Latest / Leaders in Customer Loyalty, Powered by Loyalty360 / #551: Leaders in Customer Loyalty: Brand Stories | How Sandals Balances AI with Personal Relationships to Build Greater Loyalty

Transcript

#551: Leaders in Customer Loyalty: Brand Stories | How Sandals Balances AI with Personal Relationships to Build Greater Loyalty · Leaders in Customer Loyalty, Powered by Loyalty360

0:02
SPEAKER_00: Good afternoon, good morning.
0:03
SPEAKER_00: Mark Johnson from Loyalty360.
0:05
SPEAKER_00: It's a Thursday for another edition of our Leaders in Customer Loyalty podcast.
0:09
SPEAKER_00: This is the brand stories edition.
0:11
SPEAKER_00: We have the privilege of speaking with some of the leaders in customer loyalty and customer experience who are helping shape the future of this industry.
0:19
SPEAKER_00: Today I'm joined by Peter Mengett.
0:21
SPEAKER_00: He's a senior vice president of customer engagement and loyalty insights at Unique Vacations Incorporated, which is a worldwide affiliate of Sandals and Beach Resorts.
0:31
SPEAKER_00: Peter considers himself a chief evangelist for Sandals brand, leading efforts focused on customer engagement, customer loyalty, guest insights, and community building.
0:43
SPEAKER_00: With the recent launch of the Island Insiders Club to create meaningful connections that extend beyond a guest today, Peter and his team are helping redefine what customer loyalty means in hospitality.
0:57
SPEAKER_00: We'll discuss the power of community, advocacy, personalization, AI, voice of the customer, and how Sandals continues to create experiences that keep guests coming back year after year.
1:10
SPEAKER_00: Welcome, Peter.
1:11
SPEAKER_00: Thank you very much for taking the time to join us today.
1:13
SPEAKER_00: How are you doing?
1:14
SPEAKER_01: I'm doing great.
1:15
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Mark.
1:16
SPEAKER_01: Thanks for having me.
1:16
SPEAKER_01: It's long overdue.
1:18
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
1:18
SPEAKER_00: And thank you very much for taking the time.
1:20
SPEAKER_00: First off, we like to start these, uh, get to know a little bit about you, the company you work for, what you do.
1:25
SPEAKER_00: So, for those who may not know and haven't heard of Sandals, can you give us a little brief overview of what you guys do, how you do it?
1:33
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
1:33
SPEAKER_01: Well, first of all, if you've not heard of sandals, then you've been living under a rock for the last 40 years.
1:38
SPEAKER_01: You know, Sandals is an iconic resort brand built over the last 44 years.
1:44
SPEAKER_01: Uh, interestingly, it's only comprised of of uh of 19 total properties.
1:50
SPEAKER_01: Uh 17 Sandals properties, which is our all-inclusive adults-only brand, and our beaches brand, which is two properties.
1:59
SPEAKER_01: Uh and growing, though, we've got a lot in the pipeline for the beaches brand, uh, which is our our again our family brand, and um and it's great.
2:08
SPEAKER_01: So two brands, sandals and beaches, uh, adults only and families.
2:15
SPEAKER_01: We've got terrific cross-polinization between the two, and I can talk more about that and why that's so important to us.
2:22
SPEAKER_01: Uh, interestingly, for this audience, we have two million loyalty members, okay, small but mighty.
2:29
SPEAKER_01: And why I joke about the power of the sandals brand, and we're gonna get into this, I hope, as part of our conversation.
2:37
SPEAKER_01: It is possibly the most passionate, engaged, wonderful loyalty community that you can possibly fathom.
2:44
SPEAKER_01: So we are blessed with that as a as a uh as a competitive advantage uh that again is built over built over time and and uh and uh emotional investment as well as capital investment.
2:58
SPEAKER_00: Excellent.
2:59
SPEAKER_00: And you you mentioned the power of the Sandals brand, and you mentioned that you have two million uh people in your customer loyalty program.
3:06
SPEAKER_00: When you look at that, it sounds like you're very committed to customer loyalty to the brand.
3:11
SPEAKER_00: And brands oftentimes struggle with getting those two things right.
3:15
SPEAKER_00: Uh, they may have a great loyalty program, it may not necessarily be the fulcrum within the organization that is used to drive customer loyalty, uh, experience, whatever it may be.
3:25
SPEAKER_00: It's a rich data set.
3:26
SPEAKER_00: But when you look at the success of many customer loyalty programs, it's ingrained in the company, right?
3:31
SPEAKER_00: The CFO, there's there's executive buy-in, they can make mistakes, they can try new things, but they don't feel like they're, you know, they're always being watched.
3:39
SPEAKER_00: And it sounds like, just to start, you talked about the power of the brand, which is very important, and talked about the power of the program.
3:44
SPEAKER_00: You know, how how do you drive the alignment around customer loyalty in the organization?
3:50
SPEAKER_01: You hit the nail on the head.
3:52
SPEAKER_01: It's it's part of it's part of our DNA.
3:57
SPEAKER_01: Loyalty, let me take a step back because I think this is really important to understand.
4:02
SPEAKER_01: We are 100% leisure.
4:04
SPEAKER_01: What really drives it is the community that's been cultivated over time and the people that bring it to life day in, day out at the properties.
