Latest / Leaders in Customer Loyalty, Powered by Loyalty360 / #514: Leaders in Customer Loyalty: Supplier Voices | Inside Hightouch’s Perspective on the Data, AI, and Lifecycle Shifts Reshaping Loyalty in 2026

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#514: Leaders in Customer Loyalty: Supplier Voices | Inside Hightouch’s Perspective on the Data, AI, and Lifecycle Shifts Reshaping Loyalty in 2026 · Leaders in Customer Loyalty, Powered by Loyalty360

• 0:04
  SPEAKER_01: Hi everyone, this is AJ Snyder from Loyalty360, welcoming you to another edition of our Leaders in Customer Loyalty Industry Voices podcast.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: In these episodes, we talk to the leading agencies, technology partners, and consultants in brand loyalty about the technology, trends, and best practices driving unique experiences, engagement, and ultimately customer loyalty.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: This episode is part of our 2026 trend series where we're talking about what patterns and best practices we're likely to see in the upcoming year.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: Today we're speaking with Luke Klein, founding marketer at HighTouch and the author of the newsletter Life Cycle Leaders.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: High Touch is a composable CDB and AI marketing platform that empowers companies to activate their data warehouse to power personalized marketing and business operations.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome, Luke.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for joining us today.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for having me.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: Excited to be here.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_01: No, this is awesome.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: And uh the timing is great.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: We're at the beginning of the year and we are working on our uh look back at 2025, but also at what trends are coming in 2026.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: And so I wanted to start right there.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: When you look back at the previous year, um, what do you think the emerging consumer trends and behaviors or market conditions, uh, which ones have had the biggest influence on how loyalty strategies have been designed or evolved over the course of the year?
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think uh a big one that comes top of mind, which um is kind of all over the industry and hasn't really changed, is just like customer acquisition costs are always going up.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: They're not never getting uh cheaper.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: And also, you know, being beholden to some of these walled garden um ad platforms, trying to figure out, you know, what are these other levers um that we can do to kind of optimize that funnel, uh, especially with our with your own um first party data, like loyalty programs um are huge there.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like every single company is pretty much investing in one these days, regardless of if they call it call it that or not.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's just like a huge competitive advantage because there's things you can do with your first party data that nobody else can do because uh it's very much tied to your product.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, the data you have as Starbucks is going to be different than the data you have as Dunkin' Donuts to build those personalized experiences and just like the moat light things that uh keep customers coming to you.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: You you know, you you mentioned a couple of companies right there um with the the the coffee uh companies that um I I think are interesting in from a trends perspective.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: You know, a lot of folks are looking, consumers are looking at at costs and and the the rising costs that are all around them, and you know, now all of a sudden people are having to budget and so on.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um so I I feel like lots of consumers are using loyalty programs more so than they have in the past to kind of offset their costs.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and I again you use the example of of two of the largest, you know, uh uh, you know, coffee companies, um, you know, to get that extra free coffee because now they don't have to pay for it.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: You know, coffee is expensive at this point.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: Are you seeing that throughout, you know, all of uh the the clients that you have and and and sort of the industry data that you're looking at?
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: Is that is that a legitimate trend?
