Leaders in Customer Loyalty, Powered by Loyalty360
Leaders in Customer Loyalty, Powered by Loyalty360
#401: Royal Bank of Canada: Forming Strategic Partnerships and Receiving Recognition for Customer Loyalty Efforts
When a large financial institution decides to enhance the construction of its customer loyalty program, it can be challenging. Yet repositioning a program in a highly competitive Canadian market where large coalition programs are inter-matched with traditional brand-based customer loyalty efforts can be even more daunting. One of the ways to measure how brands enhance customer loyalty efforts is to look at the program’s metrics and KPIs. Another is to take home multiple awards at Loyalty360’s 2024 Loyalty Expo. Nothing says success quite like the recognition from your peers within the customer loyalty industry!
To learn more about this award-winning program, Loyalty360 recently spoke with Avery Miller, VP of Avion Rewards Digital Product, at the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC). Miller “grew up” in the financial services industry in the payment space, working for a relatively large issuer in the U.S. He joined RBC about two years ago to lead the digital product for their freshly revamped Avion Rewards.
In this interview, Miller discusses the award-winning Avion Rewards program, creating emotional loyalty, and growing relationships with non-RBC clients.
When a large financial institution decides to enhance the construct of their customer loyalty program, it can be challenging. Yet repositioning a program in a highly competitive Canadian market where large coalition programs are intermeshed with traditional brand-based customer loyalty efforts, it can be even more daunting. One of the ways to measure how brands enhanced customer loyalty efforts may be faring is to look at the program's metrics and KPIs. Another is to take home three awards at the 2024 Loyalty Expo. Nothing says success quite like the recognition from your peers within the customer loyalty industry. To learn more about this award-winning program, we have the pleasure of speaking with Avery Miller. He's the Vice President of Avion Rewards, the digital program at the Royal Bank of Canada. Avery, how?
Speaker 2:are you today Doing great Mark. Really happy to be here, Super excited for this.
Speaker 1:First off, can you tell us a little more about your experience in customer loyalty and what you do in your role at RBC?
Speaker 2:Yeah, happy to.
Speaker 2:So I grew up in the financial services industry in the payment space, working for a relatively large issuer in the US and as primarily a monoline company leaning on transactions and spend of customers.
Speaker 2:I realized very early on that the loyalty systems are what keep people there, it's what keeps cards in tops of wallets, it's what makes you the default payment mechanism, all those things that it takes to win as a monoline credit card company. And I saw kind of the double down version of that when I made my way to PayPal and I saw it's not just a consumer play at the end of the day, which is what I experienced at that credit card company, it's also a merchant play, and merchants are very much interested in access to new customers and markets. They're interested in driving lifetime customer value and it's good loyalty ecosystems, good rewards ecosystems that really help make that flywheel go round. And so I was really excited to join RBC just about two years ago now to lead digital product for their freshly revamped Avion Rewards, and we've been having a lot of fun ever since, doing a lot of new and interesting things in Canada that really haven't been done before by a financial services loyalty system.
Speaker 1:Avion rewards with the finals in several categories of the 2024 Loyalty Expo, taking home the platinum for brand-to-brand partnerships and the gold for creative campaign and communications. Additionally, RBC earned a silver in the comprehensive overall category, the 360 degree brand award. Congratulations on all those wins. First off, can you give us a brief overview of the brand and your award winning Loyalty 360 award entries from the 2024 Loyalty Expo.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Look, we we are honored for those wins Like to pick up three wins at at Loyalty Exalty Expo. That was big time for us. We're especially proud of that platinum win for brand to brand. We really pride ourselves in the Canadian market of having incredibly strong and unique strategic partnerships with leading brands that Canadians care about.
Speaker 2:We do that across a variety of categories fuel, pharma everything from aspirational to everyday and we're one of the very first banks ever in Canada to have launched a linked loyalty program, which is exactly what that win was all about with Petro. And so over the years of that linked loyalty program which is exactly what that win was all about with Petro, and so over the years of that linked loyalty program right, very unique in the space we've managed to put real dollars back in the pockets of millions of Canadians who are part of that program, part of our program and part of Petro's, and have linked that together. And we've done that all while driving new customers for Petro and increasing share for them, kind of across the board in the way their customers spend. So, again, going back to like access to new customers, access to lifetime customer value, that's what our programs are built and designed to do, and that's why we're really proud of that win, especially.
Speaker 1:This year, enhancements were made to the Avion Rewards Program, Canada's largest bank-owned loyalty program. Can you tell us a little bit more about how the program works, how people engage with the program, what they do to join and what are some of the benefits that they get by participating in the program?
Speaker 2:Absolutely yeah. So I mentioned there was that shift about two years ago from something that looks a little bit more like a traditional bank program into what Avion Rewards is today. And so today the program is comprised of points-based earning that you can do through a variety of financial products with us. So there's traditional credit card type products that earn points on spend, and there's multiple products in our suite that does that the Avion card, the Ion card, et cetera. We also earn points into the system just by banking with us. So we have this fantastic banking program called Vantage that earns value into our system as well, and we added in a ton of the partnership elements that we've been talking about just now.
