Latest / Leaders in Customer Loyalty, Powered by Loyalty360 / #507: Leaders in Customer Loyalty: Supplier Voices | Travel Loyalty Enters Its ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ Era

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#507: Leaders in Customer Loyalty: Supplier Voices | Travel Loyalty Enters Its ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ Era · Leaders in Customer Loyalty, Powered by Loyalty360

• 0:04
  SPEAKER_02: Hi everyone, this is A.J.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_02: Schneider from Loyalty360, welcoming you to another edition of our Leaders in Customer Loyalty Industry Voices podcast.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_02: 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_02: 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_02: Today we're speaking with Noel Outlaw, Chief Executive Officer at Switchfly, a leading travel, commerce, and loyalty technology platform that helps enterprise brands from airlines to financial services and HR tech programs drive engagement, revenue, and customer loyalty by embedding personalized travel experiences into their reward ecosystems.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome, Noel.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for joining us.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_02: Really appreciate it.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_02: Hey, thanks for having me here.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely, absolutely.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_02: Well, as you know, this is a recording for our 2026 trends discussions to kind of get an idea of what we're seeing in the industry and and you know what we're going to be looking at as we go into the new year as far as the loyalty programs go.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_02: And so I wanted to maybe start with a question about challenges that you are seeing today that companies are dealing with, that your clients are dealing with, um, that maybe they weren't 18 to 24 months ago, and and what's creating that that uh that difficulty.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um sure.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: I think the you know, the biggest, as people joke about my picture on the wall, is it's the elephant in the room, right?
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: So we'll use the elephant in the room, which is, you know, AI is changing a lot of stuff and how people think about things.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um and, you know, 18 to 24 months ago, we were having meetings with people.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: My background is doing AI and machine learning and complex stuff, and talking to people, and they really, they really hadn't embraced it.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: They didn't really understand it.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: And now that's becoming more and more real, right?
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: And they're uh there's people are starting to understand what those technologies can do and um and how that is going to change their program, right?
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: Especially as it relates to travel.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_02: Gotcha.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_02: And in in terms of the individual customer themselves, are there certain behaviors um as they relate to travel that you're seeing from the customer themselves?
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_02: That they they they want certain things that you know today that they weren't thinking about um, you know, uh a year ago.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um you know, is it is it shorter booking windows?
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_02: Is it, you know, uh things, you know, benefits where they can blend uh uh business travel and leisure travel, you know, in in certain ways.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, what what are the things that that customers want that that maybe they didn't a year ago?
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: Uh you know, if you think about and back to the AI and large language models, there is a lot of people now starting to plan their trips using tools like that, right?
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: The there is a disconnect between, okay, I've planned my trip to Aruba, right, using Chat GPT, and now, you know, and maybe I'm staying at this hotel or I'm doing this or I'm going to Mexico.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: I was just on the phone with a guy in Mexico.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: They're going to Cancun.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: I was telling him you should go to Bacalar as well, which is south of there.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: So now he needs a rental car, now he needs different room night, he needs all this stuff where people want to build these itineraries, and then they want to basically be able to say, click, I want that one, right?
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of the travel ecosystem isn't organized that way, right?
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: And so you're starting to see that transition, but consumers, you know, it's it's um, you know, it's it really in in packaging travel together, it is really becoming more of a choose your own adventure, right?
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: And the large language model technology helps the consumer navigate what they want that adventure to be.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: And and what they don't want to do is now I've got this list of you know, activities or hotels and and maybe you know, one day they'll have flights, and now I got to go to other system and and try to put that in and try to make it, you know, try to book it all.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: There's a there's a break down there.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, not that the the language models are perfect and they don't necessarily have the most up-to-date data, um, but you know, they are pretty awesome.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_02: So it it's interesting.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um, when you think about human nature and and just consumerism in general as as it's progressed over you know a hundred years, it strikes me the thing we keep coming back to over and over again at different levels and different plateaus is one-stop shopping.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_02: And and to your point, that there's always this tendency for the customer to want to be able to do everything in one spot.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_02: And and as soon as we we're like, okay, great, let's we'll put this together, and then it's then it becomes something else with more detail and and and different things.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_02: It that's kind of I think what you were describing is is just the the the evolution of of one-stop shopping.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_02: Is am I onto something there?