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I would say I maybe don't have access to that data, but just anecdotally, a lot of conversations with people working in uh Martech and in lifecycle, um, there is a very big emphasis today on uh keeping the loyalty of like you don't want your customer to be purchasing from you know the other three coffee brands if you're Starbucks.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: You want to be capturing that purchase every week, especially something as frequent as coffee, where people go weekly or or every day.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, hey, what kind of incentive can we put in place to reward um this type of loyalty so that the next time they're going to purchase coffee, it's like it's a no-brainer to go to Starbucks or it's a no-brainer to go to um Duncan's.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: And usually uh there's like whatever the math is that they've modeled out where um they can still be profitable as a business, but also reward um the customer.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you have things like you know, the double star days or like the specific offer um at a section of the US for uh a drink.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: There's just like really advanced and sophisticated things you can do.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um and consumers like that.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's like I log into my coffee app and it's like Starbucks knows me.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: I was already gonna buy a peppermint mocha today, and now they're offering me double stars for it.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: And and and as expensive as they are, um, I feel like consumers appreciate the fact that, you know, if I was gonna buy five coffees in a week, uh now I'm getting five coffees for for less money, and that that's great for my pocketbook based on all the other costs that are going up and so on.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: So, no, that makes a lot of sense.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: They're not chasing the people who like myself are probably gonna be making coffee at home.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: I and as much as I try to make coffee at home, I the the the coffee companies still have it better.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: I can't I can't replicate it.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um I'm just looking for a good cup of coffee.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so from from an administration standpoint, um, you know, when you again, I'm sure you as you're taking on new clients and and and looking at at their current programs and and their models and so on, um, are there some things that stand out when you're kind of reviewing somebody's program that says, okay, um, based on all the the change that's happened um and all the technology that's coming or or you know beginning to be in place, this program needs an overhaul.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: Like what are some of the flags that would tell you we we need to redo things here?
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think uh there's a couple that come to mind.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: One is like, you know, what are the comms that we're sending um the customer?
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: Like, where does our customer live?
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know, are we a mobile app and we're only sending them emails?
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's like there might be a bit of a disconnect there.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, how easy is it for customers to redeem uh the rewards?
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: There was a large retailer I was looking at at a while back, which I'm a big um fan of.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the things that always stood out to me is uh anytime you wanted to redeem like your points balances, like you had to go to the website, then you had to redeem a gift card, and then you had to plug in that gift card uh directly into wherever you were checking out.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: And then you can only redeem it in like five, 10,$20 uh quantities.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um and since then they've completely overhauled the entire uh balance system.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: So now it's like you just apply the amount that you want at the checkout.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: So like it makes it seamless for uh the customer.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: Also, you know, tying in uh things like the reward anchors, you know, how much exactly you're going to benefit as the consumer if you make this purchase.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, how is it, you know, moving you to that next tier?
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: How is it giving you um more points that you can uh that you can redeem?
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: And then um, I think the probably the most important one, this is the biggest trend we're seeing across the industry, is just like how you can use uh personalized experiences to actually drive lifts for those core use cases.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: And when I think about lifecycle teams today, you know, there's a couple of big ones that come to mind.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um upsells and cross-sells.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: Like if you're a quick surf uh restaurant like a Burger King or a McDonald's, is like how can you increase that order size?
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: How can you increase the frequency from which people come to um purchase with you?
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: And uh there's a lot of interesting things they're they they do around there.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um another one is just like how you think about personalization.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: An example I love to use because I think Amazon's really good at this, um, is like, okay, if somebody abandons your cart, obviously you as the retailer, you want to win them back.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: You want to get that that checkout.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um and there's ways to you know use your data to give the customer a compelling reason to purchase.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: And where a lot of brands stop is they'll say, Hey, you left this item in your cart.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: Would you like to complete your purchase?
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: And you as a customer, you know, you know you left that item in your cart.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: That information is fresh on your mind.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: You did that for a reason.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: What you need is like uh an actual compelling decision to purchase.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: And the companies that nail it, and this is something we help with a lot at High Touch, is helping you activate that really nuanced, difficult to access data.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: And that could look like, hey, would you like to complete your purchase?
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't order in the next 24 hours, it won't be here in time for Christmas.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, now there's a real cost uh to you as the consumer if you don't make that purchase.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: Or, hey, the items usually sell out um in this amount of time.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: So, like this uh deep data that's usually inaccessible, that's what we do at at High Touch, is we make it accessible for marketers so they can actually use it in a really personalized and valuable way for the customer.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: You know, one one of the other things I think that's probably part and parcel to what you were just describing, and maybe some of the other um, you know, uh strategies that you mentioned earlier is is this concept of time to value and how uh what we've seen over time, and and it has everything to do, I think, with uh consumer attention spans and the way that you know, this sort of this need for instant gratification and so on and so on, um coupled with the economic reason for wanting to get something for less money because you've got this loyalty program.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: How is high touch helping its customers and and ultimately their customers um kind of reduce that time to value so the experience for the customer um is is even better?
