In today’s loyalty news - there is hope for humanity in the form of “good” AI, changes and updates in airline loyalty programs, data breaches are sucking the wind out of consumer goodwill, and $44 Million dollars bets big on points. Here is what we’re following …
AI
Meet the Researchers Working to Make Sure Artificial Intelligence Is a Force for Good
Quotable: “To help ensure future AI is developed in humanity’s best interest, AI Now’s researchers have divided the challenges into four categories: rights and liberties; labor and automation; bias and inclusion; and safety and critical infrastructure. Rights and liberties pertain to the potential for AI to infringe on people’s civil liberties, like cases of facial recognition technology in public spaces. Labor and automation encompass how workers are impacted by automated management and hiring systems. Bias and inclusion have to do with the potential for AI systems to exacerbate historical discrimination against marginalized groups. Finally, safety and critical infrastructure looks at risks posed by incorporating AI into important systems like the energy grid.”
AIRLINES
Qantas Highlights Increased Engagement as Loyalty Program Returns Stronger Earnings
Quotable: “A bright spark was the Qantas Loyalty offering, which returned to double-digit earnings growth in the second half, leading to a record underlying EBIT of $374 million off revenue of $1.6 billion. This came off the back of new insurance and financial services streams, as well as improvements made to the Frequent Flyer program.”
Singapore Airlines Chooses Insider to Deliver AI-Powered Experiences
Quotable: “One of the key things that Insider does well is to unify customer data across channels, enabling businesses to segment users with advanced AI technologies and deliver personalized cross-channel experiences. Insider, with its agile focus on emerging technologies, continually integrates new features and channels like web push, product discovery (Maven), WhatsApp Business API and Facebook Messenger to improve its platform.”
Chase Adds Emirates Skywards as Airline Transfer Partner
Quotable: “The addition gives more choices to those with Chase cards that allow 1:1 point transfers to travel partners. Because Emirates is the only airline that offers direct flights from the U.S. to Dubai, according to the travel comparison site SkyScanner.”
AMAZON
Amazon Takes Stake in India Loyalty/Rewards Platform
Quotable: “Amazon has agreed to invest in Future Coupons Limited, which is engaged in developing innovative value-added payment products and solutions such as corporate gift cards, loyalty cards, and reward cards primarily for corporate and institutional customers.”
BRAND LOYALTY PROGRAMS
National Relaunches Customer Loyalty Promotion
Quotable: “According to National Car Rental’s 2019 State of Business Travel Survey, bleisure travelers report significantly higher levels of satisfaction with their quality of life compared to non-bleisure travelers (93% vs. 75%), as well as their work/life balance (87% vs. 64%). Also, bleisure travelers are more likely than those who’ve not incorporated leisure into their trips to say they follow a healthy diet (42% vs. 29%) and exercise (57% vs. 31%) when traveling for business.”
CONSUMER DATA & PRIVACY
Consumers Believe Brands Benefit More from Personal Data Sharing Than They Do
Quotable: “One of the most interesting findings in the study reflects the perceptions of who benefits most from consumer data collection and usage. Roughly 63% of consumers believe that brands benefit, while 46% believe that consumers do.”
Nearly 4,000 Data Breaches Have Exposed 4.1 Billion Consumer Records so far in 2019
Quotable: “RiskSecurity, a company that makes its living off vulnerability intelligence, breach data, and risk ratings reports that there were 3,813 publicly disclosed breaches in the first six months of 2019, exposing more than 4.1 billion records. That total is up more than 50 percent compared to the first six months of 2018.”
Giving “toxic” Data Back to Consumers Will Make CDR a Boon for Business
Quotable: “When you actually return data to the individual, that individual is the only point where you can aggregate all the data about the individual,” he explained. “As CDR goes forward, individuals will get this rich data set and companies will ask the individual for that data – and individuals will say yes [when they want to] to actually have more data sharing.”
Mastercard says German Priceless Specials loyalty program breached
Quotable: “Kell said that while “users have become numb to the constant theft of their information, the loss of points is tangible and may have a direct impact on the card holders’ ability to travel or buy a present for loved ones. Losing “loyalty points through account take overs will have a greater impact on user satisfaction than losing their personal information,” he contended.”
DATA ANALYTICS
Weighing the Cow Doesn’t Make It Grow Any Faster
Quotable: “Every measurement move should beg the question, ‘why exactly are you measuring these things?’ Particularly when it comes to customer surveys it is imperative to remember that the quality of data and feedback you collect is in direct response to the quality of the questions that you ask.”
TRENDS
Loyalty Management Market to Witness an Impressive CAGR of 16.84%
Quotable: “The major factors which would drive the global market are growing usage of smartphones, increasing adoption of card loyalty systems, significant investments of organizations on loyalty management programs, and mandatory government rules and regulation on customer services. Also, the online reward management solutions are expected to drive the global loyalty management market, followed by the enhancements in big data analytics machine learning, and Artificial intelligence.”
Gen Z Shopping Trends: Digital Natives Want to ‘Buy Into Better’
Quotable: “Attitudes to brand loyalty are shifting too, with over half (58%) saying they are happy to switch between brands based on what’s new and interesting. This generation is also much more switched on and pragmatic around value exchange too, with 61% happy to submit personal data in return for rewards and offers and nearly half (42%) saying they would submit more data if it meant greater rewards.”
A $44M Series B Drop in the Bucket for Millennial Loyalty
Quotable: “The loyalty space has heated up in the last few years with different strategic plays. Bumped, an app that pays consumers in the stock of the companies at which they shop, has raised capital from Canaan. Meanwhile, New York City-based Lolli has taken a similar approach but pays out bitcoin instead. Despite those new entrants, Fung believes that Drop’s current focus on points is the right call. “I’d say that based on research we’ve done, points are still the most favorite reward for consumers,” he said.
The Loyalty Newswire is compiled and edited by the staff at The Wise Marketer.
