Leaders in Customer Loyalty: Supplier Voices | AI Has Created an Inflection Point for Loyalty. Are Brands Ready for it?

Platforms such as Spotify, Amazon, and Netflix have not only innovated how people consume music, shop for everyday items, and watch movies and television—they have also permanently transformed the relationship that consumers have with brands.  

By training consumers to expect experiences tailored to their preferences, these platforms have made personalization, convenience, and seamless omnichannel experiences increasingly non negotiable features that brands are expected to deliver with their products and services. Ian Young, Senior Director & Head of Business Development at Comarch, also sees these shifting consumer expectations playing out with loyalty and rewards programs today.  

To build lasting emotional loyalty among their members, brands must now think beyond just points and make personalization a key cornerstone of their programs. And to effectively embed seamless personalization across all the channels of their loyalty program, brands must invest in artificial intelligence, according to Young. 

Transcript

Welcome And What We Explore

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Welcome to our Leaders in Customer Loyalty Podcast. Today's a Tuesday, so it's another edition of our industry voices. Uh today we're gonna hear from Ian Young. He's the senior director and head of business development from Comarch. They are a global leader with over 20 years' experience helping brands design and scale customer loyalty programs around the world. Today's customers expect more, as everyone knows, brands that anticipate their needs, personalization in real time, and the ability to deliver actual value. That's why Comarch is investing heavily in AI. Being able to turn raw data into actual insight and being able to leverage that in real time helps brands stay ahead of the competition. In today's episode, we're going to explore how customer loyalty drives share wallet and why ROI must be meaningful for both the brand and the customer, and how scalable platforms and integrated technologies support the full customer journey. Ian, thank you very much for taking the time to join us today. How are you?

SPEAKER_01 1:07

Yep, very well. Very well. Good to see you again, Mark.

SPEAKER_00 1:09

Yeah, nice to see you as

Ian Young’s Path Into Loyalty

SPEAKER_00 1:11

well. Uh first off, uh, let me know a little bit more about yourself, uh, your current role at Comark, uh, your background. How did you get into the customer loyalty arena?

SPEAKER_01 1:20

Yeah, thanks. Um, it's a great question. So um at the moment I lead uh loyalty business development for North America at Comart, um based in New York. Um and really I think my whole career has been around driving customer engagement in some form or another. Uh sometimes it's outright lead loyalty, um, sometimes it's value propositions, building out partnerships. And so there's always been a loyalty theme and a CRM theme to the work that I've done. So I'm super excited and passionate about that. Um today, really, you know, without sort of wanting to use AI as a buzzword, it's such a big focus. And so everything that we do today really has a lot of innovative tech behind it. And so for me, that's evolving facet where you have to continue to learn and develop in your career as well. So I'm enjoying that aspect to it.

SPEAKER_00 2:09

Yeah, that's interesting. Uh when you look at that, do you think that everyone wants to learn? Uh you know, we we you come out of school, business school, you're doing MBA or you get your degree in marketing, you're told you need to be reading your field half an hour, an hour a day, a week, right, whatever it may be. And a lot of people don't do that, right? So I think that kind of separates uh people traditionally and some become more successful. But AI really pushes that envelope, um, but it also can be a great tool, right? Just to streamline processes, streamline thinking. You know, I I use it more than I ever thought I would. It's it's a sounding board to me, right? It's back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, not just putting everything in. It's, you know, what do you think about this? And are similar people doing certain things like that? So do you think everyone's gonna be uh as equipped to use AI and succeed, or are they gonna be some winners and losers, maybe?