4:12
SPEAKER_01: So there's not just buy-in, it is how we think about our brand, the relationships we want to cultivate, nurture, build over time with our with our members, with all of our guests, because it is that passion and connection to the brand that feeds uh everything we do and how we operate.
4:34
SPEAKER_01: So the hand I've been dealt is a great one because it's so ingrained.
4:40
SPEAKER_01: Our job is to now bring it to life in ways that are more meaningful, more relevant, um, add that incremental value which pushes the relationship over the top and separates us from all the other competitors in our in our leisure resort space.
4:57
SPEAKER_00: Excellent.
4:58
SPEAKER_00: I know you talked a little bit about the community.
4:59
SPEAKER_00: Uh, two million members, uh, some come two or three times a year, some maybe come once, and some may come once every other year.
5:08
SPEAKER_00: Kind of understanding that that that that intra customer loyalty engagement frequency is is very important.
5:13
SPEAKER_00: You know, are there things that you do uh from messaging or communication or uh you know using zero-party data quizzes to understand kind of what's driving behavior, like the interest day, right?
5:24
SPEAKER_00: So the time that they're not on-prem, you know, w how do you create engagement or use the loyalty program to do some of that?
5:33
SPEAKER_01: So we introduced the Island Insiders Club as our next generation loyalty program July 1st of this year.
5:42
SPEAKER_01: Preceding that, or in preparation for that, 18, 24 months, we've done a credible amount of research related to the type of relationship, what's important, what's valuable, what does relationship mean to our community, so that we can craft ways to what we refer to as fill the gaps between stays.
6:06
SPEAKER_01: We don't have that luxury and frequency, you know, on the other end of the spectrum, you've got a Starbucks, right?
6:11
SPEAKER_01: You go, some people go multiple times a day.
6:14
SPEAKER_01: We don't.
6:15
SPEAKER_01: So we have to fill those gaps by off-property events, um, experiences that bring it to life in different uh feeder markets.
6:28
SPEAKER_01: So, as an example, um, I will be hosting a hundred of our guests at the Bruno Mars concert in Miami at the Hard Rock Stadium on September 20th.
6:39
SPEAKER_01: We had an event in in London.
6:41
SPEAKER_01: So we're using events and an event, member event, exclusive member event, experiential um uh strategic element as a way to fill those gaps.
6:53
SPEAKER_01: That said, quizzes are very important.
6:56
SPEAKER_01: Um, building out a sense of community through our various Facebook protocols, our environments platforms, our social platforms.
7:04
SPEAKER_01: Um, all of that plays a part in staying connected with our customer.
7:08
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
7:09
SPEAKER_00: Well, I think again, you can definitely uh feel the passion kind of oozes in how you talk about the brand, how you talk about the commitment.
7:17
SPEAKER_00: But but there can be a challenge to uh the having Quiz Commerce, right, having zero-party data, using all this technology to create engagement.
7:27
SPEAKER_00: It still has to be personalized, right?
7:28
SPEAKER_00: And I think that in this age of AI, uh there's an opportunity to great personalization, but there also is a great responsibility to make sure it's working right and it still has that human element.
7:38
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, uh the the high touch that you have uh at the the resorts themselves uh is amazing.
7:44
SPEAKER_00: But how do you balance the technology and and the personal?
7:51
SPEAKER_01: I'd love to find the person that figures that out because I think that is a a significant and increasingly complex question.
8:01
SPEAKER_01: Um, on one hand, our brand and the relationship with our customer has been built on personal relationships.
8:08
SPEAKER_01: Um and and you can never sacrifice that.
8:11
SPEAKER_01: If we sacrifice that, we will lose because we'll become a more of a commodity or a commoditized product offering, we will lose our secret sauce.
8:20
SPEAKER_01: So everything we do has to, as I I keep using the same language, cultivate and nurture those relationships and deepen that sense of community.
8:30
SPEAKER_01: And our members are passionate about that.
8:34
SPEAKER_01: How you can improve the um the effectiveness of that is through the data that you're referencing.
8:42
SPEAKER_01: So we are introducing a new getting to know you piece within component within our member portal, uh, our online platform that basically curates the one-stop shop for our member activity, member engagement.
8:54
SPEAKER_01: Um it's an online platform we use.
8:57
SPEAKER_01: Uh, but getting to know you needs to include not just the sort of drinks you expect on property, but what type of music you listen to, what's the vibe you're into?
9:06
SPEAKER_01: What's the what you know, what are the sort of people you like to hang out with?
9:09
SPEAKER_01: Who do you vacation with?
9:10
SPEAKER_01: It's interesting when you ask that sort of question, who you vacation with, or what is your vacation vibe, the insights you gather to help curate the next generation uh experience, whether it's can be a virtual experience or an on-property experience.
9:28
SPEAKER_01: So I think we think about AI as a support mechanism.
9:34
SPEAKER_01: One, can we help you curate a better, more personalized vacation using an AI tool?
9:39
SPEAKER_01: We actually have a bot called Sandy that helps us do that, helps our guests do that in the travel agent community as well.
9:46
SPEAKER_01: Um, so can what how do we leverage AI to help you get the most out of your vacation experience?
9:53
SPEAKER_01: But also use AI to make sure that the messaging we're sending, the recommendations that we're pushing forward are going to be attractive and in line with what we know about that customer.
