Latest / The Payments Shed / Ep. 25 - Filling the Funnel: How Krowd is Powering Customer Acquisition and Seamless Engagement for Restaurants
Transcript
- 0:00Welcome to the Payment Shed podcast, the weekly podcast that
- 0:03dives into the big topics, trends and people shaping the
- 0:06world's payments, fintech and business leadership of your two
- 0:09Co hosts, myself Grant Evans and Justin Hanna.
- 0:13Welcome to another episode of the Payment Shed Podcast.
- 0:15Today we are joined by Omar Raffi, CEO and Co founder of
- 0:18Crowd and Johnny Fox, partnerships director of crowd.
- 0:22Thanks for joining us guys. Hello, please can we get a brief
- 0:25introduction and a bit of background from from you both on
- 0:28how you got into the wonderful world of fintech?
- 0:31Yeah, thanks for for having us. Yeah, my background has nothing
- 0:36to do with fintech. I started as an oil trader at
- 0:39Shell. So let's say I'm repenting from
- 0:42my sins. You know, help helping
- 0:45restaurants today probably is the best way to start repenting
- 0:49from those sins. But no, I got into this in 2019,
- 0:53so we joined the Tech Stars Barclays Accelerator program and
- 0:57the idea was to build a loyalty program for the Barclays Bank
- 1:02and that's what opened our eyes to the world of fintech and card
- 1:06linked offers. Very good, Johnny.
- 1:10My background is running IT for restaurants and retail.
- 1:15So I've been doing this for 15 plus years and yeah, now I've
- 1:22been with crowd for near come out three years sitting on the
- 1:27other side of the fence, which is which is very nice.
- 1:30Slightly more relevant sort of crossover into restaurants than
- 1:34oil trade. So we're teaching them
- 1:37everything. We know you.
- 1:38Know. So, so what's the origin story
- 1:40then I guess fit for crowd? Obviously Barclays was the was
- 1:42the sort of initiator, but but what sort of brought you to the
- 1:46world of loyalty? So actually started before
- 1:49Barclays where as an oil trader, because I traveled a lot,
- 1:52finding the best restaurant was difficult because it was the
- 1:55best restaurant for the average Joe and not for me personally.
- 1:59You know, average ratings, the top ranked or it's a bloggers
- 2:02based view on the best restaurant.
- 2:04So we built an algorithm that predicted based on my three
- 2:07favorite restaurants, what other restaurants would be very good
- 2:11for me. Kind of like Netflix.
- 2:12When they you first sign up to Netflix, they ask you what
- 2:14movies you like. We did the same thing.
- 2:16Anyway, there's no money in it. So we somehow stumbled upon the
- 2:20fact that banks are somehow using transaction data to give
- 2:23customers good quality offers. And we're like, oh, that's
- 2:26interesting And what better offer is there than a restaurant
- 2:30offer? So that was my foray into into
- 2:34the world we're in now. Very.
- 2:36Good. And I guess what problem then
- 2:38were you trying to solve and was there a specific gap in the
- 2:41market because you know there would have been other platforms
- 2:43kind of in this nation, I'm sure.
- 2:45But what were you kind of leaning into is your key
- 2:48differentiator? Yeah.
- 2:49I mean, when we first found it, we said, OK, interesting
- 2:52products, really rich data, obviously transaction data, so
- 2:55you understand customer behavior.
- 2:58But it was very utilitarian and that all the offers are Tesco 2%
- 3:03cash back or B&Q or, you know, places that cycled.
- 3:07I always say no one wakes up in the morning saying, honey, we're
- 3:09going to Tesco this weekend because there's 3% cash back,
- 3:11right? So they thought they were
- 3:13missing something in this whole loyalty for banking customers.
- 3:16And, you know, when you've got so many cards, how do you decide
- 3:19to use that card over the other card?
- 3:21And we said experiences really builds loyalty.
- 3:24And, you know, travel is probably the biggest experience,
- 3:27but it doesn't happen enough. So we said we need a frequent
- 3:29experience and that was food, right?
- 3:32I mean, we said top three spend typically and everybody enjoys
- 3:35eating out. So if we could power those
- 3:38experiences, a birthday, anniversary, just going out with
- 3:42friends and it's powered by the bank, that's what's going to
- 3:46build loyalty. That's going to build that
- 3:48subconscious or conscious association of that experience
- 3:51to the bank. So we felt that was a big
- 3:53missing gap, which is what we're feeling now.
- 3:56So that's quite different obviously from traditional
- 3:58loyalty like you mentioned there.
- 4:00How did that philosophy that you first were talking about
- 4:03developing to kind of the next phase of an iteration of the
- 4:07business? Yeah, I mean, you know, starting
- 4:10off as a as a bank, sorry, as an app, BTC app giving restaurant
- 4:14recommendations to actually seeing transaction data to give
- 4:17real recommendations based on the transaction data seemed like
- 4:20a no, no brainer. Plus I didn't need to acquire
- 4:22customers. Customers are already there,
- 4:25saves you a bit of money. But yeah, I mean, it's in, in
- 4:30the, in the end of the day, you know what, what we want to do
- 4:35and what you know, what we're very passionate about.
- 4:37And if you look at the team itself, beyond just giving those
- 4:40banks a good customer base who are loyal through through the
- 4:43offers that we're providing, we're actually helping
- 4:45restaurants fill empty seats and and drive spend their way.
- 4:49And we're super passionate about that.
- 4:51I mean, everybody in my team comes from the hospitality
- 4:54industry. They've all worked either as AGM
- 4:57or as a waiter, waitress or marketing director.
- 5:00Johnny was head of IT. I've now got a small little
- 5:03restaurant out in Harrow as well.
- 5:04So I, I feel the pain of, of the restaurant industry.
- 5:07So you know. That be your Guinea pig customer
- 5:10by. Any chance you know the amount
- 5:13of text acts we've put through that restaurant?
- 5:14Just test things out. So it's hugely rewarding to be
- 5:19able to actually, you know, support this industry.
- 5:22And Johnny, you, you sort of joined the journey slightly
- 5:24later on in the process. Of so so it was it was not a way
- 5:28to meet Bilal and Omar that Bilal's our other Co founder
- 5:34based in the UK. So I was on the judging panel at
- 5:38the Hospitality Tech show. It was an innovation award.
- 5:43And Omar and Bilal had this crowd product, which was hyper
- 5:49personalization, not, not the product that we have today, but
- 5:53it was really, really interesting.
- 5:55And we chatted afterwards. And at that time I was working
- 5:59at Gaucho and I was kind of introducing Omar and Balau to
- 6:03some people that I knew in the industry and helping them kind
- 6:08of get some insight into what restaurants would look for, for
- 6:11this app, but wouldn't when when they kind of moved into the card
- 6:18linking world. It was kind of when you've got a
- 6:23big bank on board, then I'd really like to come on on board
- 6:26full time. And that was Amex.
- 6:29So as soon as they they got the Amex offer, I remember I was in
- 6:33Spain and having dinner and Omar phoned me saying, we've just
- 6:36signed the contract with Amex. And I've pretty much said I'll
- 6:39be back in two weeks, I'll see you in the office.
- 6:42So when you've got a big bank, there'll be more job security
- 6:44for the overcrowds. That's how my wife thought about
- 6:48it. Very good.
