There is a broad spectrum of providers in our world today offering enabling technology to support the growth of customer engagement and loyalty. The population is composed of disruptor providers with solutions focused on solving a narrow, but meaningful problem. That could be working in real time or connecting the activity of customers in social channels with loyalty programs to improve understanding of their preferences.
There are also companies who have long legacies in customer loyalty and continue to adapt to meet the newest needs of consumers while leveraging the experience gained through years of operating successful loyalty initiatives.
Exchange Solutions is one in the latter group and we recently had the opportunity for a quick and candid interview with Mike Hughes, CEO.
You'll be well-served to listen the entire conversation but if you are time-starved, the topical timestamps below will help you get to the part of the conversation most vital to you.
In our conversation about the future of loyalty, Mike shares an overview of Exchange Solutions and talks about their philosophy of "Value Exchange Optimization". We move on to talk about the meaning of real-time loyalty today, where the opportunities for growth are in loyalty marketing, how to optimize the omnichannel approach to communicating with your customers, the quality of customer data, and trends in loyalty.
We even touch on the coalition loyalty model, one that has been successful in just about every market except the US. Mike shares his thoughts on how brands can evaluate whether they join into a coalition or choose to fly solo.
Here are the topical timestamps. Enjoy the conversation!
- 5:08 – Value Exchange Optimization
- 7:35 – Real time rewards
- 11:27 - Evolution of loyalty technology
- 13:40 - Quality of customer data
- 15:50 – Coalition vs propriety loyalty programs
- 19:18 – Opportunities for growth in loyalty
- 23:48 – Trends in loyalty