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, for sure.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, interesting.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_02: And and so part of that, I think also is is speed and efficiency and you know, and and the ability to um to get more more quickly.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_02: And so one of the things that that you the the bang, the the drum that that people have been banging for a while is you know, as as it relates to loyalty programs, is the time to value equation.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and as consumers, you know, as are more interested in instant gratification and and attention spans get shorter, um that strikes me as is becoming more of an issue for for brands who are you know trying to expand their loyalty programs.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_02: What what are you seeing in that realm?
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um well, specifically in travel, it's definitely something where the program is wanting to give, right?
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: And it's really, you know, it's give to get, right?
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, um, how can I recommend things that are timely to reward that person while they're on their journey, right?
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: And so um, you know, we're seeing some of that where programs are are specifically understanding that you're on a trip, right?
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: You're taking a you and I were just talking about going to Whistler, right?
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, if I if you're on your way to Whistler and there happens to be, you know, and I know that you're taking an eight-hour flight to get there, you know, maybe we can offer you a massage at a discount, right?
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: What when you're at your hotel.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe the hotel can offer you things, right, to do that um through those programs.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: I think one of the things that you will start to see in some programs are doing it is you know, the merging of the points value ecosystem so that just because you're a Marriott member and you know, I've got million miles on United, like, but if I don't stay at that hotel chain, like why am I dropping to the bottom of the rung?
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: Like, isn't there an ability for me to say, you know, hey, it's kind of like the the, you know, if you're a gold member on United, now you can get in other places at a goal at a certain status.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that in travel you'll start to see more of that, where it's like, look, this person spends a lot of time traveling, let's not drop them at the end of the queue, right?
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_02: So gotcha.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_02: And and are there some specific uh technological innovations that that let's say you guys have developed or that you're seeing in the in the market that that is helping sort of um reach out to the customer as while they're on their journey as you described, correct?
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_02: That maybe weren't weren't developed enough to be able to use uh you know 18 months ago.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: For sure, for sure.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: There's a couple um that are out there, which is really, you know, it's during the journey, right?
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: So you're on this trip, you're on a cruise, you're on, you know, wherever it is.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and now we know, hey, you're in um the Bahamas at Atlantis Resorts, right?
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: So it's the perfect time for me to offer you to swim with the dolphins, right?
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, you happen to be a loyalty member, and I I'll let you redeem for you know a thousand points or whatever it is.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: But those kinds of notifications for you know helping you make decisions, it's like, well, you know, get up.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I was just in Grand Cayman and it was like, you know, we were we were there to do diving, but then you're like, well, what would you do in the afternoon?
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: And then you're sitting there searching and searching and searching, having something recommend things to you, right?
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's just as simple as recommending things that basically is like, hey, did you know you could do this for this amount of points?
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: You could do this for this amount of points, and it's 3.2 miles away from you.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: Like those kinds of things help consumers make kind of those instant gratification decisions.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: And also um doesn't make you play travel agent when you're on when you're trying to be on vacation as well.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like, hey, did you know you could go, you know, swim with the stingrays and I can be there in 35 minutes and it's gonna cost me 4,000 points?
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: Sold, let's go.
• 9:33
  unknown: Right.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_02: I I I don't know if this is a term that people are using or if I just created it, but but sort of like hyper-relevance strikes me as being correct.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, hyper local, hyper, hyper-relevant.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, while you're in the process of being on your journey, what other things can we do real time to uh have a better experience for you?
