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The Stakeholder Game: Finding Allies & Advocates
3 Plays9 months ago
The Loyalty Lounge Powered by Annex Cloud Presents CX Anonymous: The Stakeholder Game: Finding Allies & Advocates. Creating trust when executing cross functional projects, especially for loyalty, doesn't start when you need something from a stakeholder. Michelle Brigman joins the hosts to discuss "hitting singles" for stakeholders and building buy-in one person at a time.
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Welcome
00:00:10
Speaker
Get Personal with Loyalty, where we're discussing using loyalty to deliver personalized, relevant customer experiences. Hello, everybody, and welcome to the next episode of Get Personal with Loyalty. I'm your host, Erin Reese, and today I'm here with Kelsey Jones, the global head of product marketing at Amarsus. Welcome, Kelsey.
00:00:31
Speaker
Hi, Erin. It's great to be here. Thanks for having me. I'm so excited to have you today. For our listeners, we have a surprise for you. Marsis has some new research that we're going to delve into, so I'm really excited to get into that. But beforehand, I would love to, Kelsey, have you introduce yourself, get to know you a little bit about Marsis as well and why you're covering loyalty.
Role and Strategy at Amarsus
00:00:54
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely.
00:00:55
Speaker
So hi, everybody. My name is Kelsey Jones, as Erin mentioned. So I had our product marketing organization. And what that really means is I sit really in the center of the marketing and our product and our customer teams to really make sure what we're building is what we're putting into market and what our sales teams are able to sell, why that's really important. And we think about that through the lens of Adam Arsis. We are really focused on delivering the best in class omni-channel customer engagement platform.
00:01:22
Speaker
What the heck does that mean? But it really is about how do we connect and how do we help brands really connect with their customers on an individual level? How are they able to personalize those communications and really engage with them in a way that is one, meaningful, but is two, is driving revenue for their business?
00:01:41
Speaker
And I think as we talk about loyalty and as we're partnering with Anna Cloud and Erin and her amazing team, loyalty is at the center of everything we do, right? And so loyalty really stands upon kind of the data that you have available to drive all those meaningful conversations and communications in order to build.
00:01:59
Speaker
customer loyalty. And when you have customer loyalty, or that helps with retention, it drives revenue, and you're able to keep those customers coming back time and time
Consumer Loyalty Index Report Overview
00:02:08
Speaker
again. So when we talk about kind of the consumer loyalty index report today, it really stems on having the right data at your fingertips. But then what do you do with that data? How do you activate it to make it the most meaningful that you can to really drive revenue for your business?
00:02:24
Speaker
Wow, there's a lot that you said there, but it's near and dear to my heart. We started this podcast and said get personal loyalty because we are all on this quest to deliver more personalized experiences and it's so much easier said than done.
00:02:41
Speaker
So being able to talk to somebody like you representing Amarsus and a technology that really does help connect all those dots. On the loyalty side, we always talk about, okay, the data that's being collected, but then you need to be able to action on it. And that's really where you guys come in and allow your customers to really get at that data, use it in really meaningful ways.
Personalizing Omni-Channel Strategies
00:03:05
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And I think to your point,
00:03:08
Speaker
How do we unlock that data? And to your point, it's a lot easier to say than it is to do. And we still today talk to our customers about crawl, walk, run. Because when you say the word omni-channel, everybody's heads explode, right? And they think, well, what does that mean? Like, where do I start? What am I looking at? And the answer, right, is,
00:03:26
Speaker
It depends. It depends like what is most meaningful for your business. What channels do you start with? When you determine the channels and content, that's going to help you understand what data that you need to drive those conversations. And I think that's where, as we talk to different brands that we're working with today is, okay, the end game probably is loyalty, but you have to start with that in mind by putting the customer at the center to really put together the strategy that it's going to take to build customer loyalty over time.
00:03:52
Speaker
I love that. And so as you're doing that, and as you're coaching people, where do you have them start?
Integrating Communication Channels
00:04:00
Speaker
Yeah, I think everybody still kind of says, you know, email is is lion's share of revenue, right? I think that that's not going anywhere. I mean, we're even looking at the holiday season now.