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think uh a couple is a bunch of good answers to this question.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: But um one is just like you think about a traditional uh marketing team, it's like marketing teams have no shortage of great ideas.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: Usually the number one blocker for marketing teams, and this is what we hear over and over again from our customers, is like, hey, I can't access the data.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, the tools don't support the use cases I want to do.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: We actually published a great report um on this analyzing like uh just tons of different conversations with customers.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and marketers like they want to move fast, they want to deliver value to customers, but they're locked in the you know these legacy systems and and platforms that were really built for yesterday.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: And consumers act very um differently today.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: So one is just like the time to value, you know, for a marketer to go from idea from campaign of like, hey, I know you know this specific audience, they'll do they'll really resonate with this offer.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: It'll be really valuable for them and it'll also move the needle for the business.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's like they can go into the high-touch platform, they can self-serve, they can build that audience in minutes, and they can push it to whatever marketing destination they need, whether that's an ad they want to run, whether that's an email they want to send, SMS message, loyalty offer, um whatever, whatever that may be.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then the other thing is just like uncovering like new opportunities for the customer that you wouldn't have otherwise known.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like um, again, to the point I said before, a lot of marketers like they're only acting on like a little sliver of the data that they know about the customer.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: And with HighTouch, we give you access to the full breadth of the customer, like every single data point because we plug directly into your existing data infrastructure.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: So wherever that data is across your organization, it's like the marketing team can use all of it.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that's everything from you know data science models and predictions about you know what the customer is most likely to purchase next based on what they've previously purchased, um, custom proprietary things that a lot of companies don't even talk about that's like really unique to their business.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: So I'd say the two main ones is like time to value if you're a marketer to actually execute and deliver value to your customers.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: And the other is just being able to do new things uh that wasn't possible with yesterday's technology.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: And and I don't know if this what I'm about to ask you complicates that that issue, but in in and maybe it's it comes down to the definition of value, I suppose.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_01: But um, you know, one of the things that's become can you know more important to customers um is is this sort of uh sense of of community and identity and and belonging to um this this sort of um group, this you know, uh this experience that is shared by the other people in the loyalty program.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: Are you seeing some some interesting and effective ways to kind of build that in to the value proposition uh and I guess be able to measure it and and act on that data that you were just describing?
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, uh like I'll give you a uh a great example because I just published a um a newsletter on this recently, and I think they do it better than anyone.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not quite like a loyalty program, but it very much ties into uh this point.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: But um, Spotify, you know, everyone knows Spotify, everyone uses Spotify, and what is the thing they do at the end of the year every year?
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: You get Spotify wrapped.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: And it very much plays on this idea of you were talking about of like one, the customer wants to belong to something that another company is not going to replicate.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: It wants they want to be have something you know valuable that's unique to them.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: What is more unique to you than your music you listen to all year?
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: And the thing that Spotify nails that a lot of brands like misunderstand is Spotify takes all of that data that they collect on the customer all throughout the year, you know, what albums you listen to, what artists you listen to, your trends, your minutes, all of that.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: And they crunch all of those numbers.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: Just it's kind of wild if you actually look into some of it, but they repackage it not in a way to you know run uh, you know, drive usage or or whatever.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: They deliver it in a way that it is a product for the customer.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: So like you, AJ, me, Luke, I receive this special one-to-one thing that's like deeply and innately tied to like my emotional being because it's music and it's like it's different from every other, you know, million other Spotify users.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's a unique one-to-one thing to me.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of brands, um, it's obviously not going to be a Spotify wrapped, but it's like, okay, how do you take that data on the consumer and how do you make it valuable and productize it for them in a unique experience that like nobody else can replicate?