- 6:49So yes, that's so. I knew the guys for a couple of
- 6:52years before I came on board and yeah, it's it's been a great
- 6:55journey. And that was order and pay a
- 6:57table back then, yeah. So we had pivoted from our first
- 6:59BTC app to order and pay a table before.
- 7:02Order and pay a table was what? And this this this overarched
- 7:05with COVID, presumably so. Well, that was terrible timing
- 7:09because in 2019 we come into Barclays saying, hey, you know,
- 7:12if you really want to drive loyalty, give people restaurant
- 7:14offers. So they they had a contract
- 7:17ready for us, a pilot ready for us, which 2020 came in and
- 7:20absolutely destroyed everything we had in mind.
- 7:24The sector took such a huge hit right through in that time and
- 7:27people had to try and adapt as quickly as possible without
- 7:30really knowing how to adapt because no one's ever done it
- 7:33before. And there were some fast movers,
- 7:35right? And, and they probably did
- 7:37benefit from from quick decisions or big bets that they
- 7:40made. But others maybe were kind of
- 7:43looking to see what the world was doing right when it got to
- 7:45COVID. Yeah, absolutely.
- 7:47I mean, and, and if you look at offers specifically pre COVID
- 7:51and post COVID, pre COVID, many restaurants were giving out
- 7:55offers left, right and center. Post COVID, they kind of took
- 7:59that step back and said we don't want to be giving offers out.
- 8:02And, and it worked well for us because the way the product is
- 8:06perceived from a consumer perspective is that it's a bank
- 8:10funded offer. So while it is merchant funded,
- 8:12so the restaurants do fund these offers, the consumer assumes
- 8:15that all because I'm an Amex customer or I'm a Barclays
- 8:18customer and I'm so, you know, they want me to stay loyal.
- 8:21They're offering these, you know, cash back rewards.
- 8:25So so restaurants were like, yeah, I'll jump onto that.
- 8:27I don't want to be on Groupon seeing being seen as desperate
- 8:30and and needing customers, but everybody needs help.
- 8:33And yeah, it kind of works out well for us, really.
- 8:37And Johnny, was there a point of when you after you joined the
- 8:40business that you realized, well, this kind of a real
- 8:43moment, it's kind of move the needle for crowd as as it moves
- 8:47forward. Yeah.
- 8:49First of all, the people that Omar brought on board who were
- 8:54really good, good leaders in the industry that knew the space
- 9:01really well. Our business, a business
- 9:05development director was XCMR Gaucho at Hawksmoor for 15 plus
- 9:11years. So that was one thing was, was
- 9:14definitely the team that we were building and then the people,
- 9:19the restaurants, the actual quality of the restaurants
- 9:21coming on board and the banks that Omar and Bilal, we call
- 9:24them publishers, they published the deals.
- 9:27They were just getting better and better.
- 9:29So yes, I and then on the tech side, the one thing that came
- 9:33out COVID, I believe that the way that the new generation of
- 9:39AP is were being developed because of the pay table apps
- 9:42that were coming through for COVID just meant it was just
- 9:46everything just hit perfectly that we were coming into this at
- 9:49the right time to do something very different.
- 9:52Makes sense now when people think of custom engagement and
- 9:55hospitality, I will hold my hand up and think whoever gives me
- 9:58the best loyalty, right, they're the business I want to speak to.
- 10:01You mention it before I'm around.
- 10:03Consumers don't always want to feel desperate when they're
- 10:06going to maybe like Groupon, whatever it might be.
- 10:09But we will know customer acquisition is extremely,
- 10:11extremely important. Why do you think customer
- 10:14acquisition has been such a tough challenge for restaurants,
- 10:18especially kind of post pandemic?
- 10:21I mean, like, there's a restaurant industry is a tough
- 10:24industry and there's always a lot of competition when, you
- 10:27know, times are tough, people are spending less, so they
- 10:29struggle to bring people in. When times are good, more
- 10:32restaurants open so that you're struggling to get, you know,
- 10:34share of mind. And I think offers have
- 10:38historically just been a really, really good way to bring
- 10:40customers and always joke according to Wikipedia, which I
- 10:43sort of trust my life on the first restaurant that ever
- 10:48existed was in 500 BC on Egypt, ancient Egypt selling Guinea
- 10:53fowl and I don't know what wild, wild grains and always joke that
- 10:57probably on Tuesdays had buy one, get one freeze, right.
- 10:59So it's always been a way to bring customers in, but it's
- 11:03never been data-driven, right. So I remember seeing once on
- 11:07Oxford St. a lady carrying a placard saying free matcha this
- 11:11way, right? So they must have paid for that
- 11:13Lady. They obviously gave away the
- 11:14free matcha. Like do they actually know what
- 11:16the ROI was in running that campaign or that offer?
- 11:20Probably not. And that's something that I
- 11:23think we've been very focused on is helping these restaurants to
- 11:29not only be able to bring customers in, but also to
- 11:34understand how they are able to bring customers in more
- 11:37efficiently, more effectively, and, and, and drive those sales
- 11:40that they really need when they need them as well.
- 11:44And yeah, customer acquisition is key, right?
- 11:45In the end of the day, loyalty is important, right?
- 11:47And loyalty is a very important product for restaurants, but you
- 11:50need to feed the funnel like a customer first needs to get in
- 11:53to join the loyalty program so you can retain them.
- 11:55And what we're kind of that feeding the funnel, we're the
- 11:57top of the funnel, bringing customers in that have maybe
- 12:00never heard of you or they've heard of you, but not taking
- 12:03that step to go. And that incentive, that cash
- 12:06back, that reward was what made them say, you know what, let me
- 12:09give it a try. I've heard of it sounds good,
- 12:11let me go and try it out. And that really works well.
- 12:13We've all done it right? We've all gone.
- 12:15I've heard of that restaurant, I've heard people talk about it
- 12:17and but I've never been. At what point do you turn into?
- 12:20I've heard about it and you know what?
- 12:22I think I'm going. To go our, our view is, is that,
- 12:26you know, a behaviour changing offer does that, right?
- 12:28So we've seen people play in the office space, especially in the
- 12:31States, for example, where you see restaurant offers at 3% cash
- 12:34back. And I always tell restaurants, I
- 12:36said, don't even bother running. Some restaurants tell me it's
- 12:38too expensive. So I won't even offer you a 5%
- 12:41cash back deal because I don't think you'll make money on that.
- 12:43You'll lose money because you'll get incidental spend and not
- 12:47incremental spend, right? So if me seeing a 3% offer, a 5%
- 12:51offer, is that going to drive me to change my behaviour to go to
- 12:54the restaurant or am I going to go anyway?
- 12:57And oh, by the way, there was an offer.
- 12:59So therefore I got 5% off that meant the restaurant lost money
- 13:02on that. So our view is it should be a
- 13:04double digit offer for you really to be driven.
- 13:06And that behavior change where it's like, I've got two options.
- 13:09I'm going to make an active decision to go to that second
- 13:12option because there's a reward that's that's worth it for me.
- 13:16I think that you know, very clearly distincts the difference
- 13:20between you guys and conventional loyalty apps and
- 13:23and how like you say that top of funnel piece, right, that
- 13:26they're really partners of yours on that partnership front.
