Blind Loyalty Challenge with Kia Abbott
Hear Kia Abbott, Chief of Customer Value at Virgin Active Group discuss how loyalty programs drive customer satisfaction, the importance of emotional loyalty, and the impact of active member engagement. Discover why small gestures can boost loyalty and spending.
Hi there, I'm Amanda Cromhoet from Truth. Welcome to the Blind Laughty
Challenge. We interview
world experts in loyalty blindly. We're hoping to create insights, spontaneity
and a lot
of fun through the challenge. The challenge is about promoting the Blind Laught
y Trust
and my book called Blind Laughty, 101 Laughty Concepts, Radically Simplified.
All profits
from the book go towards the trust. We hope you enjoy the Blind Laughty
Challenge.
When you get the chance to chat to someone at Virgin Active, you jump at it and
I think
the word jump is something they would celebrate to keep us active. So today I'm
chatting
to Kia Abbott. She is chief of customer value, which in its own right is the
most awesome
title of Virgin Active Group. So Kia, you are tagged by Rendani Mouder from Abs
or Reward.
So you can blame him why we're sitting here today. That's funny. He is one of
our members.
He contacted me a couple of weeks ago about one of his vouchers that he needed
help using.
So I think that was maybe why we were top of mind. Well, at least he's using a
voucher. That's
the positive thing, right? Yeah, perfect. I love it. Lorty professionals
helping each other
in the industry. That's about. Okay, so I'm going to jump straight in for the
first question
in which I think is way too easy, but it's very strategic. So chapter 98 of
Blind Laughty
is all about retention. And I actually quote Virgin Active Rewards because when
I wrote
Blind Laughty, Virgin Active Rewards had just launched. So, and I've also had
the privilege
of interviewing Dean, your group CEO on Let's Talk Laughty. So I've had a bit
of insight
from his interview a few months back or even last year. So in your opinion, can
a loyalty
program really reverse churn? I think the question on churn is, you know, it
goes way
beyond what a loyalty program can do. It's around the relationship between the
member and
the business and the value that that business offers to member, you know, kind
of linking
back to my slightly odd title. And a reward program can help to make that value
more explicit
and to help link what is kind of intrinsic value back to the member. And, you
know, in our
world, the intrinsic value of our business is helping people achieve their
wellness goals,
which is something that's hard to do, right? And if we could make it easy for
people to
do that and when their alarm goes off at 5 a.m. and it's raining outside, then
they will
naturally stay on members for life. If you are meeting your goals and you're
getting
the value, then you are retained. And the reward program can just make that
link
between that intrinsic value and the behavior simpler by introducing kind of
more immediacy,
more intrinsic rewards. But if the fundamentals aren't there, there's nothing a
reward program
can do to compensate for a deficiency in value at the core of the proposition.
Oh, well, I love your answer because one of my opening chapters in blind laut
ies is about
exactly that. About a loyalty program has its role as a mechanic, but it alone
is not
customer loyalty. Absolutely. You've said it beautifully. So thank you. And you
weren't
even prompted behind the scene. So chapter 96 of blind lauties talks about
emotional loyalty.
Now you work for the most awesome brand. So a brand like Virgin or Virgin
active creates
an emotional response. So what is your own definition of emotional loyalty?
And I think for me, it's really about understanding what a member needs and
responding to those
needs and things like personalization and communication of all part of creating
that emotional
connection. But it really starts by really thinking deeply about on that
morning when one
of our members decided that this was the day that they were going to sign up
and join
Virgin active. There was a deep emotional need that prompted them to make that
decision and
to make the commitment to subscribing to this business. And we are there to try
and make
sure that that deep need is kind of manifesting in how we talk to them when
they're in our clubs,
how we communicate them with them on our digital channels and how we use things
like our
awards program to kind of reinforce that. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So my
last question
I think will be to the heart of your strengths. I mean, we've had the pleasure
of working
together for a few years, a few years back in different brands. So chapter 94
is about loyalty
KPIs and I know you're very analytical and strategic. So what do you think is
the most
impact for loyalty KPI? And honestly, my kind of holy grail for me is a brand
uplift and
measuring an event or a behavior that wouldn't have happened otherwise. And it
's the hardest
thing in the world to do because you've got to measure it against a kind of
null opposite.
And often in things like in the kind of vanity metrics, it's easy to measure
because they
are so apparent. But when you look at something like retention, you have to
assume that a member
doesn't leave. And how do you measure something that doesn't happen? And how do
you measure
something that if you hadn't intervened, it would have happened. And so really
having
some robustness in your data and your analytics around control groups and AB
testing can start
to kind of tease out questions around uplift. And as a business, that's what
you're investing
in. It's creating behavior and creating events that wouldn't have happened if
not for that
intervention. So it's not an easy thing to measure. It's not an easy thing to
put on a dash
forward. But when you really ask me if something is working, that's what I want
to know.
Yeah. And I think the number of discussions you've had in your career and the
number of
discussions I have every day with different clients is around how do you
measure that
real incremental uplift? So yeah. So we look forward to you sharing whenever
you get the
stage on Virgin Act of any of those critical little nuggets of information. So
wonderful.
Well, thanks, Keir. You've sailed through it. I can see where you've been
pulling the background
there so you can go and relax now. In the sauna or something. Tell me, who
would you
like to tag for me to interview? Unblind or to challenge?
I want to nominate Fiona Rani from T of G's. You know, I worked together
previously and
I think she'll have some really interesting insights into customer.
Incredible. Fiona and I certainly not strangers to each other. So we've got a
lot of things
to talk about. So that's an awesome recommendation. Thank you so much, Keir.
You've absolutely sailed
through, as I said, the Blind Law to Challenge. Thank you very much. Not to
catch you, Amanda.
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