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_02: And and I guess that's a that's a segue into the concept of emotional loyalty as well, which which has you know the concept has garnered a lot of attention over the last few years as well, um, as a way to to really endear uh and sort of lock in uh a customer into the you know through the loyalty program by creating that emotional you know connection.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um I I would assume that the same sort of thing, you know, you can find ways to appeal emotionally, like what you were describing has practicality to it, it has convenience to it, not you know, the idea where you're saying, hey, you're already here, spend X number of points, and we can hook you up with uh the you know this experience.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_02: It is it is it usable in the emotional realm as well?
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: So we have a so one of the areas of our business is this HR tech.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: Most people don't know what that is, but you know, in the in the loyalty ecosystem, right?
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: Most people think about credit card companies and things like that.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: But there are a lot of companies that give employees points, right, in being loyal to being a good employee, right?
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: And so one of the interesting things is one of our partners has this um great product feature, and it's basically reward stories, right?
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: So consumers talking about, hey, I and there's a great one that I just saw where uh a lady saved up her points, right?
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: And then she was able to take this trip of a lifetime, right?
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: Great for the employer, right?
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: The lady's super appreciative.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it even it, she's like, I am so appreciative of working for this company, and this is such a great place to work because these points have enabled me to take this great journey, right?
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: You don't necessarily get that with getting just a gift card, maybe you can.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um you don't necessarily get that in redeeming for a blender, right?
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: And so, and we see that consistently.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: Like if you go through this channel and you look at all these things, it's this, you know, travel specifically has an emotional attachment, right?
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, if you think about if you wanted to go uh when YouTube, you two is pay playing in the sphere, right?
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: What an incredible opportunity.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: Being able to associate your brand with that super positive emotional experience is awesome, right?
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: Because you're linking that, like, hey, that consumer use their points to have this incredible experience, and we help deliver that.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: That's just going to help you lock that relationship even tighter.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I as you were talking, I was thinking you there's probably brands that are overcomplicating the thought process on that.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and and you're right, it's it, it's, you know, maybe don't don't try and come up with something, you know, um uh sort of based on on some kind of science or something.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_02: The reality is that if people have a good experience, that alone will will stick in their brain and say, oh, I I was able to have this because of my relationship with brain XYZ.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, for sure.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, especially, you know, if you're getting um, you know, the whole trip or whatever is because of your points, like that's pretty awesome.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, you would definitely you would definitely stick around with that company.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_02: For sure.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_02: For sure, yeah.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_02: For sure.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, the interesting thing about going on a trip, right?
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: And and we even joke about this internally, is you know, you go on a trip, you come back, you tell your one, think about, you know, you and I were just talking about you going skiing, right?
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_01: You didn't talk about what you got for Christmas with me.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: You talked about, hey, I get to go to Whistler and go skiing, and I'm going in March, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_01: And then when you get back from Whistler and you've had this incredible, like, you know, week of skiing, you know, fresh powder probably everywhere, not like we're having in Colorado.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you'll get back and tell your friends and you'll show the pictures and you'll do all this stuff, right?
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: There's a whole emotional layer to travel, right?
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: That gets enabled that is not included if I give you uh points to buy something on XYZ brand.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: Like, hey, you got some new pants.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: Cool.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_01: You probably aren't, you know, standing telling people that you don't really know, and I just got these pants, and they're so, you know what I mean?
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: It just doesn't work that way, right?
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: But people with travel, it's an emotional experience that that drives connectivity to people.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: And then, you know, people have conversations with where did you go, right?
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: And what did you learn?
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, they bring that back to their work or friends and and start talking about it and how they were able to go there.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I just want to put a plug out there.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_02: If there's any brands out there that want to build their emotional relationship with me and want to fund my ski trip to Whistler, just reach out anytime.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, me too.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like that's you know, just give me, just load me up with points and we'll we'll you know, ready set go on that.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_02: So well, one of the things that I think we we would obviously be remiss if we didn't discuss as as it relates to you know 2026 loyalty programs and and beyond uh is AI.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_02: And um, I wanted to chat with you a little bit about that as well.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um, are there some specific AI use cases that you're seeing right now that weren't you know doable uh a year, 18 months ago, um, that you're now seeing as being you know, standard fair?