00:04:11
Speaker
Email volume sends are still up right year over year. People are still sending email. They're driving engagement through email. But I think what we're really starting to see now is email plus what? Email segmentation plus what channel is next.
00:04:28
Speaker
We're starting to see his web had a huge increase this year as well as SMS, we saw volumes go up incredibly nearly 35% year over year volume sense. And we're starting to see that connection of omni channel really come into play, you know, especially when there's timely discount or an offer that needs to be made.
00:04:48
Speaker
We can dive into some of the stats here in the report here in a minute that we'll talk about deals and incentivize loyalty and all of that. But I think what we're seeing is start with the channels that make the most sense for your brand. Obviously, we see a lot of people starting with email, then moving to web. How do they connect those? Thinking about abandoned carts and things like that. But then how do you then extend to mobile? You don't have to have an app today, have a really great mobile experience.
00:05:15
Speaker
But if you do, how are you then connecting kind of those mobile channels into what exists today? I think that's what can be a little challenging is let's make what we have today work really well and then figure out what are added channels that we move to next that are going to make that experience even on those other channels even better. So they're better together, if you will.
Evolution of Consumer Loyalty
00:05:37
Speaker
Yeah, it's super interesting. And one of the things that the loyalty space we talked about, we've been talking about for a long time is
00:05:45
Speaker
be where your customer wants you to be, when they want you to be there with the appropriate message. When I was back at loyalty 360, we coined a phrase called expectation matching. And like, how do you match that expectation with those consumers? And we were talking about that, I think it's back in like 2010, 2011, and you now are finally to a place where the technology can really help us deliver on that. And I think that plays right into what you're talking about as well.
00:06:14
Speaker
So it's super interesting. All right. Well, we've talked around this a lot already. The customer loyalty index. This is this is the third year that you guys did this. Do you want to give us a little background on the report and why you started it and what you're trying to accomplish or find?
Five Types of Customer Loyalty
00:06:30
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, the nuance and the discussion around loyalty is not new. Right.
00:06:37
Speaker
the changes in loyalty and how customers are loyal has evolved tremendously. And so that's really the premise of why we really wanted to understand what are those changes and how do consumers think about loyalty? So we've been doing, this is our third year of the customer loyalty index. We looked at this specifically at consumers. So we don't go to brands first, right? We go to the consumer. We're all consumers of something, which makes it easier for us to understand.
00:07:05
Speaker
do research with about 10,000 different consumers and we really try to understand what types of loyalty are there. There are five types.
00:07:13
Speaker
of loyalty and we can talk through each of those, but then what are the most meaningful ones for you and your business and the consumer? So I think what we look at and why we really use this as really our guiding light of understanding is if you know that your loyal customers are going to be driving the most revenue for your business, well, you need to know what they're going to be loyal about or how do they become loyal.
00:07:36
Speaker
And what does it take, right? From a technology perspective, like you said, you're having so many advances in technology and where we're at and where it's going that the pieces to the puzzle are there. But if we don't understand how consumers are reacting and behaving and building loyalty, we're not going to know how to set up our technology and our strategies as a brand to make that most effective. So the goal of this research is really to bridge that gap.
00:08:00
Speaker
let's know and understand the consumer so that brands can really understand how they need to develop those customer engagement and loyalty strategies that are going to make the most impact to the business. Super interesting. When I read through the report and read about your five types of loyalty, and having been in the space for a very long time, I've never seen them categorized like that. Would you take us through it? What are the five types and how do you identify
Exploring Types of Loyalty
00:08:29
Speaker
them?
00:08:29
Speaker
Yes, it's a great question. Like what are those different types of customer loyalty? Because to your point, we can classify them a few different ways, but the first type is ethical loyalty. So think about kind of being founded on strong emotional connection and a shared value, if you will.
00:08:47
Speaker
Then the second one is really around inherited loyalty. So built through association with particular brands. Oh, I know I really love the Wella brand of companies. They own OPI and GHD. I'm going to love the different brands that they support. Silent loyalty is the third. So this one is really about developing kind of without a public advocacy or an endorsement. I think
00:09:12
Speaker
This one particular for me, I think of like the blush i've been using probably since maybe high school i've never changed the makeup blush that i've used get it every year I don't think about it it's the same. The makeup brand that I use some people say the same thing with different types of appliances that they need me use they go back to that brand over and over again.