- 13:29When you look at brands like Como and partnerships with with
- 13:32those guys and how that fits into your broader acquisition
- 13:36ecosystem, how important are those strategic partnerships for
- 13:39you guys? I guess they're a fundamentally
- 13:41vital part of of your business. Are they?
- 13:43Yeah, they are they, they, what they're doing to for, for
- 13:49keeping the customers and keeping it sticky for the
- 13:51restaurants is, is definitely important for us.
- 13:54What we're trying to do is increase that, that loyalty
- 13:57database by driving through the banks an extra.
- 14:02I mean we've got 2030 million cardholders currently through
- 14:06the different publishers that we've got a restaurant can't go
- 14:10out to 2030 million customers. We don't charge for for
- 14:15marketing or anything like that. We're a transactional based
- 14:19Commission. So we are driving brand new eyes
- 14:25to these restaurants in a way that a restaurant have to spend
- 14:30a lot of money to get to that many customers.
- 14:33And driving the what we've got with dynamic loyalty is driving
- 14:38the loyalty through the banks means that customers that don't
- 14:42sign up to a restaurant's loyalty purely for the fact that
- 14:46they don't want more spam in their inboxes or they're just,
- 14:50they're just signing up to too many or they've got too many
- 14:52physical cards or apps downloaded.
- 14:55That for us, integrating into the comos of the world, into the
- 14:58CRMS means that we can display a customer's loyalty through their
- 15:04bank banking apps. So you'll be able to see all of
- 15:08the restaurants that you've attached your card to, how many
- 15:12points you've got, if it's a double points on a Tuesday
- 15:14afternoon, that kind of thing. So we're driving it through a
- 15:17different way, but all we're doing is putting the information
- 15:21that Como has so. These banks will massively feed
- 15:24your top of funnel basically and the more banks that you bring on
- 15:27board, the bigger an upsell that then comes to other third
- 15:30parties for you guys, right? Because you talk about the 2030
- 15:32million, that level will grow and grow and grow the more
- 15:35banking partnerships that you've got in place, right?
- 15:37Yeah, we're at a stage now where we've got maybe too many
- 15:40customers where restaurants are pushing back and saying you're
- 15:43driving too many sales. And I always find that strange.
- 15:45I find this change in the restaurant and be like, Omar,
- 15:48you know, you've hit your budget.
- 15:49I'm like, what? What does that mean?
- 15:50So should I stop the people from coming inside because I've
- 15:53driven too many customers is sometimes we go over budget and
- 15:56I apologize and I say I'm sorry, I've driven too many sales your
- 15:59way. But but that's true actually,
- 16:01because I mean the end and part of our part of the way the
- 16:06product works is that because we bill for cash back.
- 16:08So the way it works really is you get an offer on your card,
- 16:11do you go and you spend the full amount.
- 16:13And we identify that transaction using the merchant ID.
- 16:17We collect the money from the restaurant and pass it to the
- 16:19publisher of the bank who puts it in as a statement credit to
- 16:22you now that while that buy one get one free that the ancient
- 16:26Egyptian restaurant hadn't, they didn't get an invoice for that
- 16:28buy one get one free. It just happened, right?
- 16:30It just happens right there. And then discounts that
- 16:32restaurants run are also happening just immediately and
- 16:35and they don't feel that cost with cash back.
- 16:37You're billing for that, that transaction 30 days, 45 days
- 16:41later. Restaurants don't manage cash
- 16:44well when you're asking for something.
- 16:46They're like, well, thanks for sending that person over 30 days
- 16:49ago. I've used that money 10 times
- 16:50over and that's where a big struggle.
- 16:53So what I was learning now he owns a restaurant.
- 16:55Yeah. Exactly.
- 16:56So that's the slush fund. Wikipedia again.
- 16:59Other historical research centres are available.
- 17:03How, how do entities, partnerships, partnerships
- 17:06create mutual value then? So you talk about the
- 17:09restaurants, you talk about the banks, talk about the the diners
- 17:13themselves. How does that create a
- 17:15relationship then with the diners and the restaurants, do
- 17:17you think? Yeah.
- 17:19So I mean, you know, again, the, the banks, first of all, the,
- 17:25the restaurant sector for banks is a very important sector.
- 17:28As you know, for the economy in general, the restaurant sector
- 17:30is very important. It's the most, it's the largest
- 17:33sector in terms of employees. I think they fell over 2 million
- 17:36employees in the restaurant sector.
- 17:37So it's important for that for the economy and as a whole to
- 17:42have that sector perform well, right.
- 17:44So that's one benefit then of course, like I said around the
- 17:47experiences, so driving those experiences to those customers.
- 17:50And then from, from the consumers perspective, I mean,
- 17:53it's, you know, with COVID, we saw how many missed moments we
- 17:56had, right? And everybody's all of a sudden
- 17:58felt like, well, you know, how did we survive for a year and a
- 18:01half without going out to restaurants and giving them the
- 18:04opportunity to go out again? It's phenomenal.
- 18:06And you see that in the numbers that we're generating for our
- 18:09publishing partners. Like the offers we're running
- 18:11are by far the most successful offers they've ever had run.
- 18:14So our thesis back in 2019, even though timing was horrible
- 18:18because of the pandemic, proved out to be very true.
- 18:22Now, I mean, we've, we have a publishing partner where over
- 18:2525% of their customers have signed up to the offer.
- 18:28And a huge number of those actually engage with the offer
- 18:32itself, as in redeem it. You feel those people just sign
- 18:34up to every offer available, but never redeem it.
- 18:37And we've got huge engagement, which no one's ever seen before.
- 18:40So it's clearly that everybody is, you know, from those three
- 18:44parties, the banks, the the, the restaurants and the, the
- 18:49consumers themselves are enjoying this.
- 18:51It's it's all driven through app.
- 18:53Is it or or is there any element of QR codes with any?
- 18:56Other no, we're trying. We, we try to keep it that
- 18:59discreet that it is all done. It's recognized.
- 19:02So the cards when they sign up currently with the cash back,
- 19:05the cards are recognized through the merchant ID.
- 19:09When we scan, the merchant IDs are scanned and then we can
- 19:12deliver the cash back. When we talk about dynamic
- 19:16rewards, we're recognizing a card at the payment terminal.
- 19:20So it's it's a much nicer journey.
- 19:23It's a quicker journey where Omar said that it can take 45 or
- 19:2960 days for reporting purposes. It's all kind of very instant
- 19:34the and live reporting. So yeah, it's, yeah, it's, we
- 19:43don't need that. We don't need any apps.
- 19:44We don't need any QR codes. The idea I've always had in my
- 19:47head is if you're on a date, the last thing you want to do is
- 19:50wave to a waiter, A waitress, that you've got QR code and a
- 19:53coupon code for 10% off. You just want it to be seamless.
- 19:57And so the way that we've built it from cash back all the way
- 19:59through to our new product, Dynamic Rewards, it's all
- 20:02seamless. And what what's if you were to
- 20:05describe then? A campaign end to end from bank
- 20:07app to diner sitting down for a meal.
- 20:11How would that flow look like when you're going and
- 20:13positioning this to an end customer of yours I guess?
- 20:16So on the bank side, it's there's two ways of doing it.
- 20:20Let's Click to activate and there's always on.
