: But the reason why you exist isn’t valid anymore.
Suryaveer: And your customers let you know.
Paula: Of course, they do.
Suryaveer: Exactly.
Suryaveer: Your customers are going to let you know.
Suryaveer: And that is feedback you don’t want where a customer is coming back saying, you know what, this is not worth it.
Suryaveer: So we want to be relevant.
Suryaveer: We want the customers to come back to us.
Suryaveer: Whether that’s a 2%, 3%, 5% fine.
Suryaveer: But having said that, we want them to keep coming back to us because we’re going somewhere else.
Suryaveer: And at the end of the day, if they spend with us, whatever that cash back value is, we will grow incrementally.
Suryaveer: We will have increased frequency.
Suryaveer: We will see an increase in ATV.
Suryaveer: And all the different parameters that loyalty practitioners talk about.
Suryaveer: That will come.
Suryaveer: But first and foremost, it’s important that you do it right.
Suryaveer: Give back to your members.
Paula: Absolutely.
Paula: And important that it comes from the CEO, Sury, because I think you’re right.
Paula: Everybody starts off well-intentioned.
Paula: Nobody sets out to have a program that’s either confusing or not of value.
Paula: And I think particularly in your industry, it’s often seen as a grudge purchase.
Paula: People just kind of feel, oh, fuel.
Paula: It’s just not as fun as something as airline loyalty, for example.
Paula: So I think when you’ve got that direction at the C-suite, it totally changes the game.
Suryaveer: You’re right, Paula.
Suryaveer: We’re an oil and gas company.
Suryaveer: At the end of the day, you don’t go to a fuel field the way you would walk into a mall.
Suryaveer: This is something you do because you have to do.
Suryaveer: And you cannot compare us to an airline program or let’s say a luxury retail program.
Suryaveer: Having said that, it is very, very important for us to ensure that we are able to drive that level of enthusiasm in our members.
Suryaveer: And as the C-suite, again, is very focused on customer centricity, it’s important that we kind of go back to the whole conversation of saying, is it just ENOC?
Suryaveer: We’re also looking at third parties.
Suryaveer: We’re also looking at other benefits.
Suryaveer: And our tagline says it very well.
Suryaveer: Saying, say yes to more every day.
Suryaveer: And this was a very positive message that went out from the program and was internally built, in fact.
Suryaveer: That’s a little inside scoop as to how this came.
Suryaveer: And I think, I mean, from a program perspective, this is where we want to be.
Suryaveer: We want to change that perception of convenience, grocery, fuel and, you know, car wash.
Suryaveer: So it’s not just about, you know, a mundane chore that you have to do.
Suryaveer: But having said that, you get rewarded for something exciting at the end.
Suryaveer: So like winning a car or, you know, you could be winning a trip somewhere or a holiday and things like that.
Suryaveer: So we’re trying to blur that gap between a mundane oil and gas fuel loyalty, functional loyalty program or a transactional loyalty program and make it experiential.
Suryaveer: We want to stand for something.
Suryaveer: And that is the way we’re going to go forward.
Suryaveer: Charities, for that matter, is very, very important.
Paula: Of course.
Paula: Yeah.
Suryaveer: Lovely.
Suryaveer: We are a Dubai government entity, and that is at the core of what we do.
Suryaveer: So, you know, it’s again, a more humane side of things that we want to touch upon as well and give our customers the option to donate to charity.
Suryaveer: And we’ve got a couple of charity partners.
Suryaveer: And so that is another thing, especially during the months of Ramadan and during Eid and all of that.
Suryaveer: You will actually see all of that coming to life as well.
Suryaveer: Sure.
Paula: And I was going to actually ask you about that, Sury, because again, listeners will know we’ve often talked about the cultural diversity of particularly this country and this city.
Paula: So, yes, the GCC, you know, every country has its own, you know, subtleties in terms of how it operates.
Paula: But Dubai has to be the most cosmopolitan city in the world, I genuinely believe.
Paula: So it must be quite challenging, I suppose, like, you know, in your role, to develop something that everyone’s going to understand in exactly the same way.
Suryaveer: You’re right, Paula.
Suryaveer: Now, again, we’ve got over, what, 90 nationalities, if I’m correct.
Paula: Yeah, yeah.
Suryaveer: I mean, and that number’s up and down, maybe.
Suryaveer: But yeah, we’re talking 90 nationalities, and it’s not easy to please everyone.
Suryaveer: So, yes, this was a challenge.
Suryaveer: You know, how do you reach out to everyone?
Suryaveer: And again, you know, our program is right across segments.
Suryaveer: So right from, you know, the taxis and the fleets, and up to, you know, your high-value segments of customers who probably may be driving a Ferrari or a Bentley.
Suryaveer: So we wanted to mean something for everyone.
Paula: Yeah.
Suryaveer: And it was one of the hardest things, if I can be honest.
Suryaveer: But we’re trying to bridge that gap with a bit of experiential and transactional part of the program.
Suryaveer: So, you know, we’re looking at cashbacks and rewards for segments who actually are looking at saving that little money that they’re spending on fuel or in the grocery stores.
Paula: Yeah.
Suryaveer: On the other side, you know, you’ve got hotel nights and things like that that you can get at discounts being a member.
Suryaveer: Which would cater to a different customer set.
Suryaveer: With this program, I mean, we’re looking at millions of members in the future.
Paula: Yeah, of course.
Suryaveer: And it will be considerably hard to try and please everyone.
Suryaveer: So let’s see how that goes.
Suryaveer: I mean, we may have different versions of it or do we, you know, set out on, you know, different products, be different partnerships with banks and hotels and airlines.
Suryaveer: But yes, we will have to kind of find the right balance between, you know, being a mass program for everyone.
Paula: Sure.