00:09:32
Speaker
The fourth type, which is the interesting one that I want to dive into a little bit today, is incentivized loyalty. When we think about discounts, incentives, rewards, points, those types of things being incentivized, especially as we're going through the holiday season, I think this one's really interesting to dive into. Then the fifth one, which I think is super interesting and really, as we've been talking about today,
00:09:56
Speaker
omni-channel, personalization, how does that all come together to create a true loyalty customer? The fifth one is true loyalty. That is that unshakable loyalty that's built through a brand connection or you love a brand based on the experiences that you have with them. Ethical loyalty, inherited loyalty, silent loyalty,
00:10:18
Speaker
incentivized loyalty and true loyalty are the five types of loyalty that we really break down inside of its consumer loyalty index report. I love it. And as you were going through it, there are certain pieces that
00:10:32
Speaker
that we certainly have talked about. And I'm not sure that given all the data, I would have ever come up with these five silent to me. I always talk about habitual purchases and do you want a habitual customer or do you want an emotional customer? And I think habitual really falls into your silent. I think emotional falls into true loyalty. And then they're inherited, I think is really interesting too. And I was reading about it
00:10:57
Speaker
Like, well, if I'm shopping at Neiman Marcus and I'm buying Veronica Beard clothes, I'm loyal to Veronica Beard. Maybe not Neiman Marcus. I just go there because the store is close to my house. Is that kind of how it? Yeah, that's exactly right. And I think too, like you said, some of these can fall into the other.
00:11:16
Speaker
I think what we've seen too is loyalty as a whole and kind of what does that mean for a marketer or for a brand. And what we see through all of these different types is we do look kind of year over year and compare these five different types. But loyalty as a whole to certain brands, it's plummeted.
00:11:34
Speaker
Right? We think about, you know, coming off of, you know, 2020, 2021, 2022, loyalty has really taken a downturn. And what we've seen is that that true loyalty, well, it's gone down a little bit. It actually lasts longer. So when we talked about, you know, driving revenue for a brand or really creating that kind of
00:11:54
Speaker
emotional or that love of a brand, that true loyalty is really what's going through the chops and really making it to help brands retain some of those key customers, which I thought was really interesting.
00:12:06
Speaker
I agree. And it's certainly something that
Effectiveness of Incentivized Loyalty
00:12:08
Speaker
we're always talking about. I know that you wanted to talk about the incentivized loyalty component. And I think I suspect what you would like to cover on that topic kind of feeds into the true loyalty or it's maybe opposite of the true loyalty and how do they play together or do they play opposite? What's happening? Yeah. Yeah.
00:12:31
Speaker
So I think what we're really seeing is, you know, incentivized loyalty has plummeted, which is interesting because, you know, you think about kind of the different economic turbulence that we've had over the last couple of years and the economic uncertainty as we move through the holidays here is that incentivized loyalty is on the decline.
00:12:51
Speaker
But what it's telling us is that that true loyalty is really important. So if you're not looking at the long game of what a customer and how a customer is engaging with you, you're going to miss out. So while you can get someone in the door as a new customer by having that first discount or whatever it may be,
00:13:08
Speaker
In order to get them to true loyalty and understand if they're going to be coming back to your brand over and over again, you're going to have to focus on that omni-channel experience. It has to be personalized. It has to be catered. And it has to be end-to-end. And I think what's really unique that we're seeing with this study is that
00:13:30
Speaker
We may think that customers may just jump to the best deal because of the economic times that we're in now, but in the long run, they really want the experience that's going to have that emotional connection. That's going to build them and bring them coming back over and over again. So I think that's kind of the interesting, it's kind of, we say one thing around incentivize that's declining, but what it's telling us is that it's becoming more important than ever.
Consumer Empowerment and Expectations
00:13:56
Speaker
that brands are thinking about how they're delivering kind of personalized communications on the channels that customers want to be communicated with as you were talking about earlier. Yeah. You were talking to one of the things I was thinking could be a hypothesis on all this. It's been talking again for a number of years about how people's time is a currency.