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm an Apple music user.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: So every year at the end of the year, I look at everyone from Spotify.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, man, I I almost want to switch to Spotify for that.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: I haven't yet, but I'm always like, I miss out because Apple's is truthfully much worse than Spotify's.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I think the the question you have to be asking yourself as a brand is okay, how do not how do we do Spotify wrapped?
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: Because a lot of companies do that.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's okay, how do we how do we get that same emotional wrapped-like experience for our customers?
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: Not thinking in terms of of Spotify wrapped necessarily, but like what is something wrapped like that we could do?
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's not looking backwards at what the customers did, but like what is that thing that we have in our data that the other brand doesn't um have?
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: And like the loyalty programs, like the best ones in the world.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's like that's what they they get right.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_01: You you you mentioned interestingly, maybe there's a little bit of a sidetrack here, but you you mentioned before you used the example of Spotify that it wasn't you didn't necessarily consider that to be a loyalty program in and of itself.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um why why do you why would you say that that's not not a loyalty program in and of itself?
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: I guess because loyalty programs is usually like you know, an exchange between the brand and the uh consumer that like both parties are aware of.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's like, hey, you sign up for this program, you're going to get rewards.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, there's that doesn't really exist in Spotify today.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: And yet you as the customer, it's like you still get a giant reward at the end of the year.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_01: No, it's it it's interesting.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: And and I was about to use the same example you did it um Spotify versus Apple.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I was I was just gonna make the argument just simply, and I to I totally get what you're saying about the sort of the exchange, right, between the consumer and and and the company.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: But I I was gonna make the argument that if if you as a company, if there was a competitor out there that that a consumer could potentially use their services instead of yours, that something like the Spotify rep thing is in fact a loyalty program for that very reason.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: Because Yeah, exactly.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of like loyalty programs and the things that are solving for retention, you know, stickiness with the customer's thing, top of mind.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: They're not always called loyalty programs, but it's like the thinking and the use cases you're solving as a business are still the same, whether whether it's a loyalty program or not.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like that specific um use case, it's like it does so much for them.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: It takes months for them to develop that campaign.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like you look at the value they get on social media of just people, everyone, hey, here's my rapt, here's my rapt, here's my wrapped.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then also like you Spotify, I mean you as a customer looking forward all year to, oh, I know on this specific day I'm gonna get my rapt.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like that's just a reason to keep using the product all year.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, for sure.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: No, it's fascinating.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: And and I um particularly with with companies, I imagine like Spotify, uh, are probably using at this point some AI tools to make all that happen.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: And so we'd be remiss, I think, in in in this case, if we didn't chat a little bit about AI.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, as you see AI uh building momentum, maybe with things like like that product uh or or others, are there some you know loyalty program specific use cases that you think are are maturing um and becoming sort of standard for for companies?
