Amanda Cromhout 12 min

Blind Loyalty Challenge with Zsuzsa Kecsmar


Hear Zsuzsa’s advice on the best way to mitigate fraud and the top question companies ask technology vendors, plus her favorite personal surprise and delight experience.



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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

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Laugherty Challenge.

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So this has never been done before as far as I know that the 2023 International

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Laugherty

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Personality of the Year is interviewing the 2024 International Laugherty

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Personality of

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the Year. So congratulations, Dusa. I don't think you need any introduction to

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absolutely

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anyone and so deserved of such a great accolade. So we have Zuzu Kuxmall from

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Antarvo. She

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needs no introduction, but she is the co-founder and the Chief Strategy Officer

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. Welcome to

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Blind Laugherty Challenge.

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Hi, Amanda. I'm so happy to be here. Give me a high five just, you know, the

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way I take

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the opportunity of the year. Thank you. It's lovely to be here. Thank you so

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much for doing

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this challenge with me and I'm actually quite nervous. Like, I don't know what

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Amanda is

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going to ask me. Maybe you will need to edit this all the way because I will

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give stupid

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answers. I don't know. We will see.

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Everything's editable, of course. Okay, but before I go any further, there's

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two, there's

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actually three reasons I wanted to chat to. Probably four, actually. So before

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you announce

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as the industry loyalty personality, I wanted to talk to you because of the

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great work you're

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doing for the industry. So now to have you as that international personality of

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the year

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is the second reason. The third reason is we mention Antarvo throughout Blind L

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augherty.

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It has great coverage because you've got incredible case studies. So throughout

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the Blind Laugherty

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book, anyone who's read it will see that Antarvo has mentioned it sprinkled all

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over on many

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pages. And then the fourth reason is you and your team and particularly

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Michelle and your

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team are incredible, incredible supporters of the Blind Laugherty bracelets.

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And it's

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just amazing how you support it everywhere you go in the world. So for that, I

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'm incredibly

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grateful. Well, I'm grateful to that you're running this and doing this. And it

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's time

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to have a special tangible connection between royalty people that we have to

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bracelets.

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It's just so lovely to give my bracelet to that other person because I know

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that they

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would be very happy for that. It's a special connection that you created and it

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's only

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the connection part. But what it means, helping people get back their ability

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to see things,

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it's a very nice thing. Congratulations for that, Amanda.

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So together we can keep doing it and have fun along the way as well. So thank

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you for all

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the support from your team. So all right, let's get straight into it. So

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chapter 88,

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I quote Antarvo around loyalty, sorry, chapter 86, I quote Antarvo around

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loyalty, fraud

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mitigation. What would you say is the number one best way to mitigate fraud?

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It's technology because without technology, you as a person will not be able to

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spot it.

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And loyalty programs are built on technologies like legacy technologies or new

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kinds of technologies

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like Antarvo. And it's very, very needed that the technology has this fraud

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detection capabilities.

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We talk about AI every single day, do you say it? But it's not necessary. Like

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it's not

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it's not must have to make it AI. There are ways to spot these fraudulent

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activities just

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based on rules that people should watch out for. I mean, the software should

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watch out for.

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And out of that area, that technology can handle what we see is one of the

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sources for

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fraud is employee fraud. So unfortunately, that's the fact that employee fraud

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exists.

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And there are ways to tackle that. And one of the ways is to create within your

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loyalty

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program, make employees your champions, make them great offers their own things

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. So they

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can be very happy with what they have. And they don't need to do fraud and

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things to

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get benefits. They should benefit by default. So they will be your best loyalty

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managers,

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thousands of loyalty managers for you.

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Yeah, absolutely. We run a fraud group in South Africa with all any player in

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the industry

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wants to talk about fraud and absolutely just said the only guys who feel they

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're on top

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of it is because their technology can help them. And secondly, without question

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, I say

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this implying loyalty that staff fraud is the number one trigger without

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question. Great.

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Okay. So as a very, very well known software provider, cloud software provider

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to the industry,

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what would you say if you are sitting in an RFP is the most important question

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client

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should ask of you?

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The question to be asked that who is going to do it? That's the question to be

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asked.

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And the reason why I'm telling this because there are multiple kinds of softw

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ares and

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companies and there are always different setup. For example, there are

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companies who are a

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bit of technology, a lot of implementation and a lot of services. They're like

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an agency,

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you give it to them and then they take care of it. That's one kind. The other

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kind is

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when there is technology, there is implementation and then they take care of

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that and then give

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it to you. If that happens, you need to make sure that there's great training

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around that.