00:14:17
Speaker
We're all running around so much and doing so many different things that are shopping experiences of all kinds, whether it's grocery or home appliances or clothing, whatever it is. Some of it we may enjoy and some of it may be an outing, but a lot of it is like, I just have to do it. Right. And so what can, what could a brand do to make my life easier?
00:14:40
Speaker
And that relates back to personalization. They keep my life easier if they're not understanding who I am and what my needs are. And if they can do that, I'm going to definitely bond there because I have 15 bazillion other things that I need to get to, and I don't have time to think about it. And if you do that thinking for me, I'm there. And if you want to throw in,
00:15:02
Speaker
it at a discount or some kind of value, which I'd like to get into that too, because it's incentivizing mean discount or can it mean added value? And it's just going to make me happier. Yeah. And I think that's what's so fascinating that this report is telling us is consumers have been in, they're empowered, right? They're the ones in charge. I think that that has not changed. If anything, to your point,
00:15:25
Speaker
they expect more out of brands than they ever have before. 45% of shoppers, I believe it is, is saying that they expect those offers in exchange for their loyalty to the brand. To your point, my time is money. My personalized offer is what's going to help me be loyal to that brand because they make it easy and I'm going to come back to them after the sale finishes. Is there something else I can buy or
00:15:50
Speaker
what is that experience like? And I think you said something really interesting in there where it's not just about the slashing of the prices. I think as retailers think about that, you don't want to fall into that whole of, oh, we'll have to offer a discount. That's the only thing that's going to get a new customer in. It's what is the value exchange? If I'm giving you my email or my phone number, especially my phone number, it's more personal to me.
00:16:18
Speaker
What am I getting in return that's going to make me understand, know, really engage with your brand, right? If that value exchange, which I think is a really interesting thing to look at kind of based on all the data that inputs that come in that you're engaging with different customers with.
00:16:36
Speaker
And I think that that really key you hit the nail on the head there as well. I think as marketers are diving into this and looking at it segmentation is really key because there's some customers that are going to be more discount driven.
00:16:49
Speaker
there's going to be some customers that are going to be more value ad driven. There's going to be some customers that just say, make my life easier, serve it up to me. I don't care what the price is. And being able to really understand who those different cohorts are and then marketing that way versus just blanketing particular approach to everybody.
00:17:09
Speaker
I think that's two, back to the premise of the loyalty index, looking at five different types of loyalty. Everybody is loyal in their own different and unique way. It doesn't necessarily one is better than the other. It may be to certain brands versus another. We think about this rapidly changing environment that we're in, consumer landscape really that we're in, and that brand loyalty, it's become a more fluid concept.
00:17:36
Speaker
It's being influenced by cost considerations. Different types of loyalty may look different for different brands. While a customer's likelihood of demonstrating loyalty has decreased, the requirements for a brand or for a retailer has to meet.
00:17:54
Speaker
The need to really secure that loyalty, it's really gone up, right? We have to invest more in really understanding the consumer. To your point, knowing that time is valuable, how do we make it easier?
Brand Responses to Consumer Needs
00:18:05
Speaker
That's what's gonna drive the engagement over and over again with that consumer.
00:18:12
Speaker
100%. So as you're looking at the results of this research, did you have any moments? Was there any thing in the findings that you, I guess maybe good or I'm gonna say bad, but maybe shocked or something? Like, did you have just a surprise moment? And if so, what was it about? Yeah, so we touched a little bit on kind of the decline in incentivized loyalty, which I thought that was super interesting.
00:18:38
Speaker
But what it really means for those retailers, what can retailers do to keep those customers and to increase that stickiness, I thought was interesting. We know that we have to go as retailers and brands think, go beyond discounts, just like we were talking about a minute ago, establishing that genuine connection, I thought was really interesting. Even as we look at some of the stats that we're seeing now and some of the data,
00:19:04
Speaker
brands are listening. They are increasing their segmentation. And that's what consumers are looking for. And how that plays out differently in loyalty is what's really interesting. And I even think that rise in personalization, we've seen about 20% of consumers have become more loyal to brands that are offering personalization. I don't think that's a surprise.