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the big one, and I've I've heard this like over and over the past couple of weeks, just um as part of the newsletter, just meeting with people in the um the spaces, uh trying to figure out how they can integrate um agents into the entire loyalty lifecycle marketing um workflow.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because you can't really loyalty is powered by lifecycle marketing teams, the people running these owned channels like email, SMS, and app.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: And um, one of the things we hear again and again is like, okay, in order to go from a campaign idea to actual execution, was Lily just talking uh with someone today who works at one of the largest um Fortune 500 companies in the world.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and she was telling me it takes probably three weeks to go from campaign to to execution.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: There's all of these approvals.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: Legal has to approve the brand and the creative and you know the offers and you know, everything, all these amounts.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: And um one of the things that we're very bullish on it at high touch is this idea of agentic, an agentic marketing platform where you as a lifecycle marketer can 10x your output because you have individual specialized agents overseeing kind of each part of that traditional workflow.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: So instead of you as a marketer having to go draft up the custom HTML for an email, now you're managing an agent to do that.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of you as a marketer, you know, having to rack your head about what audience should I send to this week, now you have an agent that can analyze all of your customer data and make recommendations for you based on the campaign to potentially match audiences to offers.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now you as a lifecycle marketer can get immediate approval because your legal team has already uploaded all of their brand guidelines and the agent can compare your creative and content against that.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: And suddenly these things that are really hard to do, um you can supercharge your entire lifecycle team.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like imagine a giant enterprise company like uh Netflix or a Spotify where each one of their existing marketers today now has an army of AI agents under them.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it's like a really exciting uh future.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: But it's not, I I have to ask the question.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: So you the way that you frame that, it's it's not it's not replacing the the uh the people who are doing the work today, it's just adding horsepower to what they're already doing.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: No, uh yeah, that is very much the the mindset uh of us at High Touch.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, how can we supercharge marketers?
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: How can we give them more tools?
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: And and truthfully, like if you're a company thinking about, okay, how can I um you know replace headcount with um AI, I think you're kind of missing something in that underneath every metric, underneath every needle, it's like there's a person moving that.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: And AI, I think we've seen it again and again, it still needs, you know, human creativity, human overseer driving it.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: If you go into an AI without a goal or objective, it's like you're just gonna get the average.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: But if you have a great marketer over great technology, it's like we forget this is that great technology doesn't work without great people.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: You need great people to oversee um the technology.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, our mindset here at High Touch is very much like, how can we enable marketing teams to do more?
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, okay, we already have if you have a great marketer who's already doing um great work, it's like, okay, how could we clone more of that person?
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: How can we make him do or her do more?
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, not okay, we have an AI that can just replace this person.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's like you should be thinking about that person like upscaling, going beyond the organization if you know he or she is providing that much value, not just like trying to replace them with an AI button.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that makes sense.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I I think you probably answered a question.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_01: I was gonna ask you if there were some misconceptions still out there um about AI as we move forward that that you know brands need to to to kind of get past, but it sounds like that's that would be a big one, is that it this isn't about about replacement, it's about uh addition to.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and there's a I heard this story a while back and I love it.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's such a good example.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's like you have to fall in love um with the the problem at hand.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: You can't fall in love with you know the the technology.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: And if you look back a hundred years ago, the great example to to point to is like everyone on an you know a train or traveling, what would they probably be looking at?
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: A newspaper.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: What is the equivalent of that today?
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's an iPhone, it's a laptop, it's an iPad.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: But the job of solving boredom is still the same.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's just the technology change.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like that could change again in the future.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: And it's very much the same with uh marketing.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: The job of delivering value to your customers doesn't change.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: How you go about that as a marketer will change.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: And the biggest thing, um, like misconception to for AI that I think a lot of brands have today is in order for AI to be effective, in order for it to be useful, you it has to plug into all of your data.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: You need a layer on top that has access to everything.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: And there's very few technologies out there today that aren't siloed into like one aspect and sliver of the customer data.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: And what makes HiTouch unique compared to like any other marketing platform is we sit on top of all of your data.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: And that was like an intentional decision made from uh the the founders of the company years ago.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it's like you can't undo tech debt.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: If you're an Adobe or a Salesforce, you can't just go re-architect your entire platform today.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that's something that makes yeah, just us unique that a lot of other brands um can't facilitate.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: Gotcha.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_01: And and as far as that data goes, let's let's talk about uh uh privacy for a minute, which is obviously a big consideration.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: And and I think we we've seen some evolution there.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think it comes in waves actually, where you know, the thought of giving up um, you know, uh personal information, the consumer giving up personal information, you know, is like, oh, I I don't feel good about this, to all right, um, as part of a loyalty program, I'm willing to do X, Y, or Z to maybe coming back around and being, okay, does this too much?
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, where where where are we right now?