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And then another type is when there is technology like on table, but someone

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else does the implementation

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like an agency whose expertise is implementation. But then who is doing the

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management of it?

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Is this another agency, for example, like Truth or is it the customer itself,

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the brands

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and retailers running the loyalty program? So what I think you should come

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clear with

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is knowing what you want and making sure that the provider you're talking to

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fits that

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bracket because it's really hard to compare apples and then oranges and peaches

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and everything.

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You really need to know your categories. And they are very clear with what we

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do. And oftentimes,

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our salespeople are explaining things that we don't do in order for the

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prospect to understand

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what is that we do. So we don't do strategy because we want companies like

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yours to do

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the strategy. Who knows local markets who have the industrial expertise? We don

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't do

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implementation because we want the big system integrated companies to do the

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implementation.

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And we don't do ongoing management because we want either Truth or the customer

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to do

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the implementation. And for this setup, we have everything. We have the

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training for the consultants,

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the engineers and the customers, the people, the CRM managers who are actually

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configuring the campaigns.

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Yeah, and you said something really critical there that is often a stumbling

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point is

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the client needs to know what they want, which is often not the case, as I'm

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sure you face every

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day. So hopefully with partnerships, whether it's us or other players in the

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market, you can

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actually help the client get to where they exactly what they want and then you

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guys can respond.

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Yeah. One of my favorite examples where I quote Antovo in the book is chapter

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51,

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which is surprise and delight. And what I quote you on is something you or your

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team said around

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how about a half birthday surprise, which I absolutely loved. So what is your

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personal

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best surprise and delight experience? These are tough questions, Amanda.

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How people do this? Like, did they sit for a minute and then think?

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I feel like you did. I think this is a certain thing. So what is my best?

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It's as long as you like surprise and delight. Okay, I know. So that wasn't a

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minute, by the way.

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Because it is such a great surprise that it immediately came to my mind. And it

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's from

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Notino, which is a European online drugstore. And the last time I ordered

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something from there,

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I've got the opportunity to pick my own reward. And picking my own reward was

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really nice because

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in beauty, there is this trend about like surprising you, but also giving you

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the option to pick your

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own reward. So there is this very nice mix, I think, between discovery and also

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a surprise.

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And for me, the biggest surprise was that I was able to pick. It is a selection

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of rewards.

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And then it is up to me, which one I wanted. And I picked some perfume samples.

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And I still

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keep some of them in my bag. And I actually use them. You know, these are very

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small samples, but

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it can still go a long way if you really like the scent. So that's that.

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Beautiful. What was the name of the company again?

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It's Notino.

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Notino. Okay, beautiful. Love it. Magnificent. Okay, there you go.

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Tick tick tick. Three great questions, three great answers. Who would you like

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to tag?

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Oh, so I need to tag. I need to tag someone. I would like to tag Sam Popgood,

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who runs the

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loyalty program for Rick Crow. And Rick Crow is one of our customers at Untable

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. And they are

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a surfer brand in Australia who do not only reward you if you buy a surfer gear

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, but also if you

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like live the surfer life. And I think this is truly what the future of loyalty

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programs and

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customer loyalty is about. It's not only about transactions, but it's about the

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lifestyle.

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So basically, if you use the loyalty program of Rick Crow, you can be rewarded

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after surfing,

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after surfs, surf sessions. And it's quite, it came quite handy that they

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actually have an app

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and a piece of technology as smartwatch that rewards that tracks your movements

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when you are

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in the border. So I think they've done this beautiful job of seeing what they

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have,

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the product, what their customers share, the lifestyle, what is their

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technology direction,

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developing a hardware with the surfer. And then tying this together in the

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loyalty program,

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which made it surf to earn, if you can say that, surf to earn by the example of

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Nike or

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Adidas who have this move to earn loyalty programs. So I really hope that Sam

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did accept the challenge.

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Yeah, I hope so too. I'd love to chat to him. Fantastic. So I think Rick Crow

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needs to come.

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I don't think that program exists in South Africa and Cape Town is very much a

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surf city. So

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we need to get it here as well. Not for me, I can't surf, but for others.

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Susan, thank you. You're an absolute superstar. I've loved chatting to you. It

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was great to see

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you in person in Dubai for so many reasons. But thank you for doing the Blind

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Lords Challenge.

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Of course. Thank you very much.