00:19:28
Speaker
But I think what the heartwarming thing is, is that brands are listening and they're doing something about it, where before it may just been, oh yeah, we hear what the customer wants, but how do we get it done? It kind of goes back to having the solutions in place that are going to allow you to make that possible, because it will make an impact, not just for you and your brand, but also for the end consumer to receive that kind of best value that they can get from their brand. So I think it's a little bit of twofold.
00:19:57
Speaker
a little bit of understanding, but then also retailers and brands are doing something about it, which I think is great. Yeah. As you were chatting there, talking about this personalized experiences, I started thinking, remember having a conversation with Brendan Witcher over at Forrester a while ago. And one of the things he
Case Study: Saks Fifth Avenue
00:20:14
Speaker
was saying is really strong personalization you may not even realize you're getting because things are just being served up to you in a really amazing way.
00:20:24
Speaker
really relevant and that got me to think about the the event that you guys had in New York and you also had it in London and was it called again power to the marketer.
00:20:36
Speaker
Yeah, the Power to Marketer Festival. And there was the CMO from Saks Fifth Avenue was speaking at the one in New York, and she was talking about when I get this wrong, but she said something like they collect 290 different data points on customers. And to my knowledge, they don't have a formal loyalty program. So I was really amazed by that. Like, how are you? How do you know it's me versus Kelsey, especially in from an omni channel perspective, if I'm hitting you different places, how are you collecting my data?
00:21:06
Speaker
by a conversation for another day but so fascinating that they're collecting this amount of data. I have stumbled into being more of a customer of theirs.
00:21:16
Speaker
because I found that they always have inventory and different brands, and so I'm becoming a great fan. And watching the emails that I'm getting, and they truly are personalized, they are watching the things that I click on. They'll serve up a handful of brands. I'll click on one or two. I get more detail, and they're drilling in on those for me. When there's new items or new offers or what have you, those are in my inbox.
00:21:41
Speaker
I think, frankly, they're still doing it way too much. I think I'm getting way too many emails, but they're definitely, when really looking at it, they're really doing a nice job. It's been interesting to see.
00:21:52
Speaker
Well, kind of circling back to what we talked about earlier, like, where do you start? And how do you do it? Well, it's one, it's start somewhere to your point, you're getting all those data points, but what are you doing about them? So starting to see it, and I love the point you made around, like, good personalization, you don't even know it's happening. But you would know if it's not. When I still just get high, Kelsey, and that's the only personalization of the email. I mean, I know I'm a marketer, marketing
00:22:18
Speaker
marketing software, but I'm like, oh, like, there's so much you have there, like, to give me to serve up, you know, the right jacket or the right color, you know, so much about or I thought you did. Why isn't why can't you deliver on that experience? So it's funny, you'll know if you're not getting personalized communication, that's for sure. Yeah.
00:22:38
Speaker
Another nuance with your report that you don't always see is you guys went global.
Global Loyalty Trends
00:22:44
Speaker
I know Morris is obviously is a global company. You're working with a lot of global clients. So I shouldn't have been surprised, but it was pleasant surprise. Oh, okay, cool. What are people? How are their behaviors or their perception of loyalty different by region? Did you guys, do you see some different things coming out that way?
00:23:03
Speaker
Yeah I think overall the higher level trends were similar they may have been more in a different region for a different type of loyalty than others but we looked at all this research like I said we did about ten thousand consumers that we interviewed for this.
00:23:18
Speaker
general consumers about loyalty from we really looked out, you know, we wanted to find out how from a consumer's perspective that marketers are driving that and what was being delivered. So we looked at Germany, Australia, the UK and the US were the four key regions that we really broke down the data and information into. And I think
00:23:37
Speaker
overarching. Like I said, what we saw was that loyalty overall was going down. But some of the nuances that we saw were around the incentivized loyalty and the inherited loyalty. I need to go back in and look at the individual stats by region.
00:23:51
Speaker
but it was interesting to see kind of overarching, very similar trends. However, we look at loyalty in Australia, very different than what we see in the US, particularly on different channels, which I thought was interesting. So from a mobile perspective, we're seeing a lot more loyalty and different programs in general that consumers are running. We saw a lot of differences around kind of the, in the Australia and the APAC region, which I thought was interesting versus the United States, right?