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_01: How do you guys look at um at data, you know, particularly as people are trying to create personalized experiences?
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um is it a uh, you know, am I am I right that it kind of ebbs and flows with with consumer, you know, how they're feeling in that particular year?
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um Yeah, I guess like I get two quick answers to that question.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: One, um, high touch, just to clarify, it's like we don't actually have uh access to data.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: We sit as a layer on top of companies' existing data infrastructure.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: So high touch doesn't collect data.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: We make it easy to use.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um for the brands specifically, like how to think about um data is like, I think personally, it's like you can never uh you can never go wrong like being upfront and honest with the customer.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like sometimes that might be a little bit um painful, but it's like you see again and again like the brand repercussions of like these things that happen down the line, they have uh ripple effects for the company of them, you know, exploiting data, you know, security breaches, um, these sort of things.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's like it's on to the company to maintain those policies, make sure the data is secure, um, be honest with how they're using it.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: You know, are we selling it for ads?
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: Are we not?
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: What are we doing with it?
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, does that answer the question?
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of a hard one.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I truthfully, I don't think anyone has a great answer still yet today.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's an area like the entire data ecosystem um needs to improve on.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, no, for sure.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_01: And and and let's talk about um return on investment for a little bit as well.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, obviously there's more and more pressure um to have a a good return on, you know, on loyalty programs because it's the they they cost money.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I I'm I'm curious from your perspective, what methods are are being used um to justify investments in in loyalty programs and doing upgrades to loyalty programs.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_01: I would imagine that that high touch is in a pretty good position to kind of see, you know, is this working, is this not working?
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and and what is your advice to your clients on that?
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think uh there's kind of two layers to this question.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: One is um you have to balance obviously short-term KPIs with long-term KPIs.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: And the main one for a lot of loyalty programs is uh trying to figure out what are the core behaviors that actually impact customer lifetime value, meaning um this customer is going to spend more with us than they otherwise would have.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um and those are different for every single industry, but there tends to every single company tends to kind of know uh what those are.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I just published um a post on this last week where I was talking about Jersey Mike's large sandwich chain.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um one of the things for restaurants specifically is frequency.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: Frequency, like meaning how many times is the customer purchasing with us throughout the week, throughout the month.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: That is oftentimes like the biggest indicator of their lifetime value long term.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like, okay, if I can figure out how to get the customer in the store more frequently, that's gonna solve my LTV problem long term.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: Now, obviously, it's like you have to be able to balance um eating that cost up front a little bit to recover the LTV, but it's the thing you have to be looking at a brand as a brand is like what are these core behaviors that actually impact the needles that I want to drive?
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: So, like if you're um, you know, a streaming platform, there's probably like a specific watch time or logging into the app, um, those recurring things to where it's just brainless for the customer to think about it.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: It becomes a habit in their life and so routined because you as a customer are receiving so much value for it.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm sure there's brands in that come to mind for you that they just feel like part of your life, like you could not operate it without it.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I think that is what every company is trying to do with a loyalty program.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: Getting there is is a different question.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I won't say which one, but you're 100% right.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_01: And it's back to the coffee companies.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_01: That's the is one of those for sure.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: For sure.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, well, hey, let's let's kind of in in our wrap-up here, let's talk um about the future.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um are there some, you know, based on everything we've talked about, uh, what are the things that that you see for for for loyalty in 2026 and beyond?
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, where are things going?
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_01: Are there some things, you know, maybe besides personalization, besides gamification, which we've been talking about for a while, are there some sort of really new things that that maybe aren't, you know, maybe they're all in beta right now, so to speak, but but you know, what's coming next?
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_01: Where are the innovations?
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think uh one, you're gonna see a continued heavy investment in life cycle programs.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it's like when people even think of lifecycle and loyalty programs today, they often think of you know, email marketing.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: And uh life cycle marketing is now like the the backbone of businesses because it covers the full gamut.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um but I think the big one uh that you're gonna see is companies continuing to invest in their first party data to create moat-like um experiences, meaning like what is something that we can do that um no other brand can replicate?