10:06
SPEAKER_01: Mark, one of the most important things that I've learned over time is if you capture data, you have a responsibility to use it thoughtfully and purposefully.
10:17
SPEAKER_01: Because if you don't, the customer will say, Well, then why the hell did you ask?
10:21
SPEAKER_01: Right?
10:21
SPEAKER_01: What's the point of it?
10:23
SPEAKER_01: And so um I think you we are at that interesting, exciting, frightening crossroad of how do you maintain the deep sense of connection while leveraging all that's good about the tools and resources, technology that's available, AI specifically, to perform or to to serve up a more effective, more thoughtful, more personalized experience, whether it's on property, pre-arrival, post-stay, in-between stay, all the things that matter in the uh the you know, the 360-degree relationship we want to manage.
11:00
SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
11:02
SPEAKER_00: We started to talk a little bit about uh the company and uh we're gonna transition that to you, and we kind of got a little segue there.
11:07
SPEAKER_00: Uh, can you tell us a little bit more about your role within the organization, what you do on a day-to-day basis?
11:12
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
11:13
SPEAKER_01: My official title is Senior Vice President of Customer Engagement and Loyalty.
11:17
SPEAKER_01: Uh, I'm responsible for not just our loyalty community, but how we engage our community and our guests uh off property, in between stays, our email cadence, our texting cadence, the portal, the website, how we engage our community in the most thoughtful, meaningful way.
11:37
SPEAKER_01: Um that said, I also oversee uh our on-property uh sales team.
11:43
SPEAKER_01: We do have an organization built around curating vacations, your next vacation while you're on property, and that reports up to me as well.
11:53
SPEAKER_01: But fundamentally, I am I am responsible, my team is responsible for being the evangelists uh of our member community.
12:04
SPEAKER_01: We know, again, you you live this every day in your role in the relationship you have with the the broader loyalty um uh community.
12:14
SPEAKER_01: It is exponentially less expensive to keep a customer than it is to go find a new one.
12:21
SPEAKER_01: It is equally efficient to leverage your community, to build referrals, and to to nurture that community in a way that that feeds in the next generation customer uh in a way that um that is that is that is uh more effective ultimately.
12:39
SPEAKER_01: So I don't know if I answered your question.
12:42
SPEAKER_01: I think it's good.
12:43
SPEAKER_01: At the end of the day, I love to think of myself as the ultimate evangelist on behalf of our our loyalty community um and every dimension uh that that would suggest.
12:54
SPEAKER_00: So you you mentioned uh some of the things you do in a day-to-day, uh dramatic change right now in technologies, keeping up with technologies, keeping people in line, keeping people uh feel wanted uh within the brand side.
13:07
SPEAKER_00: And we actually have a we have digital roundtables we have every week, and we have one on Thursday.
13:11
SPEAKER_00: Uh as Kino speaker to come to a couple of our conferences about the personal side of things, and I think that's uh you know very important.
13:18
SPEAKER_00: You touched on that.
13:19
SPEAKER_00: But you know, what's the biggest challenge you have, or maybe even what's the biggest opportunity you see for your company, your role?
13:26
SPEAKER_00: How do you help?
13:29
SPEAKER_00: Let's let's focus on the challenge side.
13:34
SPEAKER_01: We can never lose our focus, our commitment to our loyalty, our loyal members.
13:48
SPEAKER_01: The passion that they have for our brand is a gift, it's a blessing, it's hard to manage sometimes, but if we ever lose that, as I mentioned before, we just become a commodity.
14:02
SPEAKER_01: So, to me, one of the biggest challenges is how do we continue to be um to seek guidance from our community, to deliver value, to surprise and delight is a big component of how we think, because we need our community to be the ultimate evangelist.
14:23
SPEAKER_01: If I'm the evangelist internally, our community is the evangelist externally.
14:28
SPEAKER_01: Um, and that is on full display across all of our different social platforms and how they respond and and um and how they engage.
14:36
SPEAKER_01: So to me, that's the biggest challenge.
14:39
SPEAKER_01: The biggest opportunity, in my opinion, is leveraging AI specifically to curate more personal, more relevant experiences for our guests.
14:51
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes our members think they know, they want to know, but we can serve up recommendations that are more in line with what we've learned about them, their their behavior, the way they respond to surveys or questions, data we capture, and I think we have an opportunity to accelerate the power of the vacation experience so that you know I use this phrase all the time.
15:20
SPEAKER_01: If we don't deliver a great vacation, if if a guest leaves our property not having had the greatest vacation of their life, we've failed.
15:29
SPEAKER_01: That is our goal.
15:30
SPEAKER_01: That is the bar, that is the expectation.
15:33
SPEAKER_01: And I think AI can help curate and be thoughtful in how we communicate that vacation uh expectation and deliver that value at that elevated uh at that elevated lay, right?
15:46
SPEAKER_00: Well, I think it's a very salient point as well, is that uh sometimes customers don't know what they want, right?
15:51
SPEAKER_00: Danny Raleigh and others uh predictably agree.
15:55
SPEAKER_00: Right.
15:55
SPEAKER_00: Uh so what they say they may have an interest in may not be actually what they end up doing, right?
16:00
SPEAKER_00: The power of choice, you're giving too much, they don't want that, right?
16:03
SPEAKER_00: They want to pick from three or four.
16:05
SPEAKER_00: It becomes complex, right?