SPEAKER_01 3:02

Uh I definitely think there will be winners and losers. I think um from the people that I've and I I travel a bunch, I go to a lot of different conferences, I meet a lot of customers, um, and even in my own sort of personal life, you know, you speak to a lot of different people. And for me, AI is a technology that, you know, even if you weren't generally a lifetime learner, um if you didn't sort of spend time doing that, um, I had one strongly encourage people to do it. But I think if you're not doing it, um, the evolution and the speed of pace is just incredible. And so I speak to organizations that really don't use AI very much at all today. Yet many other organizations have them embedded in everything. We literally have AI training, certifications for our company. So there's no way of escaping it in Comarch, but actually I find that enjoyable because it is making life a lot easier and it makes business, in my opinion, a lot more efficient. And it's just giving us so many different facets to what we do. Um, it's also can be fun to play with, right? I don't know if uh people have developed decks for years and years. Now you can get a really interesting deck developed by um just briefing it and putting some um some images in. So I think it's also fun to play with. So, you know, I do think if you're not learning it, um, you're probably falling behind way quicker than you think.

SPEAKER_00 4:18

I agree with that wholeheartedly. Yeah.

What Comarch Builds For Brands

SPEAKER_00 4:21

For those who don't know Comark, uh, can you tell us a little bit what you do, how you do it, uh, how you were started, uh, you know, and what you bring to the market. It'd be great to know.

SPEAKER_01 4:30

Yeah, I would say um, from if people don't know Comar, um, we've been in the business for um 25, 30 years from a loyalty perspective. Uh, we have over a hundred loyalty programs, um, or we sit behind or power over a hundred different loyalty programs globally around the world, uh, US, Canada, and many markets, in fact, um, in every continent. Uh, generally, we provide an end-to-end platform. Um, and increasingly we are shifting that to be really AI at the core. So we provide a total platform, end-to-end. It's all proprietary technology. Um, it has a big focus on AI segmentation and omni-channel communications. It's a modular platform. So our customers can choose to take the core or add-ons. Um, and we support almost any industry, but we have had a lot of success and experience, particularly around retail, travel, uh, automotive and banking and finance. Um, and ultimately, we think about our goal as turning things like raw data essentially into personalized engagement that sticks. Um, and ultimately that drives the bottom line for our businesses that we work with.

SPEAKER_00 5:40

Okay. You talked a little bit about uh and the rapid pace of change uh and how AI focused you are uh from training and uh certifications internally. What about the competitor set? How is Comark different than the competitor set and customer loyalty, customer experience, CRM?

SPEAKER_01 5:58

Yeah, well, I one is um we have uh you know we have a proprietary platform. Um and so we do everything um really in-house. And I think more recently for us, we have really been doubling down on the level of AI investment. Um, you know, it's our determination to make sure that we're one of the leading platforms or continue to be. Uh, we think AI is really um creating an inflection point for loyalty where we know that loyalty really drives share of wallet and key indicators, but the way it's going to be done in the future is going to be completely transformed. And so it's really important to stay ahead of that around AI and personalization. And so that's one of the key differentiators that we're pushing uh forward with. Um also we have a backbone of managing very, very complex projects as well. So we enjoy nothing better than rolling our shirt sleeves up, being very flexible with our customers. Um, our platform is scalable, we integrate it into any stack. And so I think traditionally we've had a big uh focus on that and a strong reputation. And then really what we try to do is make sure that that platform drives the ROI of the customers that we work with. So we think about the journey as kind of an end-to-end journey. And so we have an end-to-end platform that delivers on each of those pieces. And so I think that combination, um, along with all of the experience that we have and the big brands that we power um

Competing On AI And Scalability

SPEAKER_01 7:18

is probably a key differentiator for us.

SPEAKER_00 7:20

Well, that makes perfect sense. So you talked about uh AI and how it's going to make customer loyalty different in the future. Can you expand on that a little bit? What do you mean by making it different? How's it going to change?

