Latest / The Retail Podcast / NRF 2023 Bill Swift, CEO of Brierley, the company that created the loyalty industry and is now transforming loyalty

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NRF 2023 Bill Swift, CEO of Brierley, the company that created the loyalty industry and is now transforming loyalty · The Retail Podcast

• 0:02
  Hello, and welcome back to another episode of the retail
• 0:05
  podcast, that NRF. Now loyalty is one of the
• 0:09
  biggest topics right now, as we move into an inflationary
• 0:13
  environment with interest rates also going up consumer spending
• 0:17
  potentially Under Pressure. Although in most regions it is
• 0:20
  already Under Pressure, the most critical thing is, how do you
• 0:24
  build loyalty? So today, luckily I ran to find
• 0:28
  Bill Swift from brierley. I'm going to just talk a a
• 0:31
  little bit about loyalty if you don't mind.
• 0:33
  Well, in terms of tell me your thoughts on, you know, the
• 0:36
  industry in itself, the innovations that are happening,
• 0:40
  and then in general about the market, you what, what's your
• 0:43
  views on the market? And, and the direction that it
• 0:45
  said again we've seen royalty industry changed dramatically
• 0:50
  over the years and our founder hell brierly was instrumental in
• 0:54
  creating many of the early programs.
• 0:57
  Even back in the mid 80s, some of our clients have act under
• 1:00
  still clients. Now, But ever wanted to programs
• 1:03
  have to shoot changed in a lot of different ways.
• 1:05
  The early days of really the one of the primary goals and
• 1:09
  objectives of loyalty is was to just to recognize and treat your
• 1:14
  best customers better. And over the years we've seen as
• 1:18
  much as 70 80 percent penetration of of a strong
• 1:22
  loyalty program or they have that many 80% of their customers
• 1:25
  participating in the low to Porter.
• 1:27
  So it's not just about the best customers.
• 1:30
  Now, it's about About treating all of your customers
• 1:34
  differently and better. But what we've seen almost the
• 1:38
  loot of and and in these recent years is that there's a lot of
• 1:42
  cookie cutter programs that are just stamping out.
• 1:45
  We get points and ultimately you get a reward but they're not
• 1:49
  really changing Behavior. Yeah, and so we got for us as a
• 1:53
  company. We've got a little too space for
• 1:54
  a long time. Both consultative Lee helping
• 1:58
  clients designer loyalty programs and also A technology
• 2:02
  perspective, you can't Implement loyalty without technology.
• 2:06
  So we've kind of actually gone back to our roots to make sure
• 2:10
  that we're engineering these programs to truly Drive change,
• 2:15
  the customer Behavior. How much do you think the
• 2:17
  science element of customer Behavior comes into and
• 2:22
  retailers can use that? Because a lot of the times it
• 2:25
  seems to behavior of the customer in the store, maybe one
• 2:28
  thing but actually picking up on that and building Loyalty on
• 2:32
  that. There was a great use case there
• 2:33
  were talking about Casey. So I think that convenience
• 2:36
  stores, where people were going in and trying to convert them to
• 2:39
  Coffee was, was one of their sort of collecting data and then
• 2:46
  acting on that. But I'm just, I'm curious, if
• 2:49
  you've come across any interesting, use cases on
• 2:52
  changing Behavior, through loyalty, where cross cross sale.
• 2:56
  Cross product rest category, is it?
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  It has should always be a big push.
• 3:00
  So, with these customer loyalty, Programs, you know exactly who
• 3:03
  the customer is, you know, exactly what they're purchasing.
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  And so many programs don't take advantage of that.
• 3:09
  And so there's a big opportunity to shift their spend, two
• 3:14
  different categories, and to drive that away increment ality
• 3:18
  in terms of different product selection, that are purchasing,
• 3:22
  but also to drive frequency. But you can say, you can't treat
• 3:25
  everyone exactly the same. You need to take the data, learn
• 3:29
  from that data, and whether it's through a variety, Rhythms or
• 3:32
  people thinking, strategically about how to drive intelligently
• 3:37
  Drive incremental Behavior, then that's a huge opportunity and
• 3:41
  loyalty is positioned perfectly to help.
• 3:44
  Make that happen? Is there anyone that you look at
• 3:46
  as let the gold stand? Someone who's doing it really
• 3:48
  well? Maybe one of your customers or
• 3:50
  not. Is there a what what is the
• 3:52
  example that you would use as someone you should take a look
• 3:55
  at as that's that's a company or an organization that's doing the
• 3:58
  Loyalty really well. We like to think of our, one of
• 4:03
  our clients actually hurt, says, been around for a long time.
• 4:06
  They've changed the program up. So what do they do?
• 4:09
  What do they do? Hertz is auto rental.
• 4:11
  So we Hut's fit her yet. Huh.
• 4:12
  Sorry. But the in an auto rental
• 4:15
  industry has changed. Obviously, when we first
• 4:17
  designed that program, it was more about experience and
• 4:21
  allowing the customer to get out of the airplane and get in their
• 4:24
  car quicker. So there were no points and no
• 4:26
  structured rewards, they layered that on later.
• 4:29
  Yeah. But they've also, Of recent
• 4:33
  event reduce some new technology.
• 4:35
  And I mean, even at interact today, we're, we're talking
• 4:38
  about facial verification. But why is a contactless way to
• 4:41
  identify the customer and without trying to think which
• 4:45
  phone number? Did I use it?
