Blind Loyalty Challenge with Zsuzsa Kecsmar

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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 this has never been done before as far as I know that the 2023 International

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Laugherty

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Personality of the Year is interviewing the 2024 International Laugherty

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Personality of

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the Year. So congratulations, Dusa. I don't think you need any introduction to

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absolutely

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anyone and so deserved of such a great accolade. So we have Zuzu Kuxmall from

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Antarvo. She

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needs no introduction, but she is the co-founder and the Chief Strategy Officer

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. Welcome to

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Blind Laugherty Challenge.

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Hi, Amanda. I'm so happy to be here. Give me a high five just, you know, the

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way I take

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the opportunity of the year. Thank you. It's lovely to be here. Thank you so

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much for doing

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this challenge with me and I'm actually quite nervous. Like, I don't know what

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Amanda is

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going to ask me. Maybe you will need to edit this all the way because I will

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give stupid

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answers. I don't know. We will see.

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Everything's editable, of course. Okay, but before I go any further, there's

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two, there's

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actually three reasons I wanted to chat to. Probably four, actually. So before

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you announce

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as the industry loyalty personality, I wanted to talk to you because of the

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great work you're

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doing for the industry. So now to have you as that international personality of

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the year

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is the second reason. The third reason is we mention Antarvo throughout Blind L

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augherty.

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It has great coverage because you've got incredible case studies. So throughout

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the Blind Laugherty

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book, anyone who's read it will see that Antarvo has mentioned it sprinkled all

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over on many

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pages. And then the fourth reason is you and your team and particularly

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Michelle and your

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team are incredible, incredible supporters of the Blind Laugherty bracelets.

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And it's

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just amazing how you support it everywhere you go in the world. So for that, I

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'm incredibly

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grateful. Well, I'm grateful to that you're running this and doing this. And it

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's time

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to have a special tangible connection between royalty people that we have to

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bracelets.

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It's just so lovely to give my bracelet to that other person because I know

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that they

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would be very happy for that. It's a special connection that you created and it

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's only

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the connection part. But what it means, helping people get back their ability

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to see things,

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it's a very nice thing. Congratulations for that, Amanda.

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So together we can keep doing it and have fun along the way as well. So thank

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you for all

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the support from your team. So all right, let's get straight into it. So

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chapter 88,

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I quote Antarvo around loyalty, sorry, chapter 86, I quote Antarvo around

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loyalty, fraud

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mitigation. What would you say is the number one best way to mitigate fraud?

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It's technology because without technology, you as a person will not be able to

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spot it.

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And loyalty programs are built on technologies like legacy technologies or new

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kinds of technologies

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like Antarvo. And it's very, very needed that the technology has this fraud

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detection capabilities.

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We talk about AI every single day, do you say it? But it's not necessary. Like

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it's not

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it's not must have to make it AI. There are ways to spot these fraudulent

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activities just

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based on rules that people should watch out for. I mean, the software should

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watch out for.

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And out of that area, that technology can handle what we see is one of the

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sources for

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fraud is employee fraud. So unfortunately, that's the fact that employee fraud

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exists.

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And there are ways to tackle that. And one of the ways is to create within your

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loyalty

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program, make employees your champions, make them great offers their own things

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. So they

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can be very happy with what they have. And they don't need to do fraud and

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things to

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get benefits. They should benefit by default. So they will be your best loyalty

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managers,

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thousands of loyalty managers for you.

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Yeah, absolutely. We run a fraud group in South Africa with all any player in

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the industry

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wants to talk about fraud and absolutely just said the only guys who feel they

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're on top

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of it is because their technology can help them. And secondly, without question

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, I say

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this implying loyalty that staff fraud is the number one trigger without

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question. Great.

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Okay. So as a very, very well known software provider, cloud software provider

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to the industry,

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what would you say if you are sitting in an RFP is the most important question

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client

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should ask of you?

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The question to be asked that who is going to do it? That's the question to be

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asked.

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And the reason why I'm telling this because there are multiple kinds of softw

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ares and

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companies and there are always different setup. For example, there are

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companies who are a

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bit of technology, a lot of implementation and a lot of services. They're like

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an agency,

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you give it to them and then they take care of it. That's one kind. The other

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kind is

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when there is technology, there is implementation and then they take care of

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that and then give

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it to you. If that happens, you need to make sure that there's great training

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around that.