00:24:21
Speaker
You don't see as much mobile, but we're starting to teeter that way. So you can start to see the trends start to move that way across different channels and different types of loyalty that we are seeing. Now that seems like that's been a stat for a while that APAC tends to be more mobile driven for a variety of reasons. But even in my day to day, we seem to be having more and more conversations with folks in those areas.
00:24:47
Speaker
and making sure they have an app. And I think to a point you made earlier, a mobile experience doesn't have to be app. And I'm a huge proponent for that. I think just because I personally find apps to be cluttering, but some regions, everybody's looking for the app and they're happy to add it and they're happy to use it. And I think it is a,
00:25:11
Speaker
as marketers marketing globally, we really need to be cognizant of that. Yeah, I think that's actually the exact point to this.
00:25:20
Speaker
we're trying to make as a marketer, especially if you're global, you can't be marketing to these, and it might be, you know, silly to say, but you can't market to each of these different regions in the same way. You can't build loyalty programs the same way in APAC that you do in the UK. There are different nuances and trends. Can you look at it kind of holistically and say, oh, generally we want to do these things? Yes. We want to, you know, deliver on these channels. Yes.
00:25:46
Speaker
but what's the nuance that you're going to have or that you can do or that you can test the boundaries in different regions with different consumers to see what's going to work and what's not going to work. I think it's an interesting way to kind of look at that consumer data and then really understand how can I weak my different campaigns in the regions to really make them benefit the most based on where I'm at. I think that that's really,
00:26:09
Speaker
Great point.
Adapting to Regional Differences
00:26:11
Speaker
And as we globally look at different initiatives, you really need you can look at an initiative from a global perspective, but it's super important to have that local lens on it. And that's another thing that we talk about a lot. We have some enhancements that we've made to our technology where you can
00:26:28
Speaker
can replicate the structure from one region to another, but then allow that local marketing team to do their own campaigns and do some of their own segmentation, et cetera, to be able to address their offer difficulty benefits that might be more relevant in their region versus somewhere else. I think it's one of those things that are certainly important to do, and I think your technology allows
00:26:53
Speaker
people to get really nuanced by region as well. And the annex cloud, a Marxist combo can certainly help them giving us a bit of a plug. But doing that because I think it's important for brands to know that it doesn't have to be one size fits all and that there are technologies out there now that can allow you to do simple configurations as well. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's exactly as we were talking about earlier. Start somewhere, there are technologies in the space
00:27:20
Speaker
to make your life easier and to help you deliver on what, again, customers are expecting. I mean, we talked about that value exchange for customers. Well, you can do that with some of the data points that you have or that you're pushing in and you're communicating on different channels. It's finding the right solutions that can make it
00:27:36
Speaker
easy to do that, but then also scale with your business, right? You have to start somewhere, but you need solutions that are also going to scale as you build and you grow and your business grows, or you change and you evolve and you look at different strategies. So I think the adaptability of that and understanding and making sure the solutions that you're looking at also understand those different nuances and can adapt with you over time, I think is super important as you're looking at different solutions as well.
00:28:05
Speaker
Thank you for that. This has been wonderful. I've learned a lot. The research is terrific. It's really great to see it come out and think, well, there's some aha moments. I think a lot of it is just reinforcing what a lot of us know and believe, and I think can really help us as we're trying to go out there and make changes to our initiatives and give us some foundational data to be able to go back to management with and say, oh yeah, so we need to move from
00:28:32
Speaker
this kind of strategy over to something that's more personal and more meaningful. And so it's great to have research to back up what so many people want to do. Any other topics about the research that maybe you've administered that you'd like to bring up before we wrap?
00:28:49
Speaker
Yeah, I think the only last one I would really kind of hit on and harp on is kind of this. As we talked about true loyalty, right? That happens a lot across a lot of different channels and avenues and experiences, and one of the things that we did see was really looking at kind of these expectations in exchange for loyalty, but doing that across you know voucher management or even looking at that across kind of again mobile channels. We talked about not having an app,
00:29:19
Speaker
really looking at mobile wallet and how that can really enhance some of the experiences that you're having. So some of the stats were really around kind of signing up 20% of consumers have signed up or have started a different loyalty program to make sure they're getting the most out of that value. So as you're thinking about as a retailer and looking at how to extend that
00:29:40
Speaker
to the holiday season and beyond into 2024 is how are you thinking about that program that really hooks in to the different channels you want to have to drive different voucher management coupons to really build the loyalty when they walk into your store do you have
00:29:56
Speaker
you know, mobile wallet accessibility that they can access those points for or understand those different incentives. So I really think what came about that true loyalty is we can't just think digital. Yes, digital first is really, really important, but the in-person is just as impactful, right? That has to be seamless.