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um, have we reached that point yet where anything AI is standard fair?
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, when you think about travel specifically, some of the stuff is um, you know, like we we do, you know, offers and deals and specials and promotions and all that kind of stuff, which is you know just data analysis um under the hood.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: But there's also you know, this you know, what you are starting to see is people that have pl are starting to do trip planning on these tools in the in the large language model specifically, which is you know, AI is uh you know how you think about it, right?
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_01: And and there's data science and other things.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: I think the um from a loyalty program, right, it's really understanding the context of the consumer, which is hard to do, right?
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: Because of you know all kinds of different rules.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, once I know that you're going to Whistler, right, think of all the things that I can do, right?
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_01: To to improve that experience, drive more brand loyalty, connect you with the right products, right?
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: Do all these kinds of things.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um and that's the stuff that I think is starting to mature in the market, you know, without it feeling weird to the consumer.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's the other part, right?
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: Because there is this fine line with you know a consumer going, wait a minute, uh, how do you know this?
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: And people people see that now.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: They do a Google search, and a lot of times people are like, is it listening to me?
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_01: Because all of a sudden I'm seeing ads for stuff that you know I was just happening to be talking about with my kids.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, right?
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: It's everywhere.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so you know, figuring out how to do that the right way is is also really hard because you don't want to be just generic, but you don't want to be so hyper-personalized that people are like, This is a little eerie, like it knows too much about me, right?
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, for sure.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I've definitely had that experience, no, no doubt.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_02: Correct.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so when when you're talking to your clients um uh you know uh about their programs and and and specifically in this AI arena, um what what do you feel like are those uh I guess readiness gaps uh for them to kind of step into, you know, if they're not doing it already, to kind of step into that type of program?
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_02: Is it is it a lack of technological understanding or or or you know, employees that that have that expertise?
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_02: Is it you know technology integrations?
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_02: What what are the biggest issues there in terms of bringing AI into the fold?
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um uh truthfully, I think there's a lot of people that don't understand AI, right?
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um the uh last company I ran, which was in the Bay Area, right?
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_01: So everyone's dream be a you know high profile, venture-backed, right, machine learning AI under the hood, right, of AI.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: It takes years and years and years to build AI models, right?
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there's lots of people now that just because they've been around Chat GPT or Claude or Anthropic for three to six months, they're now your AI expert, right?
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_01: And and so I think companies need to one, if you are a PhD in machine learning mathematics and you are a large language model expert, uh, you're not gonna go to work for a loyalty brand, right?
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: Because you can get a job at Facebook, Google, right, anthropic things where you can get salaries that will blow your mind, right?
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_01: And so, so the the hive mind of massively educated, super smart people are working at those tech companies, right?
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: So the trick is then figuring out, okay, what strategies are we going to embrace that that basically stacks up on top of that tech, right?
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_01: And and having that smart is really where the constraint is because the people who really understand it, they're busy, right?
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: And so you really have to find um good quality people that can help you make those decisions because you know there is there's it's you know that segment of the market is moving so fast, right, that you could make a decision today.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: And then 90 days from now, it was either the right decision or it's a bad decision, you got to redo it, right?
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: And we were having a conversation yesterday about, you know, um some of the coding assistant tools, right?
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_01: And even our team internally, a year ago, it was kind of helping, but wasn't really.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: And now it's it's massively jumped ahead in the ability to assist a programmer in in how it codes, right?
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_01: And so I I think it's I think the hardest thing for brand specifically is where do they place their bets, right?
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: In what tech stack specifically, and choose wisely, right?
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: Making the smart decision because it it takes time, right?