16:07
SPEAKER_00: And then sometimes they don't know you know what they want.
16:09
SPEAKER_00: So how do you uh do that, right?
16:13
SPEAKER_00: So obviously listening, you've talked about listening a number of times, listening to and understanding that can be a big challenge for brands.
16:19
SPEAKER_00: I think brands are much better at it today than they were uh traditionally, but brands can struggle with truly listening to, putting themselves in the shoes of the customer and understanding what that means, right?
16:30
SPEAKER_00: I think I know the brands, uh, but listening to and saying, wow, they're telling me something completely different than what I thought when we were listening before.
16:38
SPEAKER_00: So, how how do you do that so well?
16:42
SPEAKER_01: That is a really interesting way to frame that.
16:46
SPEAKER_01: Um and so I'm gonna take a shot at it in a number of different ways.
16:52
SPEAKER_01: I think the first thing is you have we have the tools now.
16:56
SPEAKER_01: There is no excuse for anybody that runs a loyalty program or is responsible for a guest experience not to leverage the tools available to ask those questions that are relevant and meaningful to deliver whatever experience you want to deliver.
17:11
SPEAKER_01: Right.
17:12
SPEAKER_01: So so, so Mark, back to the technology question.
17:15
SPEAKER_01: There is zero excuse.
17:16
SPEAKER_01: You have every tool that you can possibly imagine to get at the heart of what your customer thinks, feels, how they behave, their historical behavior.
17:26
SPEAKER_01: You've got all the tools.
17:27
SPEAKER_01: So we've got that.
17:28
SPEAKER_01: Check that box.
17:29
SPEAKER_00: I think that's great.
17:30
SPEAKER_00: And I was gonna follow up.
17:31
SPEAKER_00: You talked about uh using data thoughtfully and prudently, right?
17:35
SPEAKER_00: So many brands, it's like, yeah, we're gonna ask all these questions and we're gonna get commitment, right?
17:39
SPEAKER_00: We're either gonna do it three at a time, four time, have a big survey, and then we don't do anything with it.
17:43
SPEAKER_00: So that creates a lot of dissonance, right?
17:46
SPEAKER_00: Creates friction, quote unquote.
17:47
SPEAKER_00: Uh I'm not a big fan of that word because it's not really friction, but it creates dissonance, right?
17:51
SPEAKER_00: And I like to view things through the hand uh lens of behavioral economics.
17:55
SPEAKER_00: But the same thing, right?
17:56
SPEAKER_00: So you ask a bunch of questions you don't do on.
17:58
SPEAKER_00: So you got to tell the people, you know what, thank you very much for this.
18:00
SPEAKER_00: We can't use this right now, but I appreciate it.
18:02
SPEAKER_00: Most brands don't do that, right?
18:04
SPEAKER_00: They ask a bunch of questions, they never act on it, and then come back to the web and like, oh, we need more data.
18:08
SPEAKER_00: Well, we gave you all some of the data.
18:09
SPEAKER_00: You didn't change anything you did, you didn't tell us what you did with it, you didn't tell me you couldn't use it.
18:14
SPEAKER_00: Uh I mean, it's like back in the day, attorneys would always tell their clients, don't apologize for hitting that person, right?
18:20
SPEAKER_00: We don't want to be taking blame for this because that person may have the car, may have a faulty accelerator, right?
18:27
SPEAKER_00: Don't apologize.
18:28
SPEAKER_00: But now people that empathy, because that empathy drives emotional loyalty, right?
18:31
SPEAKER_00: Thank you very much.
18:32
SPEAKER_00: I appreciate that.
18:33
SPEAKER_00: There's no bigger power, you know.
18:36
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, handwritten thank you notes.
18:37
SPEAKER_00: It's very powerful, right?
18:38
SPEAKER_00: So thank you for sending this to thank you for taking your precious time.
18:41
SPEAKER_00: But we can't use it right now, but we appreciate it, right?
18:44
SPEAKER_00: Brands don't do that ever.
18:46
SPEAKER_01: No, and Mark, you let me build on something else.
18:49
SPEAKER_01: So we we we took the time, and I'm very proud of what we did.
18:54
SPEAKER_01: So if this sounds egotistical, so be it.
18:56
SPEAKER_01: But I'm very proud of the way we thought about the evolution, uh, the transition, the transformation, whatever words you want to use, from Sandal's Select Guest, our old program, our old platform to Island Insiders Club.
19:10
SPEAKER_01: But what we did really well, in my opinion, I give the team enormous credit for this because it was so well executed.
19:18
SPEAKER_01: We curated benefits or enhancements to the program that were directly aligned with responses to what we learned through our survey work, our focus groups, etc.
19:29
SPEAKER_01: But more importantly, we explained that to them.
19:32
SPEAKER_01: We explained here's a new benefit, here's a new uh you know opportunity, uh, whatever it is, here's a deeper sense of community expressed this way through events, etc.
19:44
SPEAKER_01: Because you told us you wanted this.
19:48
SPEAKER_01: You also told us these things, and we're gonna work on those.
19:52
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
19:53
SPEAKER_01: And so we can't, to your point, we can't deliver against them now, but that's something we learned and can look forward to exploring.
20:01
SPEAKER_01: No promises.
20:02
SPEAKER_01: But but I love the way you said that because it's about great communication, clarity and expectation, managing expectation.