SPEAKER_01 7:32

Uh well, I think it's gonna change. Um, I think it's gonna change on some different levels. And so it depends on your view of it. Consumers expect uh today, as you know, and if you have kids, it's it's even more pronounced, uh real time, everything immediate. Uh they want to, it's a it's about predicting what the customer's gonna do next, the kind of offers they want across any channel, you know, whether it's kind of in store or in an app. And so I think AI helps deliver that in a more personalized way. So you should be able to do that down to the individual level, not in the segment level. So I think that's gonna be a massive um enhancement in terms of how I engage with the brand and to what level. And then I think secondly, is some of the efficiency and what we do as individuals on a day job. So um, certainly in my career, we thought about, you know, what campaign should we run, how do we drive what ROI or what business metrics. You know, AI is gonna be a capability that does a lot of that for you and does a lot of the creation and some of the stuff that we don't want to do that's very time consuming. Um, so this is also a story, I think, of efficiency as well, about kind of raising the role of um marketers, uh loyalty professionals about thinking about strategy and best in class, while some of the delivery can happen on behind them. So I think there's some different facets to the way it's gonna do it, but it's definitely gonna transform it.

SPEAKER_00 9:01

Excellent. When you look at customer loyalty, you know, we have the privilege of speaking with uh a number of smart people in around customer loyalty, customer experience. It's always great to get uh perspective of how they're looking at different things within the industry, but also how they define some things. And at core, you know, what does customer loyalty mean to you, to Comark, uh, and and the brands you work with? How do you define it? What does it mean?

SPEAKER_01 9:27

Yeah, it's it's you know, I think defining loyalty has also changed a lot over the years. Um, loyalty has been with us uh, you know, since American Airlines or um Starbucks started. A lot of this was about earn and burn. Um and of course, that's still an important element of it. Um it still drives a lot of consumer behavior. But really, it's not just about that, it's about this sort of two-way exchange.

How AI Changes Loyalty Execution

SPEAKER_01 9:55

So different things are being exchanged today, data's being exchanged. Um, and so there's the the relationships are more complex um and more multifaceted, uh, which I think means that technology needs to keep up with that. Um, and I would say um uh this is more loyalty, should more be thought about as a lifetime value tool. So, how do you sort of bridge the gap between some of those old legacy platforms and modern technology today to really drive CLV overall customer lifetime value? And then I think for brands, it's about kind of hitting some big KPIs and making sure that you still end up with a great experience. And when you kind of read a lot of the media and see what some of the programs have done, there's always this friction between sort of the value of what you give away, devaluing points, um, etc. But I think if you have loyalty still with some of that transactional piece, but with some of those emotional overlays and ways of helping them engage emotionally with the brand, I think you can build loyalty into something that drives across the enterprise value.

SPEAKER_00 11:01

That makes perfect sense. And I think there's uh a big uh kind of gap or necessarily division right now between the CFO and the CMO. Uh, is customer loyalty going to be a profit center or is it going to be a cost center, right? It's gonna be something you invest in. But those brands who actually make that investment, as you probably could attest, are the ones that do well, right? They're making uh targeted bets on technology, people, processes, uh trying to get to that one-to-one uh dream that everyone's had. But there's there's some brands that are so focused on cost, and invariably you make some changes to the program, you try to be uh as transparent as you can, but uh you can't tell them that we've devalued the program, but all the customers know that you've actually devalued the program, right? And then it it kind of kind of nips it in the butt, uh or kind of nips them in the butt a little bit because they're like, uh, we're having challenges with the program. Maybe we shouldn't have made that, right? So I think there's a myopic approach sometimes. Do you see that?