- 20:23It's a contentious conversation, especially around attribution,
- 20:27right? Because if you applied an offer
- 20:30on to every Lloyd's customer, that's 20 million cards, whether
- 20:34or not they know there's an offer, they're going to redeem
- 20:36that offer and that could be detrimental.
- 20:38That's that whole incremental versus incidental, right?
- 20:40Do you actually know that the customer is coming in because of
- 20:42the offer? They just there by accident
- 20:45redeemed an offer. So the typical journey that we
- 20:48prefer is Click to activate and what that is, is on the banking
- 20:52app, you will add the offer to your card.
- 20:54And only once you've added the offer to your card do we start
- 20:57listening to that card at the merchant ID.
- 20:59When that card shows up at the merchant ID, we know how much
- 21:02they spent and whatever they were owed.
- 21:03We will then, like I said, bill for that, collect it, pass on
- 21:07the cash back element to the issuer, but then push pushes
- 21:11through a statement credit. In some cases, the issuer pushes
- 21:14that statement credit on their own sort of risk and that they
- 21:18haven't received the cash back yet, but they'll fund it in
- 21:21advance and hope that we pay them.
- 21:23In other cases they wait and that could take up to 60 days
- 21:26for the the cash back to be paid out.
- 21:28So that's that's the end to end sort of user experience.
- 21:31Cool. What's that secret then to to
- 21:34finding them new customers? You mentioned before 8% of your
- 21:38dying is a first time visitors. I mean that's a great start,
- 21:41right? Incredible.
- 21:42What is that recipe if you'd getting them for them first time
- 21:45consumers to to make that first time visit?
- 21:47I think it's the the inventory that we've got.
- 21:50I think that the, the quality of what we're providing via the
- 21:55banks, we, we choose restaurants that are nice, nice to go to.
- 22:03They're good experiences. They're they're good ratings on
- 22:07Google and TripAdvisor and the rest of it.
- 22:09We don't normally we don't go after the the fried chicken
- 22:14places on your High Street. It's.
- 22:15Wallet and important that when you say so you want.
- 22:18To it's not, it's not Wallet's brand because we, we'd be quite
- 22:20happy. We, we have coffee shops, we
- 22:23have some mom and pop kind of shops, independent shops on that
- 22:27restaurants on there. They just have to be nice
- 22:29quality, good experiences. We want these guys to keep
- 22:34coming back to, for example, Amex Dining to get their next
- 22:39restaurant. So if we deliver good
- 22:40restaurants, there's a bit of personalization in there as
- 22:43well. So if you go to a state
- 22:44restaurant, you'll see state restaurants.
- 22:45If you're a vegan, you'll get shown the vegan restaurants.
- 22:50That's kind of what for us. We see good uptake.
- 22:54I for me, I've only normally used loyalty and it's not even
- 22:58loyalty, it's offers. I think it's such a big
- 23:00difference between loyalty because me as a consumer and the
- 23:03way I spend compared to an offer at XYZ restaurant on the High
- 23:06Street won't get, I know, a starter through my main meal
- 23:10right where I'm rushing about a lunch with the kids and I don't
- 23:13we'll just jump in here for an hour.
- 23:15I don't want to be in here for any longer.
- 23:17I just know that I've got a free pizza with with one pizza.
- 23:19So the offer gets you in and the Lord keeps you sticky.
- 23:22Yeah. The Payment Shed Podcast is
- 23:25proudly sponsored by Tammy AI, the market intelligence and lead
- 23:29generation platform built for sales and marketing teams who
- 23:31want precision, not guesswork. Tammy helps businesses identify
- 23:35their best fit prospects, gain deep market insights and boost
- 23:38revenue growth. And it really has become the go
- 23:41to solution for the payments and fintech industries.
- 23:44Both Justin and I have used the tool in previous organizations
- 23:47that we've been in and we really can't recommend it highly
- 23:49enough. There's a link in the bio to
- 23:51click on the Tammy website and find out more about their
- 23:53product. You really won't regret it.
- 23:56But I'm also well aware that that is only serving a purpose
- 23:59for what I'm doing is probably not.
- 24:00So I'm going to take my wife on a date to it's someone that's
- 24:03just very quick and easy for that.
- 24:04And I think from what you guys are talking about, it's it's
- 24:07definitely more kind of the upper end of wanting to go out
- 24:10for nights meals and getting rewarded for doing that.
- 24:13I think we've got a mix of everything, right?
- 24:15We've got everything from your QSR lunch places, pokey places,
- 24:20you know, those lunch bowls, 2-3 Michelin starred restaurants.
- 24:24And I think look, London itself has about 15,000 restaurants.
- 24:29I think across the UK is about 80 + 1000 restaurants.
- 24:31Like it's impossible to go to every restaurant, right?
- 24:34So you either a creature of habit and go to the same places
- 24:37regularly, which most people are, or you sometimes are
- 24:41incentivized to go try something new.
- 24:43And I think we've got that many good places that people are
- 24:46looking at it and being like, I've never been there before,
- 24:48but I've walked past it looks quite nicer.
- 24:50My friends have talked about it and actually I wouldn't mind
- 24:52going there and getting a 10% cash back.
- 24:54How much access then do you guys get to, to data that will help
- 24:57you with that? I'm going to call out, you know,
- 25:00slightly controversial. I know you guys work with Amex,
- 25:01but I, I use my Monzo day-to-day and I use my Amex day-to-day.
- 25:05They're two of my main spending cards where both of them have,
- 25:07as Justin said, offer solutions, right, not necessarily loyalty.
- 25:11And I particularly with Amex for me, and I'll have a look and
- 25:15I'll normally go on once a month wherever, whenever they update
- 25:17it, but I don't feel like they're using my customer data
- 25:20necessary to personalize those locations.
- 25:23Like I would expect to see certain different venues on that
- 25:25list. If they know my spending, you
- 25:27know, and you can spend thousands of pounds on your
- 25:28credit card in a year, it does feel like they're maybe signing
- 25:32certain parts. And Monzo's the same, by the
- 25:34way, there's, you know, stuff on there.
- 25:35I'm like, I'm never going to, That's not me, right?
- 25:36You should, you should know my data.
- 25:38I'm not, that's not an offer you should put in front of me or, or
- 25:40you know, if you're going to build a loyalty app, look at
- 25:42where I do my day-to-day spending.
- 25:44How important is the data that you guys get in from the banks
- 25:48to then help to work with them on those loyalty and acquisition
- 25:51solutions? Yeah, I mean, it's a good
- 25:53question. And it's in the end of the day,
- 25:56the transaction data is very valuable.
- 25:59And restaurants a bit tricky because historically, I mean,
- 26:02recommendation models are built on, I mean not collaborative
- 26:06filtering models, but like something along those likes,
- 26:08which is, you know, people who spend here would likely spend
- 26:11there. And because they see enough
- 26:12transactions happening in these two different locations, they
- 26:17find that association with restaurants because it's cheap,
- 26:20it's not a very frequent spend, right?
- 26:22And there's so many of them, it's hard to build those
- 26:25associations. What we did, and this goes back
- 26:29to the original app, which was that restaurant recommendation
- 26:32app, we went and crawled all the data we could on on the
- 26:36restaurants reviews, blogs, images, social media to help us
- 26:39understand what makes that restaurant special.
- 26:41And then when we see a transaction at that restaurant,
- 26:44we know all the attributes of the restaurant.
- 26:46We can find other restaurants that have similar attributes.