Speaker 2:So Petro is obviously a major one. We have many, many other strategic partners in the Canadian market, so we bring all of their value to bear, whether that's in a linked loyalty program, like with Petro and Rexall, or whether it's travel-driven, like with Marriott, or it is ride-share and delivery-based, like with Lyft, and so we bring all that value into the system. And we also bring in a lot of aggregated retail and other online spend value through our Shop Plus browser extension, and so across all those value pools what we're aiming to do, and what I think we have successfully done over the past two years, is we've given a lot of access to a lot of Canadians to both aspirational value so travel and experiences and being able to get that really expensive product for your kid for Christmas that you wouldn't be able to get except with the points buys and everyday value, like really deflating in an inflationary environment what Canadians have to spend on things every day.
Speaker 1:During June's Loyalty Expo, avion Rewards participated in a panel session pertaining to emotional loyalty which, as you know, is top of mind for many brands today. They want to have that emotionally connected customer, but there can be challenges around creating that emotional bond. Can you share how you define emotional loyalty at RBC and how you're working as a brand to build emotional bonds with your members?
Speaker 2:For sure. Yeah, yeah, it is a tricky thing to define, I agree, right, you know, when you see it, uh kind of thing. And look, that panel was fantastic. You guys put together a fantastic event. Overall, that panel was spectacular, not because I was on it, but literally the rest of the panelists were were incredible, um, and so I was. I was really happy to be up on stage with them.
Speaker 2:The first time I ever heard a concept like emotional loyalty was probably back in the early 2000s, mid 2000s, with a book called Love Marks. And it's this idea the author I can't recall the author right now but it's this idea that you build such a strong brand affinity that people will make irrational choices. Right, generally speaking, we kind of think I'm a psychologist by study you think people make rational decisions. That tends to not actually be the case a lot of time, and emotional loyalty is about being able to make choices or having customers make choices, having members make choices that seem irrational on the surface because of the strength of that affinity for you or for your brand At Avion. That's exactly what Avion is there hopefully to do In a place like banking. Banking is an incredibly rational set of choices and it's like, the pricing is very obvious to everybody for all of the products, your brand, the rest of the brand, choices, especially in Canada, are very clear and obvious to everyone. Very clear and obvious to everyone.
Speaker 2:And so our job at Avion Rewards is to create emotional loyalty with somebody. And look, rbc has done it for years in a number of different ways. I actually was talking to one of the CEOs of one of our partners and he was saying that RBC will always be his bank, because when he was starting up and starting his business, rbc was the bank that would give him a loan when nobody else would. And that's an incredible way to build a bond. Hard to do that one by one, by one, with millions of customers.
Speaker 2:And so we think we do it at Avion, or try to do it at Avion, by helping focus a little bit more on what the customer is actually there for. Right, like I don't save money, I don't put money into an account because I like to see the dollars grow. I'm doing it because I want to go somewhere, because I need to purchase something, and so it's focusing on what the customer needs or wants in that moment. That, I think, is the most important element, and so that's why we focus in on the redemption moments for points being about that really aspirational trip you wanted to take to Bali, right, or getting back to see family, which is an incredibly emotional event. And that's where we focus our energy, creating those ties to that behavior, to that outcome, because that's really what the customer wants at the end of the day. Excellent.
Speaker 1:And briefly, what are or what is the next exciting initiative for Avian Rewards as we move through the rest of 2024?
Speaker 2:It's going to be a big year.
Speaker 2:We've been out to all of Canada for about a year now and we're really excited to continue to grow our relationship with non-RBC clients and show them the rest of the value that we have to bear.
Speaker 2:Obviously, we're still doing a lot as the key financial partner for the Taylor Swift Eras Tour in Canada and that'll be going really strong. We're doing a lot of fun contesting and surprise events with Avion Rewards members for those tickets and we'll be doing that the rest of this year for sure. And then I think, as we lean further into 2025, we've got a lot of really great new strategic partnerships coming that are going to generate a lot of value for Avion members, for Canadians, and we're going to be doing a lot together as partners, avion Rewards in these programs. We announced PFG in the grocery space, we announced Metro in the grocery space and we're going to be bringing all of those combined programs, all that great value, to Canadians throughout 2025. So everybody be on the lookout for all that great value to Canadians throughout 2025. So everybody be on the lookout for all that great value.
Speaker 1:Excellent. Well, thank you, avery, for taking the time to speak with us today. We appreciate it. It was great hearing about RBC, your customer loyalty efforts and what you're doing with Avion Rewards. Looking forward to learning more from your team in the remainder of 2024. So thank you very much.
Speaker 2:Absolutely Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and thank you, everyone else, for taking the time to listen today. Make sure you join us back for another episode of our Leaders and Customers loyalty series soon. Until then, have a wonderful day.