SPEAKER_01 11:57

Um, in terms of the difference between uh, yeah, some of the internal friction between um CFOs and CMOs, yeah, I think we see that a lot. Um, we actually, you know, I have people that come to me when I'm uh going to conferences and events or individual customers where they actually ask for our support in how do we create a business case for them, how do we show strong ROI for exactly that, which is the CFO needs to be on board, the CFO writes the check. Um, how do we demonstrate that? And so it is such an important thing because if you're investing in a program, um you're investing in the balance sheet because you know, if you look at some of the really successful brands, these are these loyalty programs are worth a considerable amount. And so it does take investment to get there both in the value proposition, but also the technology to deliver it. And so these are sort of you buy a platform, you're not buying it for six months, you're buying it for five, six, seven years, you're building that program over sometimes decades, and you have to have really close

Loyalty As CLV Plus Emotion

SPEAKER_01 12:57

alignment on the value of that program. And in almost every instance that I see, it brings value across the enterprise. And in fact, every dollar you put into that program, you should try and make it spread across the entire enterprise because that how you improve your ROI. Um, and also the value from each of your consumers. So it's um, yeah, if you don't have that conversation and get it right, then you can't move forward on some of those investments.

SPEAKER_00 13:23

That makes perfect sense. So when you look at uh the state of customer loyalty, many brands are doing it well. Uh, some are a little challenged. Many brands want to redesign their customer loyalty program, or they may be even in that initial step where they're kind of rolling out a program. What are some common misconceptions brands have when it comes to building or redesigning a customer loyalty program that you see?

SPEAKER_01 13:47

Um, yeah, I think, well, I think there are a few different buckets I put it in. Um, one, I would go back to one of your points, which is is this a cost for my business or is this a business investment and an opportunity? And I think increasingly companies are getting more savvy and smarter to understand that it has to have a positive ROI and we have to leverage that program. But I do think that's one of the misconceptions is this is about spending money versus about driving revenue. Um so I think that's one thing to make sure that gets framed in organizations as um customers think about either starting a program or expanding that program or getting new technology in. And then I would say the second misconception is that um when people design programs, they think about value propositions that can be rigid. Um I think if we go back to some of the traditional programs, of course, they always had a platinum, gold, silver, or or whatever it was. Um, those programs are rigid and um consumers do not want to be rigid anymore. Um, and companies also don't want to be rigid anymore. So I think another misconception is it's a kind of a set it-forget it program. It's not, it's like having a backyard. You've got to tend the backyard and cut the grass and water the garden. You have to, it does evolve. And so I think thinking about it in those terms will probably be the two kind of biggest ticker items uh that I would flag.

SPEAKER_00 15:09

Okay. So when you look at uh brands who maybe redesigning a program, adding functionality, simplifying it, whatever uh the opportunity may be, how'd they get there? What are some of the biggest signs that you see? Because you guys do great work around consulting, right? Uh helping brands figure out what they need, where they are. You know, what are some signs uh uh that you know they the brand has outgrown their basic or initial or current customer loyalty solution?

SPEAKER_01 15:38

Yeah, I would say uh a couple of things that I would think about that we hear is uh depending on the organizational needs, um, the value proposition or even the size of the company or the challenges, when you start to have manual workarounds, um that's when you've sort of outgrown your platform. And so it's okay sometimes to have a little technical debt or to have some workarounds, but when that starts to become in the conversation um, you know, more than once or twice or on a regular basis, for sure you've outgrown it. You probably outgrew it a long time ago. So I think the moment those conversations bubble up, um, that's a red flag. Um if you can't get also a unified customer view, that's also one area that we have people coming to us on, which is um, I want to see all the loyalty data, or I want to see data that isn't just loyalty driven because I want to understand the consumer, um, then that's another area of concern or a red flag that you've really outgrown

Common Program Misconceptions

SPEAKER_01 16:40

your stack or your loyalty technology. So kind of a unified customer view, you can't see that. I don't see how you deliver loyalty without that in a meaningful way. You're starting to do manual workarounds, um, or you kind of need a lot of IT support um to get campaigns out, and your marketing team are sort of working late for no good reason. Um, you've probably outgrown your tech.

SPEAKER_00 17:06

That makes sense. And we talked about this a little bit earlier: AI and some of the opportunities and the focus you have internally at Comar, uh, AI and customer loyalty is a little behind the curve. You know, we do some research on that, and then but brands are starting to warm up to that. You know, how should brands be thinking about AI in their customer loyalty to customer experience efforts?

