Blind Loyalty Challenge with Shyam Shah

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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. So everybody knows how much I enjoy the Blind

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Laugherty Challenge, maybe because I'm sitting in this seat, but today it's

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going to be no

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exception. I'm really excited to chat to Shamshaw, who is the CEO of loyalty

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juggernaut. So

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Sham, you were nominated or tagged by Johan Mulman. Those who don't know, I'm

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sure most

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people know Johan, he's ex CEO of eBucks and now it's Sanlan Rewards. So it's

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so special

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to have you with us. Thank you.

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Thank you so much, Amanda, for having me. First of all, I'll thank Johan for

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tagging me. I

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think it's very nice of him. It's definitely an honor to be on the Blind Laug

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herty Challenge.

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It's been an institution in itself and it's pretty interesting for me and I

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must say,

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very excited to be on the show at the same time. I'm also very nervous. I'm not

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sure

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what's coming my way, but I'm looking forward to it.

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No, it's a good thing, so everyone tells me. So let's go with that. So, okay,

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so our first

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question, chapter 85 of Blind Laugherty and I had the absolute privilege of

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meeting you

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personally to give you a copy a couple of weeks ago when we met in Dubai. So,

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chapter

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85, thank you, talks about loyalty fraud. What would you say is the single most

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impactful

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way of mitigating loyalty fraud?

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I think so. The loyalty fraud is genuinely a huge issue and there have been

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many attempts

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to detect fraud, which is after the fact, when you analytically find out that

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certain things

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that took place in the program did not look business as usual, but detection

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can only

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do so much. You need to have a lot more preventive and a lot more proactive

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ways to prevent frauds.

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The couple of things that I think, given the tools and technologies that are

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available

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now to all the brands, the couple of things that can be done really well, both

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in terms

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of preventing frauds before the fact and also knowing about the frauds

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immediately as they

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take place. So, nowadays we have technologies in terms of AI, which really can

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look at every

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single instance of client engagement and assign some kind of credit score or

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assign some

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kind of a credit worthiness store saying score, which will say whether that

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particular engagement

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is credible or not. Pretty much on the lines of how credit card companies have

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excelled

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in detecting frauds. If your credit card spend is beyond certain limit, if the

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transaction

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is taking place at a location, which is quite unlikely that you would be at a

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particular

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point in time, it also looks at the typical pattern of a consumer behavior. Now

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with the

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ability to crunch enormous amount of data with AI tools, it's possible to find

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those

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outlier engagements that can then be detected and kept aside for the

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arbitration so that

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you really know that every engagement, every transaction is genuine. So, that

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is one part

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of using AI to identify potential frauds and then minimize those frauds. I

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think what

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will happen is those who are habitual fraudsters would also understand that

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these frauds don't

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get through. So, there will be less attempt to defraud the system as well.

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There is other

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approach that we use in our technology as well. We call it I sense, which

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basically looks

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at an aggregate pattern as to what happened in the last 30 minutes. It is more

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of a reporting

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or analytics by exception. It is not a mainstream analytics where you can have

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hundreds of KPIs

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you're finding a needle in the haystack. Instead, this is analytics by

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exception where it says,

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look, we noticed that in the last 30 minutes, a particular promotion gave out

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six times

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more points than it typically does. There might be something wrong here. It

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could be a weekend,

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it could be a heavy, you know, shocker interest, it could be genuine, but at

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the same time,

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it keeps you informed through like I like to call it analytics by exception. So

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, I think

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these are some of the approaches, strategies that the brands can look to adapt

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to minimize

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frauds. There is absolutely no silver bullet to it. Amanda, there is no way you

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can reduce

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fraud to zero, but I think there is a very real possibility of bringing fraud

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to near zero,

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you know, as you adapt these new generation technologies.

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Amazing. I love that. There's no silver bullet. I think yep, it's at your eyes.

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I mean, I always say

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that if you design a loyalty program to have zero fraud, the customer

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experience would be so dreadful

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that no one would ever sign up and never be able to use it. I sense, how do you

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spell I sense?

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I the lesser I and sense. No, it is AI is AI. Yeah, this is so the ice is this

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artificial intelligence.

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So it basically tells you that, you know, on a particular day, you know, on a

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particular,

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at a particular time, this is what can be expected. So it doesn't encumber the

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user to decide that

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threshold, the system predicts the threshold and then it checks the performance

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against the threshold.

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If it is too low or too high, it can be as simple as, you know, what is the

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total breakage that

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you recorded on a particular day? If it is exceptionally high, it is

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exceptionally low,

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maybe there is some operational issue in your loyalty program. So it is not

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just the human

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committed fraud. It could also be the inadvertent commercial incident that is

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because of the human

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error or because of some kind of miscompletion. Ultimately, loyalty per ounce

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is a banking system.