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_01: Once you once you standardize on the on the approach and the tech you want to use, you know, that's gonna take time to roll out, it's gonna take time to support.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: Can you get the right people to to help you really do that?
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_02: In I I'm sure there's some stratification between the size of the company and obviously and the resources that those companies have, but but as a general idea, are you seeing clients and and and maybe companies that aren't working with you necessarily, are they building their own AI infrastructure or are they harnessing something that already exists uh and trying to integrate it with with their own programs?
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: Depends on the size of the client, right?
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: So the massive guys, they have their own AI teams, they've had them for a couple of years, you know, they're embracing it wholeheartedly, right?
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_01: The smaller guys are uh kind of doing the latter, they're just realizing how to.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: How to use the tools to help them, right?
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_01: They don't necessarily have a solid strategy around how to put it in place.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, it's it's all about resources, right?
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_01: And stuff's expensive too.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_02: I imagine you'd burn up uh hours very quickly in in getting uh getting those programs written.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, I used I used to spend five hundred thousand dollars a month on AWS expense in just training models.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_01: Just the training part, not the running, just training.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_01: Engineer says, go let the computer run for four weeks and come back and see what your results are, right?
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: So it's a lot.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's a lot.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_02: That is a lot.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_02: That is a lot.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_02: Well, let me let me ask you maybe just a couple of wrap-up questions um about uh you know the future.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um obviously AI is a big a big part of that.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but from a consumer perspective, and we've touched on some of these things, but what do you think the the the biggest consumer expectations are going into into you know the future here um that will drive the directions of loyalty programs and and and and your clients um moving moving forward?
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_01: I think actually, and really I have to hook this to travel as well.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think the biggest areas of improvement, doesn't matter if it's us, you know, or anyone that does travel, is gonna be in the servicing aspects of it.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: So that um, you know, if I need help and I'm on a trip and doing whatever, I'm not calling a call center.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_01: Most people in the planet hate calling a call center, right?
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_01: And so there's gonna be massive shifts in how you engage and support, but also it's not gonna be a frustrating experience anymore, right?
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_01: Because agentic AI and some of this stuff is gonna be gonna be able to be contextually aware about who you are, where you are, what you're doing, and what you're trying to do.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not gonna be some script that says press one to rebook your press two to do this, press three, and if it doesn't understand that, it kind of puts you out into the left field, right?
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I think that is going to be, you know, it's probably gonna take three years, maybe longer, maybe shorter.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but those kinds of things are gonna change how you interact with a program.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_01: And let me tell you, if you're stuck in a program that's still doing it via call center and it's a frustrating experience, you know, and then you have a really good experience with, you know, oh, and it took care of it, bang, and I was done, and I was refunded, whatever, and it took me 65 seconds versus 65 minutes on the phone, guess what?
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: Like you're gonna be loyal to the 65 seconds.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_02: Let me let me dig into that a little bit.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_02: I was just having some conversations with with folks specifically about the experience as a consumer, the experience with with what we'll call a uh a chat bot.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_01: Correct.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_02: And and you know, on the continuum of being uh basically a glorified um uh sort of um spouter of FAQs, all the way to on the other end of the continuum to being something that's really helpful and provides value almost as if a human was was doing it.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_02: Correct.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um where are we on that continuum, would you say, right now?
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um we're still in the innovation stage, I think.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we're more than innovation stage because some of the some of the intelligent chatbot kind of technology is definitely there, right?
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: Where you are interacting with a uh piece of technology and you think it's a human, right?
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you interact with um, you know, some of the even some of the LLMs that are tailored for certain answers and things, you know, people now think they're talking to a human, right?
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think it will get there.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's gonna take some time, but eventually, I mean, if you think about, you know, everybody runs a business and they have costs and whatever, the cost of a call center and all those people is super expensive.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: So if you can, if you can reduce your operational costs and get your consumers a better experience, that's a win-win for everybody, right?
