Insights from the Australian Loyalty Association Conference
At the recent Australian Loyalty Association conference, our CEO and Founder Dana Teahan was asked about the future of loyalty programs in Australia, the biggest myths in loyalty and where brands are wasting their loyalty investments.
Watch the video for Dana’s full thoughts on building loyalty programs that work, or read the recap.
Myth: the program creates the loyalty
Dana says the biggest myth in loyalty is that a program creates loyalty on its own. In his view, customers become loyal because of their whole experience with a brand. The program is the icing on the cake. A points scheme can’t make up for a poor experience, but it can reward and strengthen a good one.
The real waste: not measuring
Asked where brands are wasting their loyalty investment, Dana pointed to measurement. Many brands don’t track properly what their program does to change customer behaviour. Without that, they can’t tell which parts of the program are working and which are costing money for no return. As Dana put it, many programs don’t know where they’re wasting money because they don’t measure as well as they should.
Loyalty in 2030: AI does the heavy lifting
Looking ahead, Dana hopes that by 2030 loyalty programs will be supported by AI that takes care of the low-value, repetitive work. That would let loyalty teams focus on what matters most: customer benefits, customer experience and better outcomes for customers. AI would handle the “how”, and people would focus on the “why”.
Thanks to Azadeh Williams and AZK Media for the interview and for sharing the video.