In episode 85 of The Payments Show Podcast, I spoke to Len Covello who is the Chief Technology Officer at Engage People
Engage People provides loyalty solutions to businesses, enabling members to earn and redeem rewards.
AUDIO VERSION: thepayments.show
Episode Highlights:
Stats On Loyalty Points (Most Go Unused!)
- $200 billion dollars of loyalty points are issued each year and more than half of them go unused.
- There's a 30% increase in spend compared to a typical transaction when customers are given the opportunity to pay with points.
- Loyalty members typically have more than four to five redemptions per year.
Getting Into The Checkout Flow
“Ultimately our goal is to get into the checkout flow. You want to avoid that clunky experience. Who's responsible for that delivery when I order that product? Is it the bank? Is it the loyalty provider in the middle? Is it the brand ultimately that has that product? We want to remove that. The industry saw a lot of gift card redemption over the last 5-6 years. And I think that was specifically the customers themselves saying I don't want to deal with the four to six weeks delivery time”
Starting a Brand New Loyalty Program
“…don't bite off more than you can chew. A lot of organizations take too long to launch something, and they've got these immense plans that can get very expensive. Launching or running a large loyalty program is actually a profit center. Probably something most people don't know as well. The cost per point. So, what you ultimately pay for a point versus what a consumer pays to redeem that point. That brings value. Having a large member base brings value. We saw that during the pandemic, a lot of airlines were leveraging their loyalty programs to borrow against that”