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think that the tech will be more innovative, right?
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, think about six months to a year ago.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, how many times you went to a meeting that had a um an AI thing to record and take notes?
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_01: Not very much, right?
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_01: Now, every meeting, right?
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's boom.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_01: Do you want to turn this on?
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: Do you want to do it?
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_01: And the quality of notes is there, right?
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's listening to words and voice and things, and it's intelligently translating it.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_01: So if you you know, you extend that to the next level, you know, there's no reason why you can't be conversing with a digital customer servant service agent, just like we're doing on Zoom, right?
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_01: Who, because of all of the imagery and works and things like that, could actually come across as a digital human being, right?
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_01: So it looks like you're talking to someone, it's not actually a person.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: And they're, you know, they're helping you through your situation, right?
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's coming faster than we know it, right?
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: And not only to travel, I mean, it it's I I could see it happening to be a you know, a nurse practitioner in at your hospital, that it's actually a digital nurse that you're interacting just like this with a it looks and feels like a person.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_01: They're answering your questions.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_02: And and I was just thinking it in using Zoom as an example, I I guess depending on when you start measuring, it it really didn't take very long at all to get from you know, not not really having a coherent set of notes, you know, come out of it to to to like you said, having a pretty, pretty great summary and and you know, um and and and wrap-up of it.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, pretty amazing.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and it's all you know, if you think about you know technology, but even in the AI space, you know, it's all about accuracy, right?
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_01: So an 80% accurate model is useless, like because it's it's producing errors and errors and errors.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_01: And now, you know, all of these models are getting you know, 95, 96, 97.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_01: Now it is hard, right?
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: If you talk to a real AI data scientist, anybody, you know, to take a model that's accurate 96% of the time to get it to 97, right?
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: From 97 to 98, that's where it gets really hard, right?
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_01: Even the first, you know, the chat GPT models were wrong and didn't, you know, they had some problems, but that's what's happening now.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_01: You're getting closer and closer to 100%, right?
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_01: It takes evolutions of time, but you're not having to build you know that base layer.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: And so all the knowledge now is just getting smarter and smarter.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_01: And so now you're able to have really smart language models that really can be contextually aware into okay, I can train a model for travel.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's already got the base 90% nailed, right?
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_01: I just have to train it on the gaps to be able to do what I need it to be able to do.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, it's it's really amazing.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_02: So last question for you.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um what are you most optimistic about as we go into the new year uh as it relates to loyalty programs?
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um you know, I think besides you know the new hair growth formula that that we'll need soon, um, you know, I I think that uh loyalty programs are they just get better, right?
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I think some of the technology we've talked a lot about tech, but no, is getting better to help people make better decisions.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_01: The you know, the number of times I hear from people or from customers that say, you know, I've got all these users, and I've got these users that carry these massive point balances because they they're not finding what they want to spend it on, right?
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_01: And and I think that through the use of you know data analytics and personalization and you know, some of this AI stuff, that hopefully you can start to give that person what they want so that they get the true redemption because there are a lot of those people, right?
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_01: And you're like, this person has two million points in their account, they never spend it.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_01: Why is that?
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_01: And and so they're you know, they're spending a lot and they're doing a lot, but they're not actually engaging back with the loyalty program.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I think a lot of this tech will help uh kind of re-energize that re-engagement loop with the consumer.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_02: Gotcha, gotcha.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_02: Well, Noel, I really appreciate your time today.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_02: It's been a great conversation, and uh, we we certainly look forward to hearing more from Switchfly as we go into uh 2026.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_02: So thank you.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_02: All right, great.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_02: I want to thank everyone for tuning in to our Leaders in Customer Loyalty Podcast series.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_02: If you haven't already, please subscribe to the Leaders in Customer Loyalty Podcast and follow Loyalty360 on YouTube and LinkedIn.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_02: The links are provided below.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_02: Please join us every Tuesday for another edition of our Industry Voices podcast.