Blind Loyalty Challenge with Nick Chambers

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Hi there, I'm Amanda Cromhoe from Truth. Welcome to the Blind Laugherty

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Challenge.

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We interview world experts in loyalty blindly. We're hoping to create insight,

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spontaneity

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and a lot of fun through the challenge. The challenge is about promoting the

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Blind Laugherty

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Trust and my book called Blind Laugherty, a hundred and one loyalty concept

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radically

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simplified. All profits from the book go towards the trust. We hope you enjoy

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the Blind

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Laugherty Challenge.

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So we have another Blind Laugherty Challenge brought to you. I'm in Cape Town

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and Nick

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Chambers is in the UK and Nick and I have the pleasure of working together. We

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're

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co-partners at the Customer Strategy Network. So welcome Nick.

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Hi Amanda, I'm really looking forward to this. Hopefully it's going to be a lot

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of

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fun so I'll give it my best shot.

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It's always fun. Okay, first question. What do you think is the best example of

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integration

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between payments and loyalty? Obviously typically I think mobile comes in there

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but I'll leave

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that to you. The best example of integration between payments and loyalty?

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Well payment and loyalty is a good question. Let me give you an example. It's

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kind of

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a little bit left field but I was in London yesterday and I went for the first

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time and

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I probably your listeners have done this several times. It was the first time

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for being

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Amazon Fresh where you go into Amazon, you go through, you pick up what you

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want, you

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tap your credit card and you leave and you get the itemized receipt with any

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promotions.

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I mean what a fantastic customer experience that was. So I know it was more

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retail but

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they did append a promotional offer so it does sit within the loyalty space but

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in terms

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of a seamless experience it's unsurpassed. I mean I think the challenge

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actually is I

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think they're going to close it down because of the technology is just so

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expensive in

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terms of the cameras to see what you're picking up but I think it will come

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again when that

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cost of that technology comes down, absolutely transformational.

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So did you not swipe your merchandise against a scute? No you pick it off the

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shelf. I

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mean say a bit about myself I went for the meal deal so I picked up the

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sandwich and

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the crisps and the drink and I wanted the meal deal but I also wanted to test

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out if I'd

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get the promotion. You tap your card when you leave and then because I have an

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Amazon

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account I get the receipt emailed to me, itemized with the promotion appended.

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Fantastic customer

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experience. Yeah that's cool. Can't wait to try that out. Great. Lovely example

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. Well

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interesting that leads to my second exam, second question which I didn't know

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you were

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going to talk about something that was so sort of positive from a customer

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experience point

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of view because my second question is what has been your worst personal loyalty

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customer

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experience? Worst personal customer loyalty experience.

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Okay now this is probably going to tell a little bit more about me than about

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the company

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because as an insider, as a practitioner I completely understand the challenges

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of joining

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it all up. But I suppose when I'm in the grocery check out and the person is

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trying

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to get out the loyalty app in front of me and they're fiddling around to open

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the app

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and they're fiddling around to get the promotions up then they're looking to

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pay then they're

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looking to tap tap the loyalty promotion and all the time what they were que

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uing and then

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you just know the next one is going to do the same. I think you know my

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expectation in

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grocery shopping is to get in and get out and that says a bit about me. So when

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there's

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kind of friction and it's time to take in the checkout process that causes me a

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little

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bit of frustration but I completely understand the challenges of linking the

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payment to the

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loyalty and in that instance it's separate and it has to be separate because of

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the costs

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around the technology but it does cause frustration for me in the queue.

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Well maybe not ironically it's the polar opposite of your Amazon experience so

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yeah exactly.

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Amazing. Good example. Love it. And my last one we've worked together on quite

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a few

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projects around technology, RFP, selection and so forth. If you could only name

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one absolute

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critical priority for choosing a technical partner what would that be?

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Oh okay it's an intimate understanding of your own operating model. You know

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the technology

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is just an enabler. Your operating model is the most important thing so the

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technology

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needs to fit in your operations and I've seen a lot of people they're kind of

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shoehorning

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they see nice shiny tech and they think I like it what great features and

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benefits

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but it doesn't fit with their operating model and it doesn't fit broader than

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that. It doesn't

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fit with their culture, their people and how they want to kind of interface

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into the tech.

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So I would suggest that if you intimately understand your operating model, your

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tech

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stack and your performance measures then the tech is part of the selection in

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terms of

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how it fits again against those criteria. I just see so many times it's done

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the other

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way round. Oh look at all these shiny technology and you just can't use or

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implement half of

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it because it doesn't fit with the way the operation of your business.

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Yeah brilliant advice. I couldn't agree more with you. Brilliant advice. So

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anyone listening

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to this you take nothing else apart from a great Amazon experience take that as

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well.

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I have top advice from the blind loyalty challenge. The fact that Nick likes a

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meal deal. Did

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you forget that piece? Especially the Chris. Okie doke we're not going to dice

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your dietary

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preferences. Nick I want you to tag someone please for me to take on the

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challenge next.

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No it's got to be Sean Tan. He's an absolute superstar based out in Cott Koala

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Lumper so

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yeah fantastic to get Sean on the show. Brilliant yes Sean and I know so they

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obviously

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we're all the three of us are all partners in the customer strategy network so

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Sean looking

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forward to that discussion. Nick thank you so much you're a superstar. It was

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really insightful.

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Thank you. Thanks Amanda. Real privilege to be on your show.

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