20:10
SPEAKER_01: And if you do that poorly, you're screwed.
20:13
SPEAKER_01: If you do it well, we've seen again, I really believe we did it exceptionally well.
20:18
SPEAKER_01: You see the benefit of that in the commentary and social channels and the way people behave.
20:23
SPEAKER_01: You have to look at the data you collect holistically, compartmentalize it in some instance based on who's responding to what in what instance, particularly demographically, what's their experience, exposure to different technologies, comfort with technologies.
20:38
SPEAKER_01: So ask great questions, ask purpose, purposeful questions, explain the whys around you're asking, what you intend to do with it.
20:48
SPEAKER_01: To your point, express some perspective on why you didn't use it and thank them for participating, and be prepared to bring it to life in a way that's visible, relevant, and they can celebrate their participation and contributing to that.
21:06
SPEAKER_01: Hopefully that makes sense.
21:07
SPEAKER_00: No, I think that's great.
21:08
SPEAKER_00: It's the power of small, right?
21:09
SPEAKER_00: Uh Sarah Kaplan Thaler, and she wrote an amazing book, The Power of Yes, Power of the Small, right?
21:16
SPEAKER_00: It's very important, like the small moments are very important.
21:18
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's right.
21:19
SPEAKER_00: And in getting distorted, many brands do that.
21:22
SPEAKER_00: And that's what I've been working on, we've been working internally on our team, is it's making sure our message resonates with other people, right?
21:28
SPEAKER_00: How can we help other brands, the meetings, the communities, the research?
21:31
SPEAKER_00: It's not about that, it's like how it can help someone solve problems because you are trying to go in, you want to make them the hero, right?
21:37
SPEAKER_00: Brand story, they should be the hero of the journey, not sandals.
21:41
SPEAKER_00: You need to make the customer, but that can be very difficult for customers or sorry, brands to do to let the customer be that hero.
21:49
SPEAKER_01: I think it's a really interesting question for brands who manage loyalty programs.
21:55
SPEAKER_01: How how do they manage that?
21:58
SPEAKER_01: And let the Drive it in a way, but almost with certain guardrails that accelerate that in the direction that you're hoping to uh to drive it.
22:09
SPEAKER_00: We talked about this as well.
22:11
SPEAKER_00: Uh customers are changing.
22:12
SPEAKER_00: You've talked about how customers are changing, evolving, not only uh with sandals in your brands, but also holistic thing in the travel, hospitality, entertainment space, right?
22:22
SPEAKER_00: Uh how how are your customers changing?
22:25
SPEAKER_00: Do you see maybe within the industry and and how are you evolving to those expectations?
22:34
SPEAKER_01: I think change, this is again a great question.
22:40
SPEAKER_01: We have to be prepared to meet our customer, our guest, our member with where they are comfortably with technology.
22:54
SPEAKER_01: We have been around for 44 years.
22:58
SPEAKER_01: We have a large population that demographically is in the baby boomer space.
23:04
SPEAKER_01: And I'm not saying that baby booms aren't technologically savvy.
23:08
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes they're more technologically savvy than younger people.
23:11
SPEAKER_01: But you we have to be prepared to meet our customer where they are in their level of comfort with technology.
23:20
SPEAKER_01: We're very cognizant of that.
23:22
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
23:23
SPEAKER_01: That said, we also need to force certain behaviors and expectations because it's just in the best interest of the brand and the experience.
23:33
SPEAKER_01: The mobile app is a great example.
23:35
SPEAKER_01: And the hospitality, you know, it's all about the mobile app.
23:38
SPEAKER_01: Now you can you know check in on the mobile app, be prepared, manage your experience, manage your your your itinerary, et cetera, manage all your benefits, one-stop shop within the app.
23:48
SPEAKER_01: So you need to push people there for all the right reasons because you know it will deliver ultimately a better experience.
23:56
SPEAKER_01: But you also have to be prepared to educate them on that if they're if they're not necessarily indoctrinated or initiated into that level of comfort.
24:05
SPEAKER_01: When you look at the younger community, affordability is a big thing for us.
24:09
SPEAKER_01: We are not a cheap vacation.
24:12
SPEAKER_01: So we see a lot of first-time guests on weddings, honeymoons, in large measure.
24:18
SPEAKER_01: Perhaps they're subsidized by their parents or or others.
24:21
SPEAKER_01: But how do you keep that relationship warm?
24:25
SPEAKER_01: Maybe lead with the Beaches brand and the family component if they're starting a new family and nurture them through the um you know, the brand story, the brand experience into the Sandals brand.
24:38
SPEAKER_01: Uh and but think about affordability in a way and give people a chance to afford our product differently uh than we do today.
24:47
SPEAKER_01: I think that's very important.
24:49
SPEAKER_01: Um, and also relevance.
24:51
SPEAKER_01: You know, I think those out there who run loyalty programs, different benefits are different, more valuable based on different perspectives.
25:00
SPEAKER_01: So, how do we curate or manage or introduce or make available um the rewards, the benefits, the experiences that satisfy the various groups that we want to uh that we want to manage?
25:15
SPEAKER_00: And what does customer loyalty mean to you and the Sandals team?
25:21
SPEAKER_00: Advocacy.
25:25
SPEAKER_01: Because to me, the highest form of loyalty is those that talk about us, that promote us, that are passionate about us, and ultimately to me that expresses itself in advocacy.