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: And a great example of this is um streaming platforms.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, you look at the the world, how it's changed from um cable to now just like streaming taking over.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: And uh you have like a couple of big players.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: You've got Netflix and Disney, and my mind's blanking on the other ones.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: But the thing that's kind of cool is like Netflix can orchestrate all of their personalization around also all of the value that they offer.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: The library that Netflix offers is very different than the library that Disney offers, and vice versa.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that is what you're going to see companies betting more on is tying their loyalty programs into the core product and value that they are offering to begin with.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: So that it's not also just the gamification and the rewards, but it's the gamification, the rewards, the loyalty tied into their specific product and value that Company X can't replicate.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_00: And the only way to do that is with data.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: And you see this, you know, almost um, what's the word?
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_00: Gold rush of you know, trying to leverage and activate all of it and trying to figure out how to use um AI safely on top of it.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_00: And the companies that get there first are gonna reap the benefits.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_01: And and and what about some things that you know we've been doing that you're like nope, that's gotta go.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we've moved on from these things.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_01: We no nobody should ever do these things again.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I'm trying to think.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I think you can't think of any.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I'm saying.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: No, I I think one comes to mind is there's this uh sometimes gets like a bad connotation and um life cycle, but this idea of like batch and blast of like, okay, we have a campaign and um leadership wants us to drive this much sales this week, and it's like okay, you just get your whole list and you send something out to them.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um one of the things that we're really interested in exploring here at HighTouch and already working with a lot of customers with today is like, okay, how do we move away from batch and blast treating each individual as like an audience?
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, you just imagine you have an audience of cart abandoners.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: You think about what an audience is, is an audience is made up of one-to-one people.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: So there's an audience of cart abandoners who all abandon for different reasons.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, how do we send something personable, relatable, and value-oriented to each of those one person, not to an entire audience?
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: And the only way to be able to do that is with um really sophisticated technology, um, a lot of AI, a lot of machine learning.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: And uh we've been really excited, just so like in some of the pilot use cases we've done here at TITouch, um, like real companies using it.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: There's a company called Whoop, uh Large Fitness Tracker brand, of being able to get to that true one-to-one personalization.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: What I mean is an email or message that's crafted specifically for Luke, an email or message that's crafted specifically um for AJ based on everything you know about the customer.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: So shifting away from an audience-based approach to a one-to-one approach where an AI is understanding the context of a customer and then crafting the message based on the outcomes that you want to drive as a marketer.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: And then you layer on top of that all of the historical data you know about your customers, and suddenly it's like you're getting to these really wild um experiences, and then you're uncovering these insights that never would have been possible before, because instead of learning on an audience level, you're learning on an individual level, and then you're feeding those insights back into the system with the system self-improving to make decisions on the next person.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um and it's more valuable for the business and it's more valuable for the customer.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like those two things, it's like when they overlap.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's where great companies emerge.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_01: Like let me let me ask you a question about about that, specifically the the the the execution of that one-to-one thing for a minute.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_01: So it would be one thing, let's uh let's let's go go back a step and say, um, all right, based on a group of people who took an action, a group of consumers took an action, my AI tells me, all right, your message to them should be X and we'll blast that out or whatever the case is, some something like that.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_01: As the marketer in charge of, we'll say you go back to your agent example of that agent who made that decision, I can review that say yes, I agree with that and send it out.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_01: So there's a safety check there.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_01: How do you do that when each of the messages to a million people on your list or whatever the case is?
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_01: Great question.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_01: I love this question.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_01: How do you check that to make sure that every single one of those is okay with me as the guy in charge of that marketing?
