Blind Loyalty Challenge with Brian Almeida

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Hi there, I'm Amanda Cromhoe from Truth. Welcome to the Blind Laugherty

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Challenge.

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We interview world experts in loyalty blindly. We're hoping to create insight,

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spontaneity

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and a lot of fun through the challenge. The challenge is about promoting the

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Blind Laugherty

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Trust and my book called Blind Laugherty, a hundred and one loyalty concept

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radically simplified.

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All profits from the book go towards the trust. We hope you enjoy the Blind L

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augherty Challenge.

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So there are some Blind Laugherty challenges that get me really really excited

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and that is not to

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be disrespectful to anyone else but I've been wanting to speak to Brian. Brian

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I'll need a

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for years I think. So thanks to the Blind Laugherty Challenge that's got us

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together to finally speak.

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So Brian is the founder of Points for Good which is an initiative by strategic

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caravan and he's

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talking to me today from Mumbai in India. How are you Brian? Very well Amanda

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it is my pleasure

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to be part of Blind Laugherty and I've always admired the work you've done and

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how you've

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been worked for the social work and loyalty and the space that we are all

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working on now.

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Wonderful I think that's what we've got in common so this conversation is just

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going to be

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golden so great into it. My first question we've got a couple of chapters in

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Blind Laugherty that are

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around the greater good whether it's sustainability whether it's the

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environment but loyalty playing

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its role in the greater good. So this is not something that you need any help

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with this is probably the

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easiest question in the book but what role do you see loyalty playing for

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greater good?

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I think loyalty you know has got to play a large role in this space. It has

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loyalty has always been you know about motivating and nudging people to change

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behaviour and I think

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it is one of the tools that we can use in a very very big way to change people

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's behaviour to

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a positive towards society to the environment to you know so many of the under

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privileged people

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that we look at look and see around us and I think brands can use loyalty in a

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very very big way

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to help this cause. Yeah I think I mean we're obviously terribly biased I mean

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yes but I do think the marketing world needs to watch this because loyalty has

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got the edge when

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it's about really helping consumers realise what they can do and empowering

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them to make that change

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so let's all work together to make sure that happens. No absolutely I think you

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know and when

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you see some of the challenges that we face in loyalty today about people

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complaining that it's

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more consumerism it is you know just pushing brands and people to consume more

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I think years

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and opportunity for loyalty to stand up and say no we're not about only that

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and we're much better

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than that. Exactly it works both ways absolutely. Okay the second question I'm

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moving away completely

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and your business obviously does a lot of work in loyalty and customer centric

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ity I'm interested

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in what is your definition of customer centricity? I think customer centricity

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is when you can

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you know pivot the organisation around meeting the needs of the customer and

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understanding the

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customer's needs and then aligning it the goals of the object and the

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objectives of the organisation

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to meet those needs of the customer. I think when brands start to do that is

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when they are purely

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customer centric because they're taking the feedback that the customer gives

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them and then

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they're using it and seeing how they can better themselves or improve the

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services or products

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that they offer to customers and that's when you know it becomes a virtuous

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circle of continuous

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improvement because I think customers are the biggest drivers for organisations

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to keep improving.

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Yeah absolutely we have several chapters at the start of blind loyalty around

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strategy and

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customer centricity and I have to say it's part of my DNA really I just love it

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and it's just great

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to be able to talk to a practitioners to understand because loyalty on its own

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you know it can help

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change results for an organisation but the ultimate goal of customer centricity

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has to be up there

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absolutely yeah my last question chapter 96 of blind loyalty talks about

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emotional loyalty

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what is your personal favourite example of emotional loyalty?

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I think it's when the loyalty programme or the brand actually comes and

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connects with you on a

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personal event either your wedding anniversary or a birthday and and that's

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something special for

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you without without it being linked to purchase transactions you know and that

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that to me shows

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to loyalty and a return of favour from the brand they appreciate they recognise

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your custom

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and they're interested in building a brand with you as an individual and they

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're saying

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no questions us you don't have to do anything here is something special for you

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and I think

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I've experienced that with quite a few brands too it come to mind American

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Express and the Tajatels

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oh beautiful great example lovely yeah wonderful great well thank you for

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naming the two brands

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because it's always great to be able to to tap the feeling to an actual

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execution beautiful so

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thank you Brian and who would you like to tag to take the blind loyalty

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challenge?

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I think to my mind I think Kelly LaVinque I'm from the US she's based out of

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the US she's been

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we've worked together we got on really quickly and you know it's like when you

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meet loyalty

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people you're almost instantly you know you can share thoughts ideas and and I

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think we we really

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heated up together I think she's a great loyalty brain so yeah beautiful so

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Kelly and I know each

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other from a million years ago in her colloquy days so that shows how long we

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've both been in the

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loyalty and the space and we're connecting whether that would be great thank

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you so much Brian I

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really appreciate your time thanks for doing the blind loyalty challenge oh

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thank you thank you

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it is my pleasure really honestly to be part of this