25:38
SPEAKER_01: You know what I really want what loyalty means to the ideal loyalty members at a cocktail party Friday night, and all they want to talk about to anybody who listen is their Sandals Vacation.
25:48
SPEAKER_01: And that's advocacy, right?
25:50
SPEAKER_01: So loyalty to mean means how about passionate advocacy is what loyalty means to me.
25:57
SPEAKER_00: Perfect.
25:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and in the spirit of passionate advocacy, you redid the Island Insiders Club.
26:04
SPEAKER_00: Uh, you replaced the long-running Sandals Select Rewards program with a new program.
26:10
SPEAKER_00: You know, what was the strategy?
26:11
SPEAKER_00: What was the thinking behind the new program?
26:13
SPEAKER_00: You've talked about voice of the customer, you've talked about leaning in, you've talked about organizational alignment.
26:18
SPEAKER_00: You know, what did you want to accomplish that maybe wasn't possible with the Sandals Select program?
26:23
SPEAKER_01: So it's very easy to get overtly focused on a points-based platform and using points, quote unquote, as the primary driver of rewards and benefits and expressions of loyalty.
26:44
SPEAKER_01: We will never win that game.
26:46
SPEAKER_01: Ever.
26:47
SPEAKER_01: You can't accumulate enough points in uh through frequency to have it be the key driver.
26:55
SPEAKER_01: What we learned through our through our research is that deeper sense of community, greater flexibility, uh, greater access, surprise and delight moments, that's what matters to our constituency.
27:12
SPEAKER_01: We're not getting rid of the points, it's the same points, right?
27:15
SPEAKER_01: We got the same currency platform, but the emphasis with the Island Insiders Club.
27:20
SPEAKER_01: So you're an insider now, right?
27:22
SPEAKER_01: It's powerful.
27:23
SPEAKER_01: That the use of this language is very powerful.
27:26
SPEAKER_01: We're all about the Caribbean, we're 100% Caribbean, we're all about the islands, and we want our members.
27:32
SPEAKER_01: I use this expression, I want every guest to be a member, and I want every member to feel like an insider, right?
27:39
SPEAKER_01: That's the progression.
27:40
SPEAKER_01: And we every guest becoming a member who feels like an insider, we win because now they're part of our family.
27:48
SPEAKER_01: And we use that word a lot.
27:51
SPEAKER_01: Our community is family.
27:53
SPEAKER_01: We express it that way, you're part of the Sandals family.
27:56
SPEAKER_01: So bringing it to life was not necessarily de-emphasizing points, but surfacing new enhancements to the program that did provide greater access to upgrades, um, more flexibility in how they can manage their vacation, access to different excursions, different experiences that bring the vacation, um, you know, leisure, a leisure vacation to life.
28:21
SPEAKER_01: Um, the experiential side off property, the access to events, all those things are what brings the loyalty, the essence of our loyalty program to life while creating a wonderful sense of distinction and competitive, highlighting a competitive advantage that we have.
28:43
SPEAKER_01: We, like I said, where we can win is cultivating and nurturing that passionate, passionate relationship.
28:50
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
28:51
SPEAKER_00: And you talked about this a little bit as well, uh the research you did, uh making sure that it was resonant, right?
28:57
SPEAKER_00: Building that passionate advocacy.
28:59
SPEAKER_00: What's some things that you saw?
29:01
SPEAKER_00: You're like, oh wow, never would have thought that, or some things that you thought you may see, like, oh, I'm pretty sure everyone wants to go bowling, and uh, you know, you didn't see that.
29:10
SPEAKER_01: I I have been pleasantly, I won't even say surprised, how about shocked with the level of enthusiasm for our in-market events?
29:23
SPEAKER_01: Again, we we did an event in the UK, we did an event in New York, we did, we're doing this thing in Miami, we went to Jazz Fest.
29:32
SPEAKER_01: We so so 100 people will join us at Bruno Mars.
29:37
SPEAKER_01: That sold out in approximately eight minutes.
29:44
SPEAKER_01: We posted it, we sent out emails looking for response.
29:47
SPEAKER_01: It was gone like that.
29:49
SPEAKER_01: I think our final tickets were gone in 24 minutes, so that's slight exaggeration, right?
29:53
SPEAKER_01: But think about that.
29:54
SPEAKER_01: That people are paying attention to our brand, responding in a positive way, and want to participate in an event, and we're filling it up that quickly.
30:04
SPEAKER_01: So I have been pleasantly shocked, and it will continue now to accelerate and expand our off-property events.
30:12
SPEAKER_01: And you referenced it earlier.
30:14
SPEAKER_01: We call it gap filling, filling the time between maintaining connectivity, building relationships between stays.
30:21
SPEAKER_01: The event strategy is what has surprised me most about not only what we learned, but in bringing it to life, what has surprised me the most in its value and level of connectivity with our community.
30:39
SPEAKER_00: Excellent.
30:40
SPEAKER_00: And you talked about this a little earlier, uh, engaging with young generations.
30:44
SPEAKER_00: Uh you know, there's all kinds of challenges right now.
30:47
SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, we have a uh a digital round table next week, an attorney group's gonna talk about privacy considerations around Gen Z, right?
30:54
SPEAKER_00: Do you collect the data, you're not collect the data?
30:56
SPEAKER_00: That's gonna be fraught with challenges, uh plausible deniability.