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so specifically for the technology, we're talking about uh we call it AI decisioning uh here at High Touch.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_00: And uh one of the things I love about it is you have what we call them black box systems, in that you can't see how the technology works.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody likes that.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that's a horrible idea.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we want to understand how the technology works, why the decisions are being made, how they're being made, who they're being applied to, all of that.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_00: And uh one of the things I love about high touch is everything is you know very much an open box.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_00: So for this specific technology, you can click into any record um of a uh a customer who you're sending it to to see exactly why the the engine made the decision that it did.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_00: So um there's obviously we call it kind of like the the cold uh start problem of like when you launch this thing, you obviously it's like you have to start trusting it.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like you do it very smallly, safely, pilot use case, you know, same way we implement all technology.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um but at some point, it's like once this thing has been working and you see that it's working the way you intended, it's not suddenly going to um derail and go off the course.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like you as a marketer, you set the guardrails for things that you want to do.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: So that even means you know, the volume, the making sure that it doesn't, you know, send this type of message, you know, when a customer completes this action.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_00: All of these guardrails that you can control um as a marketing team to make sure that the system is operating within the parameters that you've defined and it's not like making decisions outside of it.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_00: Really, what it's doing is it's making more decisions for you uh that you wouldn't be able to make as a marketer.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_00: So you're very still very much like in the weeds controlling it.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's never a uh a black box just like you know, you pull this lever and suddenly I have no idea what's what's happening.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_00: The marketers are very much in the weeds looking at this every day, uh the folks using it.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_01: No, it's it's fascinating stuff, it really is.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_01: And and and again, it presents some really interesting sort of problems uh to think through like that.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_01: No, really interesting.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_01: So let me wrap up.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_01: The la last but not least, if if um you know a client came to you and said, Hey, um we we really feel like we're not hitting on all cylinders with our loyalty program, we feel like we're behind, but but we're having a hard time pinpointing like what our issue is.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_01: Where would you, where would you start um as their consultant?
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_01: Where would you start to look?
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_01: I I bet you're gonna say data.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, uh funny, I used to be a consultant, I used to work for a consulting firm before high touch, and we helped with this type of stuff.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I come from a consulting background, but uh, I think we even have to take a step back further than that.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, okay, why do what is the the problem the loyalty program is trying to solve?
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_00: And then once we understand we're aligned on the the business outcome we're trying to get to, um, okay, what is what are what do quick wins look like that we can do to solve that problem?
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's not related to the loyalty program.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um maybe it's actually uh a data problem and that you know our marketing teams, you know, can't build audiences fast enough to launch new ads, to launch new campaigns.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um and that is what's you know causing the loyalty program to fail.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_00: So trying to like actually get crystal clear on on what the problem is, a lot of times it's a uh a data problem.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it is um, you know, our journeys and everything is like too complicated.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we have so like how can we simplify that way down to get to the same um, what's the word I'm looking for?
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh first principles, you know, applying kind of that that first principle mindset of, you know, not letting scope creep uh creep in and uh simplifying things as much as possible to get to the same outcome, you know, being able to let go of some things over here so we can solve this problem, and then prioritizing uh those in the the the order that's gonna move the needle the the the quickest.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think it really comes down to kind of a prioritization and decision-making framework uh for that specific business.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_00: And oftentimes a lot of those things are directly correlated to data problems.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_01: But not necessarily um the first problem.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_01: Gotcha, gotcha.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_01: Well, uh, Luke, this has been a fan fascinating conversation.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_01: I really appreciate your being here today.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_01: And uh we look forward to hearing more from uh High Touch as we get into 2026.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's a great conversation.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_00: I really enjoyed it, a lot of fun.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_01: I want to thank everyone for tuning in to our Leaders in Customer Loyalty Podcast series.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_01: If you haven't already, please subscribe to the Leaders in Customer Loyalty Podcast and follow Loyalty360 on YouTube and LinkedIn.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_01: The links are provided below.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_01: Please join us every Tuesday for another edition of our Industry Voices podcast.