Suryaveer: With also being a very experiential program.
Suryaveer: And I know when I’m saying experiential, it’s a little hard to be experiential in this part of, in this side of the business, especially when we’re talking about convenience and grocery.
Suryaveer: But at the same time, there are ways you can do that.
Suryaveer: You know, it’s about delivering your grocery to your car, you know, digitizing your entire experience when you come to our fuel stations, you know, looking at vouchers for you on your phone when you want to wash your car, you know, upgrading your car wash if you’re a loyalty member, or maybe even getting something for free when you know it could be surprise and delight.
Suryaveer: So we’ve done that, in fact, as part of the launch.
Suryaveer: And getting customers and members to actually try some of our brands for the first time.
Suryaveer: So that’s another huge part of what we want to do as a program, is to get our members who regularly fuel with us, to try some of our other brands.
Paula: Brilliant, yeah.
Suryaveer: We’ve had some good feedback.
Paula: And again, I think that’s a really clever one.
Paula: There’s not many loyalty programs that I hear about that are actually incentivizing the crossover.
Paula: I must look up, I wrote an article recently, and it was about a restaurant brand, and it had exactly that idea.
Paula: It wasn’t a different company, it was just a different menu item.
Paula: And you got bonus points for trying something and eating something you’ve never tried before.
Paula: And I think, again, when I go to a restaurant, I have my favorite burger or I have my favorite whatever, so maybe I’m missing half the menu.
Paula: So I think there’s genius in that and going, okay, maybe you refuel with ENOC, but maybe I haven’t done my car servicing there, for example.
Paula: So just that cross-sell piece, I think you can actively incentivize.
Suryaveer: Absolutely, Paula, you’re right.
Suryaveer: And many of us, especially since you mentioned restaurants, we are very safe with what we want to do.
Suryaveer: And let’s say, be it fast food.
Suryaveer: You know the burger that you like, you know the shake that you like, or the pizza that you like.
Suryaveer: And you say, this is good here, and I’m going to just get that.
Suryaveer: But if there are new products on the menu that you’ve never tried, it’s not easy to get customers to try them.
Suryaveer: And this is another very, very good way for them to actually sample something new and try and change the behavior to say, hey, guess what?
Suryaveer: You’ve been missing out on this really great piece of chicken all this while.
Paula: And it’s a revelation.
Suryaveer: And I’ve heard that from customers.
Suryaveer: You’ll be surprised.
Suryaveer: I’ve actually heard that saying, oh, guess what?
Suryaveer: I didn’t know this was an ENOC brand, and the burger is really good.
Suryaveer: So it’s very positive when you hear something like this and saying, you know what?
Suryaveer: I think we’re in the right direction.
Suryaveer: And a lot of test and learn and a lot of data is good.
Suryaveer: I mean, when we’ve got enough and more data to build insights around this, I think that’s when we’ll be able to prove it.
Suryaveer: Absolutely.
Paula: Absolutely.
Paula: And I did see some interesting insights as well recently just around, I suppose, just the consumption of fuel.
Paula: So I think in this country, it’s fair to say that the cars often tend to be bigger.
Paula: There is even a passion for driving around.
Paula: You know, and that’s a pastime that you do see in this country.
Suryaveer: UAE loves their cars.
Paula: They totally do.
Paula: So the opportunity is there for you to establish that level of connection.
Suryaveer: UAE loves their cars.
Suryaveer: Absolutely.
Suryaveer: I mean, where else would you see the kind of cars you see here?
Suryaveer: But again, having said that, fuel consumption, I mean, 2020 has not been ideal.
Paula: So absolutely not.
Suryaveer: 2021, we would see numbers going up, fingers crossed.
Suryaveer: I mean, we’ve already seen it in the month of Chan.
Suryaveer: The numbers are looking pretty, pretty good.
Suryaveer: But there is a huge crossover from hybrids and electric cars, right?
Suryaveer: And which is a good thing for the planet.
Suryaveer: But having said that, we want to ensure that we continue to retain some of our fuel customers.
Suryaveer: And loyalty helps that, I mean, to be fair.
Suryaveer: There are very passionate car drivers here with your V8s and your SUVs and all of that.
Suryaveer: So yes, fuel consumption is pretty high.
Suryaveer: And again, the idea for us is to have this hardy set of customers and then look at how we can actually get them to try cross brand and increase revenues there as well.
Suryaveer: So, I mean, I wouldn’t be able to remember the top of my head as to what the exact cross shop number is right now.
Suryaveer: But even a 5% change would be huge.
Paula: Absolutely.
Paula: Yeah, yeah, no, it is.
Paula: It’s all to be done.
Paula: You know, the opportunity is there.
Paula: But that’s it from my side, Sury.
Paula: Is there anything else you want to mention from a Yes Rewards perspective?
Suryaveer: I think that’s a lot from my side right now, Paula.
Suryaveer: And we’re looking for a positive 2021.
Suryaveer: I think that 2021 should be one of the key to us for the Yes program.
Suryaveer: And it will be a very defining year with the Expo and all of that, all of what’s happening in the UAE.
Suryaveer: So fingers crossed.
Paula: Wonderful.
Paula: So that’s it from Suryaveer Singh, Head of Loyalty at ENOC.
Paula: Thank you so much from Let’s Talk Loyalty.
Paula: This show is sponsored by The Wise Marketer, the world’s most popular source of loyalty marketing news, insights and research.
Paula: The Wise Marketer also offers loyalty marketing training through its Loyalty Academy, which has already certified over 170 executives in 20 countries as certified loyalty marketing professionals.
Paula: For more information, check out thewisemarketer.com and loyaltyacademy.org.
Paula: Thanks so much for listening to this episode of Let’s Talk Loyalty.
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