31:00
SPEAKER_00: Many brands are talking about, oh, we have the birthday, or we're not sure how we got it.
31:04
SPEAKER_00: But when you look at engaging younger generations, you know, from a customer loyalty, we do a lot of research.
31:09
SPEAKER_00: Uh, brands, uh, you know, they the Gen Z, they want to feel special, right?
31:14
SPEAKER_00: They want to be at that top tier and they've come once, right?
31:17
SPEAKER_00: You have a more exclusive offering, uh pricey, uh high-level service.
31:23
SPEAKER_00: You know, how do you engage with the younger generations?
31:26
SPEAKER_00: And maybe what are some of the challenges you see?
31:28
SPEAKER_01: I think it's highly challenging.
31:30
SPEAKER_01: And anybody that cracks the code, please keep me posted, which maybe we'll get to what can what can we learn from Loyalty 360?
31:38
SPEAKER_01: How people are doing that really, really well.
31:40
SPEAKER_01: Um, so so I think it's a it's a real challenge because it's generations within generations.
31:48
SPEAKER_01: Think think of think of the technology and the way people are using devices who are 15 to 18 years old right now.
31:57
SPEAKER_01: Or how about 10 years old?
31:59
SPEAKER_01: I mean, the level of sophistication, the attention spans are shrinking.
32:04
SPEAKER_01: So it's a real it's to get your message across has never been more challenging.
32:10
SPEAKER_01: Um that's where we get into advocacy.
32:13
SPEAKER_01: I think if we can continue to build uh a level of advocacy and support among our community that can introduce it to the next generation, that is an opportunity for us.
32:27
SPEAKER_01: Um I mean it's gonna be hard, Mark, and I'm struggling to come up with a really good answer because I think we we well let me break it into two buckets.
32:41
SPEAKER_01: How do you engage them as a first-time customer?
32:45
SPEAKER_01: Social platforms have become dominant, influencers have become dominant.
32:51
SPEAKER_01: We're we're we're leveraging that as best we can to attract, but it's how you then convert that inquiry, and we're finding that to be the more difficult challenge.
33:02
SPEAKER_01: We're not struggling to attract people to the brands, the evolution is how our conversion tactics have to evolve relative to that next generation.
33:12
SPEAKER_01: The other thing is people are using AI a little more um purposefully, right?
33:19
SPEAKER_01: They're going to Chad or Gemini or others to literally curate a vacation.
33:25
SPEAKER_01: And how do we participate in that mix and are served up in the right way in the right context?
33:31
SPEAKER_01: So that's the acquisition side.
33:36
SPEAKER_01: What we do really well, and we can never sacrifice is how we welcome every guest, how we prepare every guest with our pre-arrival communication, omni-channel, how we welcome every guest, whether they take a private transfer from the airport or they get off one of our shuttles, how are we welcoming guests, and how are we caring for them and building relationships on property?
33:58
SPEAKER_01: If we get you in our ecosystem, we're pretty darn good at keeping you.
34:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's awesome.
34:04
SPEAKER_00: I and I know we've talked about partnerships.
34:06
SPEAKER_00: It's a big area of interest.
34:07
SPEAKER_00: Uh, we have an ongoing uh group that talks about partnerships uh from director and senior vice president, what's working, what's not working, and a great deal of sharing around that within the organization.
34:17
SPEAKER_00: But I know you have a partnership with Island Routes that uh has personalized experiential tours within Jamaica.
34:24
SPEAKER_00: Uh maybe talk a little bit of that then, but also would love to know more about how partnerships are so important to you because I think they can be used, I would assume, to keep that intra stay engagement going as well, right?
34:35
SPEAKER_00: Here's an offer from this partner.
34:37
SPEAKER_00: Uh you know, how are you looking at partnerships and you know how did the island route thing come to so yeah, Island Roots is is a part of yeah, it's a violence roots.
34:48
SPEAKER_01: Depends where you're from.
34:49
SPEAKER_01: I'm yeah.
34:50
SPEAKER_01: Um so uh Island Roots was formed and is owned by our same owner, Mr.
34:59
SPEAKER_01: Adam Stewart.
35:01
SPEAKER_01: So so it's part of, in a broader sense, the Sandals ecosystem, or should I say, the Stewart family ecosystem.
35:10
SPEAKER_01: So um so that is a that is a connection, an opportunity for us to weave in experiences as part of a vacation that that I think now is fundamental.
35:21
SPEAKER_01: Um back to your previous question about how to serve the next generation.
35:27
SPEAKER_01: We know for a fact that experiences are a significant, dominant driver of vacation selection.
35:34
SPEAKER_01: What am I gonna do on vacation?
35:36
SPEAKER_01: So Island Roots will become an increasingly important contributor, participant, partner to make sure that we're serving up experiences that satisfy everyone's curiosity on what to do and how to get the most out of their Caribbean vacation.
35:52
SPEAKER_01: So Island Roots fills that, and we're gonna continue to build on that.
35:56
SPEAKER_01: Partnerships in general need to, for us, are very strategic.
36:00
SPEAKER_01: Um, and you know, everybody will say that.
36:03
SPEAKER_01: I guess we don't look for gigantic partnerships.
36:07
SPEAKER_01: Patty is a great example.