- 26:49So where the two fit together is the transaction gives me
- 26:53probability. The third party data gives me
- 26:57similarity. Bringing the two together is
- 27:00very important because Nobu and Zuma very similar, but
- 27:04probability of you doing those regularly, unless I don't know,
- 27:07something about your income is probably quite low.
- 27:11So giving you that recommendation like I go to Nobu
- 27:14today, like, oh, you've been to Nobu, I'm going to give you Zuma
- 27:15tomorrow is probably a low probability.
- 27:19Like what? It was over, right.
- 27:21Well, there you go. Doesn't actually we we work with
- 27:24everyone. So we can't say.
- 27:26That, but they're all great. But if I gave you maybe 2
- 27:30slightly less similar restaurants, but very much
- 27:34within your wheelhouse of going to regularly, I'd be, I'd be
- 27:37more likely to show you that, right?
- 27:39And I always give the example of Five Guys, you know, what can
- 27:42you tell from transaction data and Five Guys, you get the
- 27:44merchant category code. So you know it's a restaurant.
- 27:47You get the average transaction value, let's say 20 quid £30 but
- 27:51what else do you know? Like 5 what guys is it French
- 27:54guys, Italian guys? Is it Chinese guys?
- 27:56I mean it's just five guys, right?
- 27:58There's no way to know it's a burger place, but we've scraped
- 28:00all the data to figure out that it is a burger place it's a
- 28:03slightly upscale QSR burger place and we can find you a
- 28:06Shake Shack and set or something like that.
- 28:07So it's. Using ATVs to drive that
- 28:10decisioning. No, no.
- 28:11So it's like I said, it's all this third party data, the
- 28:12reviews, the blogs, images. The volume of fries you get Five
- 28:15Guys compared to everywhere else, right?
- 28:18Exactly what the other and they're so unhealthy.
- 28:20I mean, the amount of calories in this crazy, but you know,
- 28:22I'll give you 1 very interesting example of Sushi Samba.
- 28:26If you look at the similarity between Sushi Samba and the most
- 28:28similar alternative restaurant is probably like duck and
- 28:31waffle, which technically is nothing to do with the same
- 28:36cuisine, but they've got the same view.
- 28:38And the vast majority of people going to sushi, some are going
- 28:41for the view as opposed to for the sushi.
- 28:43It's good sushi. You know, it's, it's good.
- 28:44But you're going more for the view in the ambulance, right.
- 28:47So we can figure out, are you there reading more for the lot
- 28:49of the live music? Are you there for the view?
- 28:51Are you there for the food? Are you there for the, you know,
- 28:54atmosphere and so on and so forth.
- 28:55So yeah, it's quite powerful. And what's the results or
- 28:59success stories that kind of stand out most for you?
- 29:03Yes, again, you know we say we're data-driven and because of
- 29:05the card data we have, we can be.
- 29:07So we can run control groups, we can run AB tests, we can look at
- 29:10year on year analysis of people who opted in versus people who
- 29:13didn't opt in. So when we say that an offer has
- 29:16driven incremental sales, we can say that with data to prove it.
- 29:21And if you look at the numbers, I mean that we're driving, we
- 29:25just got 11 premium restaurant group which we ran with British
- 29:29Airways. We're looking at some numbers
- 29:31across the board other than one month here, one month there,
- 29:34we're having close to 100% uplift in sales year on year.
- 29:38So that means last year when we looked at that same customer
- 29:40base and how much they spent versus this year, we've doubled
- 29:43their sales and we haven't doubled their sales as a total
- 29:46because our proportion is still quite small as compared to their
- 29:48whole thing. But that's powerful data to be
- 29:52able to to make decisions on. So, yeah, to that's and we're
- 29:57very proud of the fact that we can deliver that kind of
- 29:59results. It's fascinating.
- 30:02I found this stuff really interesting.
- 30:04So leading into the big drum roll, Johnny's spoiled the the
- 30:08large jam roll by alluding to this, but I know you guys are
- 30:11very excited about this, this product.
- 30:12So dynamic rewards your new product.
- 30:17Let's unpack it. Tell tell me all about it and
- 30:19how this will add to your current acquisition strategy.
- 30:23Yeah, so it started with a a large QSR who had sent a very
- 30:30large bill to and they complained.
- 30:34They said, oh, it's too expensive.
- 30:35I said, but I ran a control group and the results were 69%
- 30:38growth in spend. I think it was something around
- 30:40six, it was around 70%. They're like, hey, but it's
- 30:43still so expensive. And like, you know, again, I'm
- 30:45sorry, I drove so many customers your way and I'm like, but hold
- 30:48on a SEC, your own taste card at 25%, which is more than what I
- 30:52was charging in total, the cash back plus the Commission.
- 30:55Like how do you justify and taste carbon?
- 30:57Not me. So initially they waffled a bit
- 30:59and then finally they said, well, they don't invoice me.
- 31:02So that was a light bulb moment. I was like, OK, if that's how
- 31:05simple it is and we solve, restaurants refuse to work with
- 31:08us, but go on to the fork. You've probably seen the fork in
- 31:10the summer. They've got this 50% deal.
- 31:12They don't run with us on a 10% cash back, but go on for 50%.
- 31:15So clearly discounts and cash back were seen differently.
- 31:19So that got us thinking, well, how can we avoid the cash back
- 31:22element we need to build direct integrations into payments and
- 31:27into the pause to apply a discount at the point of sale.
- 31:30So that was it really probably a year and a half ago sat down
- 31:34Johnny obviously with his background and and you know,
- 31:37head of IT at restaurants. We said, well, how do we make
- 31:39this happen? And.
- 31:40Yeah, it's been what, a year and a half in the making to get to
- 31:43the point where we're now we're down in a pilot with Youcha.
- 31:49And yeah, it's, it's, it's been, it's the next, it's the next
- 31:54step in card linking offers. It's does exactly what Omar
- 32:00said. We're not invoicing any more for
- 32:03the cash back element. So that means that the budgets
- 32:05that the restaurants have can be extended.
- 32:08In fact, we don't, we don't even really touch the marketing spend
- 32:11at all when we talk to restaurants, which is fantastic
- 32:14for those marketing teams. The journey itself is much nicer
- 32:18for a customer because they get their rewards instantly, within
- 32:23minutes, hours, days, compared to what it can be at the moment
- 32:27with the banks, which is 9 could be up to 90 days for, for the
- 32:30cash back to come back into their accounts.
- 32:36And for the merchants itself, for the restaurants, we're
- 32:38giving them a lot more power to be able to do campaigns that are
- 32:42not just always on kind of a 10%, 24-7.
- 32:47Some restaurants come back to us and say, look, we're, we're fine
- 32:50Fridays and Saturday nights. We're really busy Friday and
- 32:53Saturday nights. We can't really be discounting
- 32:56anything those days. And we've never been able to
- 32:58say, OK, let's turn those days off because unfortunately the,
- 33:03the banking technology just didn't give us that flexibility.
- 33:07But where we are now is that we can, because we power it all.
- 33:10We can now give restaurants the ability to turn off days to do
- 33:14frequency visits, days of the week, times of the day.
- 33:18If they wanted to do a lunchtime, offer another one for
- 33:20the evening, then they have that power to do that.