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  Where's my loyalty card in my wallet?
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  Just look at the. In this case it's a kiosk or a
• 4:53
  device hurts did that early with their upper tier president
• 4:57
  Circle people you could opt into and they did that in
• 5:01
  Partnership. For the Claire.
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  Let not only get in their car quicker.
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  We get out of the lock, you don't have to talk to anybody.
• 5:08
  You look in the camera, the gate goes up and you leave.
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  So cut royalty as a way to I mean there's always a core value
• 5:15
  proposition or out. What's in it for me as a
• 5:17
  consumer, you know, but the best programs change or it have
• 5:22
  really a more engaging customer experience, an elevated level of
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  of experience, specially for your VIP.
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  Stammers and ultimately we gave a session this morning out
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  emotional loyalty and yeah, that's kind of the end game as
• 5:39
  you want consumers to feel that connection with the brand and
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  literally you know, be upset if that brand were to potentially
• 5:49
  go out of business and feel that and become an advocate for the
• 5:52
  brand. Yeah.
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  So that's like the three different levels of that we
• 5:56
  focus on Hope for value proposition, the customer
• 6:00
  experience and then ultimately Created that emotional bond.
• 6:03
  How complex is it for retailers to actually get a loyalty
• 6:07
  program setup or if I've had one for years?
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  That's just mean, you know, points means prizes or bouches,
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  how easy or difficult is it for me to transition to a new
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  platform or yeah, I took two hits and it's typically an
• 6:26
  Enterprise level project quietly law Realty.
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  Think about the engine is tracking all kinds of customers.
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  Our behavior and it is integrated in real-time and POS
• 6:36
  of the stores at Econ, the mobile app.
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  There's a lot of really important consumer facing
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  delivery channels that all have to kind of come together to
• 6:47
  enables kinds of programs. So it's a, it could be a heavy
• 6:50
  lift where we're focused and with this example of a facial
• 6:54
  recognition just do up here face and I'll be we're very used to
• 6:59
  that like without iPhones, right?
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  All I'm some devices but yeah, for pre and pre integrate those
• 7:05
  systems that really matter. So our client doesn't have to do
• 7:09
  that. And is that something you guys
• 7:10
  do is that or is that you give, that's what Bond up.
• 7:13
  We do it ourselves now and this is one example.
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  We've integrated with multiple POS systems and e-comm platforms
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  and so it can be a heavy list, Enterprise systems integration
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  level of effort. But to the extent of you can pre
• 7:27
  integrate, some of those really common platforms, at least that
• 7:31
  explains B in okay, less intrusive.
• 7:34
  Yeah, I mean I've got a whole load more questions, but I'm I'm
• 7:38
  just going to some time. So are you?
• 7:40
  I use of global. Are you u.s. space if I'm
• 7:43
  interested in, finding him out, more about Briley.
• 7:46
  Where would I go to? And yeah, where do you operate?
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  You know, forward based in Dallas, Texas and we'd been in
• 7:52
  Texas since the beginning of the company.
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  Our parent company currently is in Tokyo and 15 is entering a
• 8:00
  new era Research Institute. Due to technology companies,
• 8:03
  we've launched a loyalty programs with their presence in
• 8:07
  Japan but we're primarily at the US based company.
• 8:11
  We have clients in Europe and end clients in Asia.
• 8:14
  And so we went nuts, right? Perches in 25 different
• 8:17
  countries so we have become a global global company.
• 8:21
  Yeah I did say I've got more questions.
• 8:22
  Final question of romance in terms of Industries.
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  Are you fill the Right for moving nor or heavier into
• 8:31
  loyalty. I mean the automotive industry
• 8:34
  has been doing it for a while but maybe not perfect.
• 8:36
  The airline industry has been doing it for a while.
• 8:39
  I just wanted in terms of grocery fashion and there any
• 8:42
  Industries are you feel? I don't know.
• 8:45
  There's still space for growth or people not just we've been in
• 8:49
  specialty retail fashion for a long time started in travel
• 8:53
  Hospitality Hound. Financial services and Retail
• 8:58
  banking. Which we think there's a there's
• 9:02
  a lot of opportunity in healthcare, right?
• 9:04
  Has it becomes more on consumer based and yeah you have choice
• 9:10
  and we know that there's some well being kind of programs and
• 9:14
  Market rewarding people for their proactively, the getting a
• 9:18
  physical or thank to your Fitbit giving people credit for being
• 9:22
  healthy. Yeah, we haven't been in that
• 9:25
  space directly. But the think there's
• 9:27
  opportunity there and you mentioned, see store and we've
• 9:30
  been in this East or ground for greased a decade.
• 9:34
  Now, we think there's some techniques and see store to help
• 9:38
  make things your nose easier and more seamless.
• 9:41
  And yeah, RC star the typical time in the store 90 seconds.
• 9:45
  Well, for their, some cool things that they've done that we
• 9:47
  could take to broader retail or even fashion or no word God, the
• 9:52
  grocery that make it more personal and more connected
• 9:55
  easier to use. Quicker.
• 9:57
  We have I mean as I said, I'll go 200 book about CDP about the
• 10:01
  outcomes about integration. But anyway, we're gonna have to
• 10:03
  go to build. Thank you so much when the great
• 10:05
  pleasure. Thank you.