36:08
SPEAKER_01: We know that a lot of our Sandals family members are divers, um, and diving is a very important part of that vacation experience.
36:18
SPEAKER_01: We offer complimentary diving, right?
36:20
SPEAKER_01: That's part of the all-inclusive element or benefit of vacationing with us.
36:25
SPEAKER_01: Um, so how do we partner with Patty around course offering, around um, you know, making sure that we're staying connected with divers or introducing ourselves to divers slightly uniquely and differently.
36:38
SPEAKER_01: So Patty is a marketing partnership, a driver of increased value to our members.
36:46
SPEAKER_01: Put it in the context of a reward, right?
36:48
SPEAKER_01: I mean, or a benefit, right?
36:50
SPEAKER_01: Because you're part of the Sandals family, we have benefits related to Patty and diving specifically.
36:56
SPEAKER_01: Um, so that's a very strategic, purposeful relationship relevant to enhancing the vacation experience.
37:03
SPEAKER_01: Uh, and then on the other hand uh end of the spectrum, we have Bank of America that's our our uh our affinity card partner.
37:11
SPEAKER_01: Yep, great group.
37:13
SPEAKER_01: Bank of America and the Sandles credit card is increasingly important to us, back to gap filling.
37:20
SPEAKER_01: That is the one way that you can earn points towards a future vacation by spending day every day at the supermarket or wherever you're going.
37:28
SPEAKER_01: So every day spend through the Sandles credit card has exponential value towards future Sandles vacations or paying for them.
37:38
SPEAKER_01: Um so we're not out to have a ton of partnerships.
37:42
SPEAKER_01: We're out to have the right partnerships that can deliver strong value, be compartmentalized as a marketing partnership or a benefit provider, something that that that you'd say one and one plus one equals three.
37:57
SPEAKER_00: Perfect.
37:57
SPEAKER_00: Well, what's next?
37:58
SPEAKER_00: You guys are doing such a great job, redoing the program, have great partnerships.
38:02
SPEAKER_00: Uh you're looking at the you know the ways to engage uh young, old, frequent, non-frequent.
38:08
SPEAKER_00: Well, what do you guys have in store next?
38:12
SPEAKER_01: The the biggest investment we are making is in new resorts.
38:17
SPEAKER_01: Uh well, two things.
38:19
SPEAKER_01: We're bringing three of our Jamaica properties back online at the end of this year.
38:23
SPEAKER_01: Um, for those paying attention, the Hurricane Melissa last year in the Caribbean was devastating.
38:29
SPEAKER_01: Category five wiped out literally three of our properties.
38:32
SPEAKER_01: So we will be reintroducing those three properties in Jamaica uh come the end of the year.
38:37
SPEAKER_01: We're really excited about that.
38:39
SPEAKER_01: Uh, and a true reflection of what we refer to as Sandals 2.0, you know, the next generation Sandals uh resort product offering.
38:46
SPEAKER_01: We've got a big emphasis on growing the Beaches brand.
38:49
SPEAKER_01: The Beaches brand um has been a little bit of a sleeper.
38:53
SPEAKER_01: Uh but when you look at vacation behavior over the last 10 years and accelerating, it's going to multi-generational travel.
39:05
SPEAKER_01: So it's not just parents and kids anymore, it's grandparents, it's multi-generational.
39:10
SPEAKER_01: So, how are we building our inventory to satisfy that or accommodate that?
39:13
SPEAKER_01: So you're going to see a lot of investment and expansion in the Beaches brand and a push for cross-polinization between those brands and those experiences.
39:24
SPEAKER_01: On the loyalty front, it's going to continue to focus on how we can nurture and cultivate and celebrate our members and bring the program and the brand to life in a way that they are proud to be a part of and will perpetuate the passion that we benefit from.
39:43
SPEAKER_00: Excellent.
39:44
SPEAKER_00: And the last question I have, somewhat self-serving, you know, what can loyalty 360 do to help you and your customer loyalty efforts?
39:51
SPEAKER_01: I I uh I sort of alluded to it earlier and came probably came out a little tongue in cheek, but to me, the landscape, particularly related to how people are leveraging technology, has never been more complicated, never been more confusing.
40:06
SPEAKER_01: You've got a lot of cooks in a lot of kitchens with different points of view.
40:10
SPEAKER_01: Your options are now exponential.
40:12
SPEAKER_01: I think helping make sense of technology and the role of technology and how we connect with our members based on different demographies, where people are in their comfort level, whatever variables are in play.
40:31
SPEAKER_01: I think it's how we better understand where technology meets the consumer and how we can be best at it.
40:39
SPEAKER_01: Because I think it is going to be hard.
40:42
SPEAKER_01: Well, it is hard and it's getting harder.
40:45
SPEAKER_01: I can't thank you enough for taking the time to speak with us.
40:47
SPEAKER_01: Well, Mark, it was a pleasure.
40:49
SPEAKER_01: And I and I love these conversations.
40:51
SPEAKER_00: And I also want to thank everyone else for taking the time who tuned in today.
40:54
SPEAKER_00: Please be sure to check back with us every Thursday for a new episode of the Leaders in Customer Loyalty Podcast, uh, the Brand Stories Edition.
41:01
SPEAKER_00: Don't forget to subscribe and follow us on YouTube and all our other social media channels, which are listed in the comments section below.
41:09
SPEAKER_00: Until then, have a wonderful day.