SPEAKER_01 17:27

Um, yeah, I think again, I think it depends on every organization is um at different different places in terms of their progress and and and even sort of their tolerance and acceptance of AI. Um, some of the biggest hurdles that we hear is sort of that black box thought process. Um, you know, the they don't understand the logic, um, or perhaps there's poor data hygiene behind it. Um, you know, maybe uh data doesn't reside in one place or they have the data, but they can't, you know, they can't pull that together. Um, I would say that is should be a hot topic because without the data, your AI is not going to work very effectively. So that's a huge hurdle. Um, but once you get there, I think starting with some of the smaller pilots is really helpful. So that's what I would suggest, which is how do you do some smaller pilots if you're not doing AI already to prove things like maybe the value segmentation or the next best offer? I think there's some basic things that can be done that are kind of small hurdles, and then you build the confidence internally, not just across the team, but across the stakeholders as well, finance, compliance, and so forth. And then I think you're in you're starting to do kind of the the cruel walk run.

SPEAKER_00 18:38

That's very good. Um AI are many brands are using AI uh, you know, we're uh for segmentation, personalization. You talked about being able to get to kind of a vision of one. You know, how is AI-powered segmentation and personalization changing

Signs Your Platform Is Outgrown

SPEAKER_00 18:55

or potentially changing how brands could engage with the members of the customer loyalty program?

SPEAKER_01 19:02

Uh yeah, I would say um it's transforming it. And if it hasn't already, it's going to be doing that very, very quickly. Um, I would say it sort of provides some, if it's a superpower, it's providing some kind of combination of uh super laser focus and X-ray vision because you start to see new layers and you're able to pinpoint to really becoming a rather than a segment or some micro segments. You know, I know we've got to, this is really coming down to a segment of one. That should be the goal. Um and then I would say uh beyond that, it's how can you deliver that in an automated way that's in real time or perfectly timed uh rather than some of the generic emails? Um and I think that's where the transition point really changes.

SPEAKER_00 19:45

That makes perfect sense. In May at the Multi Expo, you had a pretty powerful conversation around AI. Uh and one of the things that you talked about is how does it become native to customer loyalty, right? How do you get it uh you know to be ingrained versus an add-on? You know, you know, how should brands be looking at that? And you know, what's an approach that brands should be considering to get it to be more native uh within kind of the their customer loyalty offering?

SPEAKER_01 20:11

Yeah, I well, I super enjoyed uh Orlando and you guys did a great job down there at Loyalty360. Um so thank you for that and thank you for hosting us. Um when I was on um uh the stage there, we did have some really good conversations, and I would say I would say this is really about three steps. Um and so if I was working with a customer, I would say there's really sort of three things that I would think about. One, I would say really explore the current AI capabilities. I think the tech is moving super fast and actually probably quicker than many people think. Um so I would say do due diligence um as a first step. And then secondly, uh, one of the things that I spoke to, and we we've got some data that we have proprietary data around it, is sort of look at your um value proposition, just re-examine and sense check that. It's kind of kicking the tires on your loyalty program. We definitely see higher performing programs are definitely out accelerating on things like some of the core pillars, things like using content to personalize um the messaging. And so I think that's another piece, which is make sure the value prop is strong. Um, and if not, you take that time to shore it up. And then I would say the third piece is think about layering in some basic AI capabilities. So it could be, and I mentioned it earlier, it could be sort of starting with just simple customer scoring. Um, and then I think once you start to do some of those things, you can start to shift AI into more of the foundation of your platform, and then it becomes a lot more native. And whether you do that in-house or uh by that platform, that's a big move as well. Because it's moving so fast, you want to make sure that you're obviously investing in technology that is also investing in the future. Um, because it is going to move super fast. It is already.