- 33:23Just with our payments ecosystem, how on where exactly
- 33:27are you integrating there? You sat on an Android POS
- 33:30device? Is it in the EPOS software?
- 33:31Is it a mixture of the two like? It is both OK, so in an ideal
- 33:36world we would just integrate into the payments because that'd
- 33:41be much easier. As I said, there's so many Epos.
- 33:43There's so many payments, right? Yeah, that would be so much
- 33:47easier. But what the restaurants want to
- 33:48do at the end of the day, and this is where my IT director at
- 33:52restaurants is they want to reconcile their payments and
- 33:54their, their, their cash UPS at the end of the night.
- 33:57So you need to reconcile. And the only way to we can
- 33:59reconcile is to integrate into the POS.
- 34:02So yes, at the end of the day, you want to see that you've got
- 34:05X amount of payments and you've, you know, POS has taken that
- 34:08much and they reconcile. So it is that's, that's now our
- 34:13job is, is just to integrate to as many as the of payments and
- 34:17Epos. We're looking at kind of the top
- 34:198 Epos is out there and and payments to be able to have the
- 34:23biggest spread in the UK. That funnel's getting a little
- 34:26bit crowded as well because you've got new laws around
- 34:29tipping, so you've got Tip jar and you rocked and people like
- 34:33that. That obviously helping staff to
- 34:35get better accessibility to tipping and the taxing that goes
- 34:38with that and removing tax from the restaurant locations.
- 34:41Have you got any challenges in terms of multi layered
- 34:43applications that sit on pause as well?
- 34:45Like you're you're competing with other solutions in in
- 34:47restaurants. It's not.
- 34:48I don't think it's so much as competing.
- 34:49In fact, if anything, it helps us because there are now APIs
- 34:53available that they've created for tipping that we can lean on
- 34:57to be able to do what we need to do.
- 34:59So there are different technologies out there that do
- 35:03some really cool things when it comes to payments, where
- 35:06payments can settle, payments can be split into different bank
- 35:12accounts. So the tipping gets that, that,
- 35:15that part of the transaction will go into the tipping bank
- 35:18account and the payment company will get their their bit and we
- 35:22theoretically get our bit. So that kind of takes all of
- 35:26that risk if you like and and just pays us straight out.
- 35:31So that's really nice. And again, if it wasn't for the
- 35:34the tipping world, that probably wasn't created.
- 35:37So we can lean on all of these nice new products to for us to.
- 35:42Integrate and from a partnership side and how are you working
- 35:45with the banks and the schemes to make it as frictionless as
- 35:48possible? Yeah, I mean, that's an
- 35:50interesting one because not only is it solved a lot of problems
- 35:53on the restaurant side, you know, Johnny mentioned a few, I
- 35:56mean even opens up skill level offers, but it's also solved a
- 36:00lot of problems on the bank side.
- 36:02So to run an offer and even non banks as well, I'll give you an
- 36:05example on both. So to run an A card linked offer
- 36:09cash back program with the bank today, I need to get a bank to
- 36:12share transaction data with me. So they've got to build those
- 36:15pipes. They've got to be comfortable
- 36:16sharing transaction data with me.
- 36:17It's non PII, so like that's OK, but still it's sensitive data.
- 36:22They have to be able to reconcile which customer gets
- 36:24what offer. They have to be able to collect
- 36:26the money from me and then they have to be able to issue the
- 36:29statement credits back to the customer.
- 36:31So the lift to turn on a cash back card linked offer program
- 36:34is quite high when it comes to dynamic rewards.
- 36:38All I need is a token from the rest from the bank, the bank.
- 36:41And there was a bank that came who was interested in our cash
- 36:43back program, but said it was too much lift.
- 36:46When we told them about dynamic rewards, they're like, So what
- 36:48do we need? I was like, you just send me the
- 36:49token. They're like how I said SFTP,
- 36:51ideally an API, right? I knew they weren't going to be
- 36:55into API. So I was like an API exactly.
- 36:58I was like SFTP is fine. Then I can we send you an e-mail
- 37:01with an Excel file. So and thought I'm like, yeah,
- 37:05that's fine. So they're literally thinking of
- 37:07sending me now an e-mail with an Excel file with the tokens that
- 37:10we need, non PCI tokens. So they're non P, they're very
- 37:12safe tokens. But doesn't mean anything to
- 37:15anybody, right? Exactly, if it was stolen no one
- 37:17would do anything with it and now I can listen to those tokens
- 37:21at the payment gateway to hear if they show up and apply the
- 37:24offer that needs to be applied. So now the lift from the bank
- 37:26side is almost nothing right now.
- 37:29Take non financial institutions. I can get that token from either
- 37:34a online receiving payments companies who think Uber or
- 37:38think we work, they receive payments from their customers
- 37:41online via gateway. If they pass that token to me, I
- 37:45can now apply offers to that card on to any of the
- 37:48restaurants around we work. Or Uber can now offer customers
- 37:52who are arriving somewhere restaurants around their
- 37:54neighborhood. That's a great idea.
- 37:56And even in store, I can get that token and a hotel can now
- 38:00start offering their guests that check in and put in their
- 38:03deposit offers for restaurants around without any lift
- 38:07whatsoever from anybody. So I'm presuming you've had an
- 38:09overwhelmingly positive early reaction to this from partners
- 38:12and merchants? It's been phenomenal.
- 38:15I mean we've been, I mean, not just here out in the States as
- 38:18well. So we did a MasterCard Start
- 38:19Path program. They love the product.
- 38:23I mean, everybody's hugely and I mean it changes the game on so
- 38:29many levels. So from a bank side, from a
- 38:31restaurant side and from a consumer side as well, yeah, I
- 38:37mean, I think the Sky's the limit and we're starting with
- 38:38restaurants. But this all this can be applied
- 38:40to regular retail as well, especially on the payment side
- 38:44sector. Lots of other verticals that we
- 38:47want to hit the hospitality industry and, and kind of our
- 38:52our mantra or our mission is to make restaurants profitable.
- 38:58So we've got to we've got to tick that box for sell that one,
- 39:02tick that box first. But that's that's what we
- 39:05believe our product is strong enough that that we really do
- 39:10have the right data, the right product to get bums on seats and
- 39:16fill those empty tables when they need it.
- 39:21Yeah. So dynamic rewards we think is
- 39:24is the product to go for. I think hospitality leads quite
- 39:26nicely always into start ear and tickle ticketing and fan loyalty
- 39:30across music, across sports, things like that.
- 39:32That's kind of a nice Segway vertical for you.
- 39:35It's very clear from the conversation today as what this
- 39:37is an ecosystem play, right? Like there are multiple parts to
- 39:41this ecosystem. So how does that evolve over the
- 39:44next few years? Has it become slightly less
- 39:46fragmented in terms of each of you relying on each other and it
- 39:49you know the products like this, right?
- 39:51Bring everything together, right remove some of that friction of
- 39:54the multi party model that we're we're talking about right.
- 39:57What will be the next evolution of this as far as you guys see
- 40:00it, I. Mean obviously we've, you know,
- 40:03moving away from relying on banks is important.
- 40:06I think that's where you get more engagement, right?
- 40:08Consumers are more engaged on a, on an Uber app or on a, you
- 40:14know, Instagram or whatever it may be.
- 40:18We've got dynamic loyalty which is coming out as well.