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Right. It needs to be seen as such. Brilliant. Great. Okay. My second question,

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you know,

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I've had quite a few discussions around coalition programs. So what is your

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single

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favorite coalition program? Well, my single favorite coalition program has got

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to be

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share rewards by Majid Al-Futem in the Middle East, in UAE. There are a few

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reasons why I really

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love this coalition program. In fact, I like to call, you know, the coalition

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program has been

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a quite a standard industry term for it, but I like to call it an ecosystem

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loyalty. The reason

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I love share rewards is that one of the core promises of ecosystem loyalty is

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that the value

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proposition is built singularly around the customer. It is not so much about

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what products and services

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and experiences that my company can bring to the table. It's about what Amanda

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as a consumer

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would love to receive as a value proposition. It's a true manifestation of

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brand's loyalty to the

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customer. Right. In return, expecting customers loyalty back to the brand. I

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think if you look at

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share rewards, it's conceived with that ethos that we want to deliver great

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moments to the customers

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throughout their day, throughout their month, throughout their engagement, life

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cycle.

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And if you look at the range of benefited offers, there is something in it for

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everybody.

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Right. I have, you know, they have co-branded trade cards. They use a brilliant

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mobile-based

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payment where it's a frictionless way to earn and redeem points. They have

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every, you know,

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there is participation from every vertical practically. There are shopping

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malls, fashion

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retail, grocery, hyper market, leisure entertainment, cinema theaters. I can

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pretty much have rewarding

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experience for everything that I do, you know, in my day-to-day lives. They

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also have, if that

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range is not just good enough, they also have partnerships with airlines where

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I can exchange

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my points into miles and buy a free award ticket. Also have tip-and-tip-out

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relationship with the

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leading Telco loyalty program there. So I can even have the flexibility to, you

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know,

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leverage my reward currencies in a manner that gives me the maximum value. They

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have a relationship

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with travel OTA's relationship with the, you know, a gaming casino kind of a

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company. So I think

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it's pretty much the kind of, it's like a multi-cusing buffet. There is

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something in it for everybody.

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And then it has the layer of personalization layer on top of that. So that's

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definitely

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a very pioneering attempt of a coalition program that really caters to true

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blue lifestyle value

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proposition. Wonderful. You've got a wonderful way with words. I'm writing

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these words down. I

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could have pioneering attempts and a buffet of reward options, which is just

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beautiful.

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Thank you. My last question, my last question, and your first question actually

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about fraud you

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talked on, talked about KPIs. So it's one of my favourite subjects. So chapter

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94 in blind

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loyalty is completely focused on loyalty KPIs. What would you say is the most

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strategic

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KPI that executives should be watching? Well, so I think my, my view on KPI am

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anda is that I think

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if all executives need to look at two things. One is that what is the life

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cycle stage of the

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loyalty program? For example, if I'm, if I launch a brand new loyalty program,

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I'm not

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necessarily looking to drive revenue out of it. I'm looking to maximize my

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customer acquisition.

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I'm looking to build a strong data foundation for my enterprise and then start

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to liberate the

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data foundation to then benefit from it. So I think depending on the stage at

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which the

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loyalty program is, my KPIs would potentially change. In fact, one of the

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things that loyalty

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program executives should look at is they should actually revisit their KPIs

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every six months,

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right? Because their circumstances, their competitive landscape, and their

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loyalty program life

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cycle is evolved. So, you know, so for example, if I'm a, if I'm a very matured

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loyalty program

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with, you know, enormous amount of data assets, I could look to, you know, at

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the very far end

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of maturity, I could look to monetize those insights. I could look to bring in

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partnerships.

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I could look to, you know, create some kind of synergistic alliances. I should

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look to leverage

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data for retail media type of thing. So I think at that point, it becomes quite

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monetary in nature.

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The KPIs could be, okay, here's where the, the loyalty value cycle kind of

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closes the loop,

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where we invest a lot in loyalty. And now we are, we are looking at ROI in

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monetary terms.

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But through the journey of loyalty program evolution, like the KPIs need to

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evolve all the way from

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customer acquisition to customer engagement to customer retention and

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ultimately customer advocacy,

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right? So from acquisition to advocacy, the PIS can go across the range. So I

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think there is

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one great KPI in every stage, but that's not the same KPI. I think that's the

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point I'm trying to make.

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Point great, KPI in every stage. I love that. All right, perfect. Full colors.

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So,

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Shiam, who would you like to tag to do the blind loyalty challenge next?

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Well, I would love to tag someone that I really admire and have learned a lot

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from every time I

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listen to this person speak at the events conferences or, you know, in one on

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one, I think it's always

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a learning experience. It's, it's an experience where I feel that, you know,

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this is the right space

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to be in. And that person is Dr. Najib. Dr. Najib is the divisional senior vice

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president of Skywords.

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It's an iconic loyalty program. All of us are members of it. And who's, who

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doesn't love Skywords?

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So I would directly love to tag Dr. Najib. It'll be, you know, it'll be my

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honor to really, you know,

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see him on this show. And I'm pretty sure, you know, he'll be, you know, a

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tremendous guest for you

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and me. Amazing. I quote Dr. Najib in blind loyalty and I had the honor, like

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yourself, to meet him.

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I mean, I know you've known him before, but I personally met him as well in, in

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Dubai recently.

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So, it's given him a copy of where he's quoted. So hopefully he'll take up the

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challenge and

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we can try, try our best to catch him out a little bit. But I think that'll be

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difficult.

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But anyway, thank you so much for doing this. I absolutely love chatting to you

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. And thanks for

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doing the blind loyalty challenge. Likewise, thank you so much, reminder.

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Appreciate it. I can take this item off my bucket list now.