Amanda Cromhout 7 min

Blind Loyalty Challenge with Sarah Richardson


Find out which loyalty concept Sarah says isn’t as complicated as people think, which brand is getting sustainability right and why we learn our best lessons from our worst mistakes.



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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 Laugherty Challenge.

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So another Blind Laugherty Challenge and a very special friend is on the other

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side of

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the screen. So we have Sarah Richardson, she's the chair of the Australian Lawl

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ty Association.

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She needs no introduction to the world of loyalty and she's got years of

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experience

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and we met with the privilege of meeting years ago in Milan of all places. So

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very excited

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to have you here. I know I've got the opportunity to come and chat to your

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conference later

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in the year and you're coming to our conference later in the year after that.

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So to have you

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on here is a real treat Sarah. Thanks for joining us.

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Thanks for having me Amanda. So you and the Australian Lawlty Association have

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been enormous

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supporters of Blind Laugherty. So for that up front, thank you very much and

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for what

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you're about to endure. Thank you. Okay. So we think what you're doing is

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fantastic.

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Absolutely amazing. Oh, I love it. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. So as you know,

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the overall

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title of the book is Blind Laugherty, 101 loyalty concepts radically simplified

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. If you could

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take one loyalty concept that is too complicated and mostly misunderstood,

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which would that

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be to be simplified? Probably how to use NFTs as part of the loyalty program.

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Are you seeing

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that it's just completely complex and no one's understanding it?

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Well, it's really not that complex, but people don't understand and are scared

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of blockchain

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NFTs and crypto. And so they think that they need their program to be on a

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crypto platform,

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but that's not the case. So they can go to an agency and get a cool NFT, which

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is great

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for media and also can do things that you can't do otherwise, like have a

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reward that goes

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over 10 years. So for instance, like Clinique did, where you get special

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products every

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year because you can actually sell that, you can gift it, you can keep it for

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yourself

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for those 10 years, which you can't do that with them and the other loyalty

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program platform.

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Brilliant. Love it. Great. Nice example as well. Okay. Cool. The second

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question.

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Chapter 60 in the book is around sustainability. So what would be your

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favourite example of

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sustainability through loyalty programs? Well, we were really disappointed when

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we ran

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the Australian Awards for loyalty that we, that was our least favoured category

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. And

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so we're going to make sure that for the conference, we spend a lot of time

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explaining

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to the audience how they can embeds to sustainability in their programs. And we

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have Christina coming

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from Italy who is an expert on this and clearing or sustainability and how you

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do it. We unfortunately,

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in Australia, there is a very high cost for things like groceries. And so

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obviously when

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things like that happen, people care a lot less about the environment and

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sustainability.

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So I think it's the responsibility of organisations and loyalty programs,

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people running them to

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ensure that they are taking care of this on behalf of their customers. And so Q

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antas does

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a fantastic job and they were the winners of the Sustainability Award. And they

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have a

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green tier. And they also based on the cost of living crisis that a lot of

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people are

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having to endure. He, well, Alvaro is in charge of that and he'll hopefully be

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speaking at

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the conference as well. He has made sure that the company itself donates a lot

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to the causes,

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the sustainability causes. So the green tier is fantastic. It's like an

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additional tier.

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You're cool. Amazing. We did actually hear a little bit about that at the

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loyalty global

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connect from Qantas. They touched on the green tier. So definitely looking

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forward to hearing

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more about that at your event in August. Okay. My last ones are very personal

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question. What

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would you say has been your most rightful personal loyalty experience? You don

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't have

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to name the plan, Brandon, if you don't want to. As a consumer, as a loyalty

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manager.

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I don't mind, actually. I don't want to go. Well, as a loyalty manager,

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probably sending

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out an EDM for an organization that I won't mention who I was working for at

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the time to

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deceased members. And they had been marked on the database as being as deceased

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. And

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so we wrote to anybody who was still have access to those email addresses,

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which in a lot of

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cases was loved ones, saying they're deceased. Oh my goodness. Because the

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person pulling

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the data list had not excluded to see. So I make sure whenever I consult and

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also for

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my own database at the ALA that anybody who unfortunately is deceased is in a

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completely

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different list. So that never happens again. I was very lucky not to lose much

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of over

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that one. Wow, wow, wow, wow. Well, we learned best lessons from our worst

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mistakes. That's

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incredible. Well done. Well done for confessing up with that one. There was

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another one.

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There was another story I heard from somebody and I can't remember exact

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details around.

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I think it was American Express and someone was messing around with the male

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merge and

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a driven deer rich. And it went through and it actually got sent to the

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customer base.

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Oh my goodness. So there's some real. I'm not sure if that's better or worse,

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probably

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on par. You don't want to make mistakes with your daughter, that's for sure.

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Yeah, awesome.

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Okay, well you sailed through that. Excuse the pun because I know you

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absolutely love sailing.

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So three, not so easy questions. Just you clap them out the parks are well done

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. So can

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you tag someone for me to chat to next on the blind little challenge? Well, I

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don't think

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I have any choice but to tag Paula Thomas who is also coming to our conference

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in August

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on the Gold Coast as is Amanda. So yes, Paula, you're it. Brilliant. Let's get

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Paula on the

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other side of the microphone. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant tag. Thank you

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Sarah. You're an absolute

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superstar. I love chatting to you. You too. Thanks, Amanda.

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