- 40:20So dynamic loyalty is basically using your credit or debit card
- 40:24to link your loyalty to your, sorry, link your card to the
- 40:29loyalty program of the restaurant you're at.
- 40:32Now this in combination with the publishers we have allow us to,
- 40:36I think there's companies that have gone into the space, but
- 40:39typically they request customers to enter their details at the
- 40:42point of sale. In our case, we can extract
- 40:46their details or contact details.
- 40:47They're verified contact details from the publisher and pass them
- 40:50through to the CRM. So it's a quicker check out,
- 40:52it's a more valid check out. And then obviously the customers
- 40:55can see and long term, I mean, this is another long
- 40:57conversation for another podcast, but using the same
- 41:01technology of bills. We, we really want to go into
- 41:03dynamic pricing and hospitality. So hotel style dynamic pricing
- 41:08where you're effectively adjusting menus based on supply
- 41:11and demand, you know, two weeks in advance, three months in
- 41:14advance, depending on time of day, day of week, the weather,
- 41:18the you know, can you? Imagine a head chef right now
- 41:21turning off this podcast. Listen to the thought of that A.
- 41:24Cash and carry space where they do like price, they have dynamic
- 41:27pricing on electronic, you know, think macro Costco sort of
- 41:31thing, right? And they do like that sort of
- 41:33stocks and shares type. Hey, we got a price crash on
- 41:35Coca-Cola pallets, you know, and I think the dynamic pricing
- 41:39market is very, very interesting.
- 41:40Place Vegas does it right now, by the way.
- 41:42So Vegas they typically you won't be able if you go on to
- 41:44any restaurants website, you won't see prices because if
- 41:47there's an event going on, they'll Jack up the prices.
- 41:49If there's not, tell us. We're about.
- 41:51To go out there, we'll be there today, so we'll keep you posted.
- 41:54On that let me know how it. Goes.
- 41:55So it sounds to me, you guys, although what you've built was
- 41:59for the hospitality sector, it's a fintech, right?
- 42:02Do you think the lines now are blurring between fintech and
- 42:04hospitality? I think hospitality, I don't
- 42:11know about fintech and hospitality, but I think data
- 42:13and hospitality, I think historically hospitality has
- 42:15been more analogue, been more sort of feeling.
- 42:19I feel like we should do this. Our marketing director always
- 42:21says, back in the day, you know, we'd, we'd spend £1,000,000 on
- 42:25on a project just because we felt it would be good, right?
- 42:29I think fintech has enabled that data-driven element to that
- 42:33feeling, right. So yes, a lot of it is feeling
- 42:36because hospitality is a, you know, is a feeling based sector,
- 42:40but it has to be backed by data and that fintech element.
- 42:43Bringing it together with hospitality has really helped
- 42:46them make better decisions. I think the, the banks of the
- 42:50world want to engage with their customers.
- 42:53I think they, they want to be able to talk, they want to
- 42:57offer, they want, they want that stickiness with, they want to be
- 43:00top of wallet, right. That's, that's pretty much what
- 43:02it is. And I think that that's, that's
- 43:05where the lines are drawn. It's how can they get closer to
- 43:07the restaurant. So restaurants are offering
- 43:09great experiences at not the price of a holiday or a gig or
- 43:17something like that. So it's, it's an easy way of, of
- 43:21engaging. And I think that that is only
- 43:24going to go, that's only going to accelerate on how can the
- 43:27banks. I mean, you've got, we talked to
- 43:29Visa, Visa got millions of customers, but they don't
- 43:33actually talk to them directly. So we have got with our product,
- 43:37we can now help them talk to the restaurants directly.
- 43:41And so that that these are the conversations that we're having
- 43:44is how can they get closer? Why do they all have opt in
- 43:47models out of interest? So I I missed the boat on?
- 43:49I did a large ish purchase last month and then realized a few
- 43:53days later it was an opt in reward option for me this month
- 43:57and it won't get back dated right.
- 43:59I kind of didn't turn it on. I'm not going to get the draft.
- 44:01Back to the point where the purchase you made wasn't was not
- 44:05purchased because you thought that was going to be an offer.
- 44:09Yeah. And and what we're looking at
- 44:10doing potentially in that space is potentially putting a very
- 44:13low offer on everything for everyone.
- 44:17So every customer without opting in can get 1% cash back at our
- 44:21restaurants, but then they get an e-mail to say if you want to
- 44:24continue to earn at this restaurant and earn a lot more
- 44:26than 1%, opt in now. And then the data that's being
- 44:30used there, you're feeding back to the restaurants, are you and
- 44:32saying, hey, if these 10,000 people thousand clicked opt in
- 44:37after 1% the first time? Exactly.
- 44:39Data is power. Personalizing the kind of next
- 44:41phase of that journey for the consumer.
- 44:43I mean, there's, there's, there's cards, I've got cards,
- 44:45there's a platform Quidco, which I'm sure you guys have heard of
- 44:49that very much is always on and it is incidental spend.
- 44:53I, I, I shop somewhere and I don't even realize that my card
- 44:57is connected to that retail, that retailer.
- 45:03I'm happy because I get some kind of cash back.
- 45:06But really is that a proper acquisition?
- 45:08That's it's not the. Merchant's lost money, Really.
- 45:11Because you're going to buy from them.
- 45:12Anyway, Exactly, exactly. So what we don't want to do is,
- 45:17is give cash back to somebody, give a reward to somebody that
- 45:20was already going in there anyway.
- 45:21We, we want, we want that acquisition, we want that data
- 45:24to prove that required that customer.
- 45:26Your view is from a from a bank's perspective, they'd love
- 45:30that, right? So we always have to balance the
- 45:322 views, right? You need to give the bank what
- 45:35they want to give their customer, which is always on as
- 45:37strong an offer as possible. And the restaurants want to make
- 45:40sure that only the right people get the offer.
- 45:42We need to find that middle ground.
- 45:43Now, we always lean to the restaurant sign.
- 45:45So we always tell banks, we say, look, we're here for the for
- 45:48the, for the benefit of the restaurant, not for you.
- 45:51You are my client as well, but my first and foremost client is
- 45:54the restaurant. So I need to make sure whatever
- 45:56we do that the restaurant gets value out of the product that
- 45:59we're giving them. And what excites you both then
- 46:02just as a final sort of segue, what excites you both the most
- 46:05about the next part of the journey for crowd from this
- 46:08point, especially with dynamic coming out now?
- 46:10That that's it for me. It's, it's the, it's the three
- 46:13dynamic products of rewards, loyalty and then pricing.
- 46:18I think dynamic pricing is the that's, that's a showpiece at
- 46:23the end where I mean, Omar keeps on saying, actually you
- 46:27shouldn't offer any discounts or offers at all.
- 46:30You should just be pricing things correctly at the right,
- 46:32right times. And I think people have tried it
- 46:36in hospitality and not done a great job.
- 46:40It's not something I think you can turn on at a particular
- 46:44restaurant. You need the whole of kind of
- 46:46the industry to say we want to take this on and it will be a
- 46:50game changer for the whole industry to be able to do what
- 46:54travel does and what concerts, the ticket masks to do or
- 46:56something, something like that. So that really excites me to do
- 46:59something that hasn't been done properly that we now have the
- 47:03tools to be able to do it. Would you ship that all together
- 47:06though? Because you cannot think humans
- 47:07are wired to sometimes feel like they're getting something for
- 47:09free or that you know that you've you've won this sort of
- 47:12discount in in some way, shape or form by being a regular
- 47:15customer. Do you lose that a bit with
- 47:16dynamic pricing? Is it like the right fit for
- 47:18dynamic pricing in the right sub vertical?
