Blind Loyalty Challenge with Sarah Richardson

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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

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

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the Blind Laugherty Challenge.

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So another Blind Laugherty Challenge and a very special friend is on the other

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side of

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the screen. So we have Sarah Richardson, she's the chair of the Australian Lawl

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ty Association.

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She needs no introduction to the world of loyalty and she's got years of

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experience

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and we met with the privilege of meeting years ago in Milan of all places. So

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very excited

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to have you here. I know I've got the opportunity to come and chat to your

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conference later

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in the year and you're coming to our conference later in the year after that.

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So to have you

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on here is a real treat Sarah. Thanks for joining us.

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Thanks for having me Amanda. So you and the Australian Lawlty Association have

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been enormous

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supporters of Blind Laugherty. So for that up front, thank you very much and

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for what

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you're about to endure. Thank you. Okay. So we think what you're doing is

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fantastic.

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Absolutely amazing. Oh, I love it. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. So as you know,

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the overall

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title of the book is Blind Laugherty, 101 loyalty concepts radically simplified

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. If you could

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take one loyalty concept that is too complicated and mostly misunderstood,

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which would that

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be to be simplified? Probably how to use NFTs as part of the loyalty program.

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Are you seeing

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that it's just completely complex and no one's understanding it?

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Well, it's really not that complex, but people don't understand and are scared

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of blockchain

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NFTs and crypto. And so they think that they need their program to be on a

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crypto platform,

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but that's not the case. So they can go to an agency and get a cool NFT, which

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is great

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for media and also can do things that you can't do otherwise, like have a

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reward that goes

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over 10 years. So for instance, like Clinique did, where you get special

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products every

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year because you can actually sell that, you can gift it, you can keep it for

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yourself

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for those 10 years, which you can't do that with them and the other loyalty

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program platform.

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Brilliant. Love it. Great. Nice example as well. Okay. Cool. The second

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question.

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Chapter 60 in the book is around sustainability. So what would be your

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favourite example of

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sustainability through loyalty programs? Well, we were really disappointed when

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we ran

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the Australian Awards for loyalty that we, that was our least favoured category

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. And

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so we're going to make sure that for the conference, we spend a lot of time

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explaining

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to the audience how they can embeds to sustainability in their programs. And we

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have Christina coming

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from Italy who is an expert on this and clearing or sustainability and how you

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do it. We unfortunately,

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in Australia, there is a very high cost for things like groceries. And so

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obviously when

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things like that happen, people care a lot less about the environment and

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sustainability.

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So I think it's the responsibility of organisations and loyalty programs,

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people running them to

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ensure that they are taking care of this on behalf of their customers. And so Q

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antas does

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a fantastic job and they were the winners of the Sustainability Award. And they

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have a

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green tier. And they also based on the cost of living crisis that a lot of

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people are

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having to endure. He, well, Alvaro is in charge of that and he'll hopefully be

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speaking at

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the conference as well. He has made sure that the company itself donates a lot

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to the causes,

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the sustainability causes. So the green tier is fantastic. It's like an

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additional tier.

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You're cool. Amazing. We did actually hear a little bit about that at the

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loyalty global

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connect from Qantas. They touched on the green tier. So definitely looking

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forward to hearing

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more about that at your event in August. Okay. My last ones are very personal

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question. What

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would you say has been your most rightful personal loyalty experience? You don

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't have

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to name the plan, Brandon, if you don't want to. As a consumer, as a loyalty

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manager.

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I don't mind, actually. I don't want to go. Well, as a loyalty manager,

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probably sending

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out an EDM for an organization that I won't mention who I was working for at

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the time to

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deceased members. And they had been marked on the database as being as deceased

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. And

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so we wrote to anybody who was still have access to those email addresses,

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which in a lot of

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cases was loved ones, saying they're deceased. Oh my goodness. Because the

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person pulling

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the data list had not excluded to see. So I make sure whenever I consult and

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also for

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my own database at the ALA that anybody who unfortunately is deceased is in a

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completely

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different list. So that never happens again. I was very lucky not to lose much

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of over

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that one. Wow, wow, wow, wow. Well, we learned best lessons from our worst

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mistakes. That's

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incredible. Well done. Well done for confessing up with that one. There was

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another one.

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There was another story I heard from somebody and I can't remember exact

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details around.

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I think it was American Express and someone was messing around with the male

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merge and

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a driven deer rich. And it went through and it actually got sent to the

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customer base.

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Oh my goodness. So there's some real. I'm not sure if that's better or worse,

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probably

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on par. You don't want to make mistakes with your daughter, that's for sure.

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Yeah, awesome.

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Okay, well you sailed through that. Excuse the pun because I know you

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absolutely love sailing.

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So three, not so easy questions. Just you clap them out the parks are well done

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. So can

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you tag someone for me to chat to next on the blind little challenge? Well, I

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don't think

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I have any choice but to tag Paula Thomas who is also coming to our conference

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in August

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on the Gold Coast as is Amanda. So yes, Paula, you're it. Brilliant. Let's get

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Paula on the

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other side of the microphone. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant tag. Thank you

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Sarah. You're an absolute

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superstar. I love chatting to you. You too. Thanks, Amanda.

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