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And then another type is when there is technology like on table, but someone

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else does the implementation

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like an agency whose expertise is implementation. But then who is doing the

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management of it?

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Is this another agency, for example, like Truth or is it the customer itself,

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the brands

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and retailers running the loyalty program? So what I think you should come

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clear with

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is knowing what you want and making sure that the provider you're talking to

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fits that

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bracket because it's really hard to compare apples and then oranges and peaches

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and everything.

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You really need to know your categories. And they are very clear with what we

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do. And oftentimes,

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our salespeople are explaining things that we don't do in order for the

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prospect to understand

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what is that we do. So we don't do strategy because we want companies like

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yours to do

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the strategy. Who knows local markets who have the industrial expertise? We don

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't do

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implementation because we want the big system integrated companies to do the

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implementation.

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And we don't do ongoing management because we want either Truth or the customer

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to do

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the implementation. And for this setup, we have everything. We have the

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training for the consultants,

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the engineers and the customers, the people, the CRM managers who are actually

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configuring the campaigns.

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Yeah, and you said something really critical there that is often a stumbling

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point is

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the client needs to know what they want, which is often not the case, as I'm

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sure you face every

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day. So hopefully with partnerships, whether it's us or other players in the

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market, you can

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actually help the client get to where they exactly what they want and then you

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guys can respond.

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Yeah. One of my favorite examples where I quote Antovo in the book is chapter

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51,

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which is surprise and delight. And what I quote you on is something you or your

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team said around

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how about a half birthday surprise, which I absolutely loved. So what is your

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personal

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best surprise and delight experience? These are tough questions, Amanda.

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How people do this? Like, did they sit for a minute and then think?

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I feel like you did. I think this is a certain thing. So what is my best?

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It's as long as you like surprise and delight. Okay, I know. So that wasn't a

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minute, by the way.

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Because it is such a great surprise that it immediately came to my mind. And it

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's from

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Notino, which is a European online drugstore. And the last time I ordered

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something from there,

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I've got the opportunity to pick my own reward. And picking my own reward was

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really nice because

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in beauty, there is this trend about like surprising you, but also giving you

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the option to pick your

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own reward. So there is this very nice mix, I think, between discovery and also

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a surprise.

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And for me, the biggest surprise was that I was able to pick. It is a selection

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of rewards.

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And then it is up to me, which one I wanted. And I picked some perfume samples.

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And I still

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keep some of them in my bag. And I actually use them. You know, these are very

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small samples, but

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it can still go a long way if you really like the scent. So that's that.

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Beautiful. What was the name of the company again?

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It's Notino.

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Notino. Okay, beautiful. Love it. Magnificent. Okay, there you go.

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Tick tick tick. Three great questions, three great answers. Who would you like

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to tag?

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Oh, so I need to tag. I need to tag someone. I would like to tag Sam Popgood,

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who runs the

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loyalty program for Rick Crow. And Rick Crow is one of our customers at Untable

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. And they are

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a surfer brand in Australia who do not only reward you if you buy a surfer gear

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, but also if you

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like live the surfer life. And I think this is truly what the future of loyalty

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programs and

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customer loyalty is about. It's not only about transactions, but it's about the

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lifestyle.

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So basically, if you use the loyalty program of Rick Crow, you can be rewarded

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after surfing,

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after surfs, surf sessions. And it's quite, it came quite handy that they

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actually have an app

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and a piece of technology as smartwatch that rewards that tracks your movements

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when you are

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in the border. So I think they've done this beautiful job of seeing what they

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have,

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the product, what their customers share, the lifestyle, what is their

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technology direction,

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developing a hardware with the surfer. And then tying this together in the

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loyalty program,

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which made it surf to earn, if you can say that, surf to earn by the example of

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Nike or

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Adidas who have this move to earn loyalty programs. So I really hope that Sam

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did accept the challenge.

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Yeah, I hope so too. I'd love to chat to him. Fantastic. So I think Rick Crow

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needs to come.

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I don't think that program exists in South Africa and Cape Town is very much a

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surf city. So

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we need to get it here as well. Not for me, I can't surf, but for others.

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Susan, thank you. You're an absolute superstar. I've loved chatting to you. It

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was great to see

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you in person in Dubai for so many reasons. But thank you for doing the Blind

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Lords Challenge.

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Of course. Thank you very much.