- 47:21I think you can still get that. I mean you know with hotels or
- 47:24just pure dynamic pricing, you still have loyalty and you
- 47:27consider earn your points. There's always something you can
- 47:29win, right surprise and delight. But you know the overall pricing
- 47:34dynamics should be around pricing dynamic pricing as
- 47:37opposed to discount LED. But yeah, on my side, I'm like,
- 47:42I like to look ahead, but for me, just because of where we are
- 47:45and that we've launched this current pilot with Oracle and
- 47:48IDN and the pipeline we have of integrations that are coming
- 47:51through in the next sort of 6 to 9 months, that's what I'm super
- 47:55excited about. Sounds like your North Star is
- 47:56actually getting closer and closer, right?
- 47:58Oh, absolutely. Just ask one more question
- 48:00because I'm a little bit obsessed with loyalty
- 48:03gamification in all of this as well.
- 48:05There's gamification becoming a thing that overlaps the the
- 48:08loyalty space as well, again, because it's just that human,
- 48:11you know, that that sort of, what's the word of that
- 48:14adrenaline that you can seek, right?
- 48:16Like the gamification element of that, is that something you're
- 48:18being asked about as well? Good question.
- 48:20We've built a whole gamification module which we're looking to
- 48:23launch as well. So that takes into account
- 48:25leaders, leaderboards, it takes into account social.
- 48:27So getting people to sort of talk about what they're earning
- 48:32cash back on takes into account challenges.
- 48:36So you know, like the three burger challenge who can eat at
- 48:393 burger places this week or flow.
- 48:40I mean, I could do that. Today, don't dare me something.
- 48:46Like that exactly. So absolutely like gamification
- 48:49and, and especially once we get into dynamic rewards because of
- 48:52how easy it is for us to connect the customer profile to that
- 48:56gamification without sort of PII and all that stuff means we can
- 49:00deliver some really exciting tools.
- 49:02So yeah, we're all over that. Fantastic.
- 49:04And before we wrap up, I am Al and Johnny, as you both know,
- 49:08and we've already talked about this, you're ick what would like
- 49:11to bring to the shelf of shame for us to discuss and either
- 49:15banish forever. We'll take it back with you.
- 49:18Well, mine I would love to get rid of physical debit and credit
- 49:26cards. I want to go total digital.
- 49:28I want to be able to walk to an ATM and like in Spain and and
- 49:32supposedly Metro Bank, you can use your phone to get money out.
- 49:36I I don't carry cards and the times that I should have a card
- 49:39or need to, I always forget it. So yes, digitalizing that
- 49:43experience from they don't when you have a bank card, that's
- 49:48what I'd like to be able to. Do very poignant with the
- 49:50political conversations going on right now is that I no longer
- 49:53want people. I don't have chance to show
- 49:54people who I am by physical card right when I've got my whole
- 49:58life on my on my phone. It's funny, I went to Samsung to
- 50:01pick up a phone I ordered online and I showed them.
- 50:04They said bring photo ID. So I showed them my my passport
- 50:07picture on my phone. They know we need a physical ID.
- 50:10I was like you're the reason I don't carry physical ID because
- 50:13it's all on my phone. It's crazy.
- 50:15They wouldn't give me the phone. It was crazy.
- 50:17But but no, on my side, I'd say open banking.
- 50:22I think, I think open banking, the concept is very good.
- 50:26I think it's got a lot of exciting use cases.
- 50:29I think the way it's been delivered has been very, very
- 50:31poor. So I don't mean that we should
- 50:33get rid of open bank. I think we should just turn off
- 50:36everything that they've done today and start all over again.
- 50:39It's an opportunity for you guys with open banking though,
- 50:42because one of the big gaps with pay by bank and that part of the
- 50:44open banking is the fact it hasn't been able to compete with
- 50:47card in large spend items where it may be really is an
- 50:50addressable product because it doesn't have the loyalty that
- 50:52comes with your Amex, your corporate cards, your credit
- 50:55cards, whatever it might be. We're payment agnostic,
- 50:57obviously card is very important for us, but we could do Bitcoin,
- 51:00we could do anything really. So yeah, pay by pay by bank
- 51:03would work. And I think actually, you know,
- 51:05with what Revolutes doing now and I think if maybe between
- 51:10Revolut, Monzo, Starling, if they sort of get together and
- 51:13agree to build a new network, which is pay by bank as opposed
- 51:16to, you know, Visa, Mascot or I mean somewhat Amex, it could be
- 51:21something. But I, like I said, the way it's
- 51:22been built today. The delivery of the product to
- 51:24the market makes it a lot better than what it could have been
- 51:27after so much hype. Oh yeah, still continue type and
- 51:30silly investment into businesses.
- 51:32Yeah. For open banking, that still
- 51:33hasn't really done the job that we thought was going to do six
- 51:35years ago. Absolutely, yeah.
- 51:36I think delivery of it could definitely go on the shelf.
- 51:38If you Yeah, I'm not. Sure, I can bring myself to.
- 51:42Just probably no I we always open now about open banking.
- 51:44I'm I'm pro it one day then the next time I'm slating it.
- 51:47The reason for it is exactly why you said it, because it's a
- 51:50product that can do so much for so many different businesses and
- 51:53so many different industries. However, the way that the
- 51:56industry has brought it to market and the competition
- 52:00that's been a part of it has actually meant we've probably
- 52:02failed if we absolutely owned ourselves to make what we
- 52:06thought was going to be really, really good into something not
- 52:09really a positive experience to consumer.
- 52:11And we've seen other regions take this pay by bank product
- 52:14and, and kind of lay across their their region very, very
- 52:17successfully, whether it's Brazil with Pixel, India, VPI,
- 52:20the government said that we're going to do this, we're going to
- 52:22regulate it. Here's a standard go and do it
- 52:24and. It's very difficult to bring in
- 52:26other things into open banking right now where like you said
- 52:30loyalty, for example. We'd love to to be able to do
- 52:33loyalty in open banking, just not there yet, but hopefully
- 52:37that'll be something that we can fix as well.
- 52:39I think you should be selling it to Pisps because what they're
- 52:42doing is they're saying to companies go and build your own
- 52:44loyalty program. Actually what they wanted to
- 52:46drive forever adoption. They should have come with their
- 52:48own in house loyalty program built alongside that payment
- 52:51method that you could stick your logo on and call it what you
- 52:53want and deliver it straight away because it's just another
- 52:56project then for a retailer to have to think about the guys.
- 53:00For another. Podcast.
- 53:00Yeah, just finally then where can everyone find you guys?
- 53:05Where can they get in touch with the team?
- 53:06Yeah, So www.crowded.com or Popeye and Moorgate, we're in a
- 53:11wework more place and I would love to talk to anybody.
- 53:15When it comes to payments, we're always talking to the payment
- 53:17gateway world, obviously E paws and banks and non banks.
- 53:23So yeah, we're always open in restaurants, of course.
- 53:26Thanks so much for having us.