00:30:14
Speaker
in order to really meet the needs of the consumer to drive that end-to-end loyalty. I think connecting that online and offline bit, whether it's through your points online to redeeming those in store, I think is really important to think through from a strategy perspective.
00:30:31
Speaker
That's another fabulous point because we all see we're all that person. When we're in this store, we're looking things up. I think a lot of it started with just being able to make sure you're getting the best price. But I think now it's just a lot of times, at least when I'm doing it, is it's enhancement to my experience while in the store.
00:30:49
Speaker
being able to say, oh, what was that email? What kind of product was it that they were telling me about? Or to your point, which offer do I have sitting in my wallet and how do I make sure I'm making that connection and utilizing the value or the incentive that somebody has been giving me a very valid point. Everything is melding together and the channels of our omni-channel experience are no longer siloed. That's a big change has changed, right? Yeah. Absolutely.
00:31:18
Speaker
Wonderful. Well, any other closing thoughts? Anything else you'd like to share with the audience? No, I think this has been great. It's been a great conversation. I think we can't ever leave a conversation in our space today without talking about AI and what that means and what that looks like, especially when it comes to loyalty.
AI's Role in Personalization
00:31:37
Speaker
You talk about doing that at scale and doing that with real power. I think
00:31:41
Speaker
Also, you're really looking at an omnichannel perspective. How are you segmenting? Start somewhere to personalize, create segments, but you don't have to do that by yourself. Make sure you're leaning on AI and the power of AI and some of those capabilities, if you will, to make sure that you're using it to drive some of those efficiencies, right? We talked about adapting.
00:32:04
Speaker
Market needs and changes and customer demands are adapting all the time. Let AI do some of that heavy lift for you, whether it's from a Gen AI perspective to create different types of email campaigns or get the best subject line, but then also lean on that to help you scale, to help you grow and to evolve over time.
00:32:23
Speaker
But I think that's like I said, you can't leave a conversation today without talking about AI in some way, shape, or form. That's what I'll end with. There you go. Personalization, that's this huge big thing and then it's AI, which I think is also large and somewhat intimidating, but I think you laid it out there very well in a way that start bringing it in and start using it and you'll grow and you'll be able to see the efficiencies and do more as you go.
00:32:50
Speaker
Wonderful. Well, so Kelsey, how do people get a hold of you? How do they get a hold of the report? Yeah, absolutely.
Accessing the Report and Final Thoughts
00:32:57
Speaker
So once you get a hold of me, feel free to reach out on LinkedIn. Kelsey Jones, you can find me at SAP MRSIS. You can look up the handle. If you want to look at the report, dive into some of the nuances of the five different types of loyalty or even the different regions. We didn't dive deep into those nuances, but go in there, check it out on a Sunday read. It is on rsys.com.
00:33:18
Speaker
And you can really, really understand some of those nuances to Aaron's point earlier, if you're going to change a strategy, if you're going to adopt something, you need the data behind it to go up to your team and to your management to really understand why you're doing it, right? What's the purpose? What's the change? How are we going to make it happen? I think this report is going to give you some of those tools that you need.
00:33:37
Speaker
to help frame some of the conversation to drive true loyalty with your end consumers. Terrific. I suspect there are some people at Amarsus that would be more than happy to help you with that building of that recommendation as well. Absolutely. Well, terrific. Thanks so much, Kelsey. It was wonderful to see you and have this discussion. Thanks for having us, Erin. It was great to be here and chat with you today. Thanks for listening to this episode of Get Personal with Loyalty.
00:34:04
Speaker
Join us next time for more Loyalty Insights. Until then, dare to dream. Let Annex Cloud help make your dreams a reality. Visit annexcloud.com