SPEAKER_00 21:50

Uh, customer expectations, how are they changing in the kind of the age of AI? Uh what are you seeing there? Well, and what are you seeing and how should brands be can? Considering kind of adapting or addressing those expectations?

SPEAKER_01 22:04

Yeah,

Making AI Native And Agentic

SPEAKER_01 22:05

I um well, customers they want us to anticipate really even before they think they know what they want. So I think that is making sure that it's more of a predictive anticipatory model as well. And so I think that should be the North Star. Um I would say from our research, consumers know AI is being used in it and they welcome it. In fact, they like programs that use AI. Um, so we're definitely seeing that trend.

SPEAKER_00 22:32

Okay. Uh, what about Agenic AI? Well, massive uh opportunities there. Um, going to be a huge shift. Many brands have already started that. Uh being able to trust AI, making sure that it's on point. Last year, brands were very concerned they were hiring teams to manage the kind of the AI implementation. But you know, the agenic shift, uh, what are you seeing? How is that going to be uh helpful to brands when they look to improve their customer multi-programs?

SPEAKER_01 22:58

Yeah, I think it changed, you know, this is this is one of the things that really excites me about this part of the space is I think it really changes everything. Um, and it's really a shift from just having some insights um to really that execution layer. Um, so as I'd mentioned earlier, this is really this frees up a lot of the marketeers that work around these programs to going from thinking about the programs, setting up, designing programs, and um to really sticking to an area where they can be more strategic and really let some of the agents really create those real-time campaigns. So they're overseeing them, they're improving them, they're driving a strategy, but a lot of the work is taken care of. So this is really a lot of efficiency for those companies. Um and it really allows um the loyalty team to think about the value proposition and delivering different things for the business and even expanding that loyalty program across the enterprise.

SPEAKER_00 23:49

Okay. You know, when you look at uh the work you do uh in customer, multi-customer uh relationship management, you know, when you talked about some of the challenges that brands are having, what's one piece of advice you would give to a brand who's looking to improve their customer loyalty or customer, you know, customer experience strategies?

SPEAKER_01 24:08

Yeah, I would say um really lead with the business outcome that you want. Um, don't think about the value proposition, but think about the business outcome and the KPI that you're trying to solve for. And I think the other pieces will come after that. Um and I would say if you don't have a direct line to the revenue or efficiency that you're trying to create, then your funding is at risk from our friends in the finance office. That makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 24:35

Perfect. Uh great conversation around AI. Uh, you guys continue to do some very unique things. You know, what's what's next for Comor? What are you guys up to?

SPEAKER_01 24:43

Um, well, as you can imagine, uh, we're accelerating all of our AI native roadmap.

One Practical Advice And What’s Next

SPEAKER_01 24:48

Um, so we're focusing on things like agentich automation, um, improvement in fraud prevention, and really the commerce side of our platform. So, really focusing on the lifetime value that um that our customers can generate it. So, I would say expect more transformational technology that will help the business grow uh going forward. And so I think that's gonna be the next six, 12, 18 plus months.

SPEAKER_00 25:15

That's awesome. Well, Ian, thank you very much for taking the time to join us today. It was uh great uh reconnecting with you, uh getting to hear some things that you're working on. I think your approaches to AI are uh very uh important, uh, and brands should be considering kind of where they are and the fact that you talked about you know some people behind. I think there's a realization, self-actualization in that process where they should probably look like, yeah, maybe we need to do things differently. And obviously, working with you and uh suppliers that uh kind of can help, I think, is where many brands should be looking.

SPEAKER_01 25:47

Fantastic. Well, we're always happy to help, and uh we appreciate the time and uh everything that um your organization does, Mark. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 25:54

Absolutely, and thank you everyone else for taking the time to join today. Make sure you join us back every Tuesday for a new edition of our Leaders in Customer Loyalty, the Industry Voices podcast. Make sure to subscribe and follow us on YouTube and our social media channels listed below in the comments section. Till then, have a wonderful day.