Loyalty Live: Ansira on Keeping Customer Loyalty Simple

Ansira is an independent, global marketing technology and services company with clients across B2B, B2C, and B2B2C industries that leverage the company’s suite of proprietary technology platforms across website, media, and channel partner marketing. Ansira guides clients operating in distributed ecosystems to connect with their customers, fostering brand loyalty by seamlessly integrating digital and physical experiences from the enterprise level to the hyper-local level. Recommending best-in-class products, Ansira also works with clients to strengthen loyalty efforts. Loyalty, incentives, and rewards all fall within the company’s integrated loyalty practice.  

Mark Johnson, CEO of Loyalty360, spoke with Sukumar Muthya, EVP of Integrated Loyalty at Ansira, about integrated loyalty, how brands can go beyond loyalty mechanics, and ensuring reward complexity is kept to a minimum.  


What Integrated Loyalty Includes 

Integrated loyalty is a combination of solutions Ansira provides to both B2C and B2B clients. It includes client strategy and marketing technology integration — that’s where loyalty technology comes into the picture — followed by analytics, creative, and print-on-demand.  

“We look at loyalty beyond the program. We look at loyalty as a culture,” explains Muthya. “When we work with enterprise brands, we try to introduce the concept of loyalty as not just loyalty sitting as a discipline in the marketing organization, but rather that it should be thought about and actioned across the enterprise.”  

For Ansira, whether it’s customer service, financial services, or product management, everyone in the organization needs to understand loyalty. From there, keeping customers engaged and thinking about the brand — whether they are in the buying cycle or not — is vital for success.  

When a loyalty program member is in a buying cycle, they might think about a coupon or hope for enough redeemable points or a discount. Ansira wants to change that thought process. In order to do that, a brand needs to understand its customers quite well.  

“Brands can start by collecting customer data at every interaction, every touchpoint at the brand level,” says Muthya. “Ansira provides a suite of services where we consolidate data. We also offer services around customer data platform (CDP) implementation. We ensure brands can consolidate the data they collect and build intelligence as a result.”  

From there, brands can take advantage of Ansira’s analytics, as well as lean into segmentation and modeling. Advanced analytics is also available, and brands can determine how to leverage unified customer data. Ansira’s marketing technology integration team uses that data to execute CRM programs, which then leads to the brand’s loyalty program.  

“If we design the loyalty program, we help customers choose technology to support it,” says Muthya.  

Ansira also offers a loyalty solution — an incentive model — for B2B clients. For typical B2C scenarios, the company will recommend a best-in-class technology, and then Ansira will work alongside the brand during integration. From there, Ansira works through the customer journey — orchestration, customer engagement, trigger emails, and so on. It’s all part of Ansira’s martech integration. 

Ansira’s creative teams are tasked with creating compelling content to drive customer engagement. The strategy team designs tactics to execute, frequently reviewing how programs are performing and taking steps to pivot or change strategies on subsequent programs.  

“We also offer print on demand,” shares Muthya. “It’s a different channel we support to handle direct mail, catalogs, and more.”  

All the above is how Ansira approaches loyalty beyond the loyalty program. Muthya describes brands coming to Ansira with three types of asks:  

  • Program modernization — The client has an existing loyalty program but wants to modernize some of it.  

  • Technology migration — The client might have a particular technology that needs to be migrated to a new one. Perhaps the client outgrew features, or necessary functions might not be there. A client’s program may be working but needs to migrate to a new technology. 

  • Program design — The client needs a loyalty program or requires a completely new program design and the technology to support it.  



Beyond Loyalty Mechanics 

Ansira’s vision of loyalty is one of four different perspectives. The first is to look at the value creation for the brand beyond loyalty mechanics.  

“Typically, loyalty was based on transaction only,” explains Muthya. “If you go beyond the transaction, what are the other areas of touchpoints? What are the different things the customers are doing with the brand? How do you attract them to that?”  

This is where brands can go beyond loyalty mechanics. Ansira wants brands to look at the connected experience next. Customers interact in multiple ways — the website, the mobile app, through call centers, etc. They should receive a consistent experience across all channels.  

“If you send a customer a particular offer in an email, when they go to the website and log in, they should see the exact same offer,” says Muthya. “When they use the mobile app, they should see the same offer. It’s as simple as that. Create consistency across connected devices and experiences.”  

Ansira sees the third piece as the emotional connection formed between the customer and the brand. The customer must be heard and feel valued. Brands need to consider why the customer is there and understand what they want at that particular point in time.  

Lastly, Ansira looks to the community — the local influence. A national brand may have multiple local stores, and what happens at the local store level matters when attracting customers.  

“There is not one tool that can do all four things for the brand,” says Muthya. “That’s where an integrated loyalty strategy will help. It brings it all together. We work with clients to achieve this.”  

For Muthya, if a brand brings those four perspectives together — in terms of strategy, technology, and marketing technology integration — then it will have a holistic view of how the loyalty program works.  
 

Cultivating Loyalty and Brand Challenges  

Some customer loyalty programs are complex, and it’s hard for customers to understand how they work. If a brand creates confusion and complexity, members might simply drop the program. If the brand is a regular day-to-day commodity resource — for example, groceries — it’s easy for many customers to drop from one program to move to another.  

“Making sure the reward complexity is at a minimum is number one,” advises Muthya.  

Proving ROI when it comes to the brand and implementing loyalty programs is critical. Ansira assists clients in terms of understanding reports, dashboards, and key KPIs while looking at exactly how much money is being spent through discounts, offers, and more. 

“Next is revenue. What revenue is being generated? Keeping an eye on ROI is critical,” maintains Muthya. “I’ve seen brands excitedly launch loyalty programs, and then 8-12 months later, they believe the program is not doing anything for them. Why wait? Constantly keep tracking ROI and follow the trend.” 

Again, it is vital to make the customer feel important and understand the context in which they are coming to the brand. Zero-, first-, and third-party data can be combined to increase understanding.  

“If you know all the different touchpoints, then you’ll be able to understand the context of where the customers are,” says Muthya. “Minimize the complexity of the program, watch ROI and adjust as necessary, and ensure you have the technology that can support your program design.” 
 

 


Navigating Data and Privacy  

When it comes to privacy, Muthya believes the number one point is whether the brand is collecting first-party data through cookies and whether they’re declared or not. 

“When collecting the data in terms of cookies, everything has to be concentrated,” says Muthya. “Any website you visit, you have to click and accept the cookies no matter how many times you’ve been there.”  

Ansira advises clients not to ask for a lot of information upfront when people sign up for a loyalty program. Simply get the minimum information needed to create a loyalty record for that particular customer. Now, the brand has obtained an opt-in and can move the focus to a preference center or a progressive data collection strategy.  

As customers-turned-program-members start engaging in the loyalty program, brands can start collecting more information. The end result is a database filled with 100% accurate information provided by customers who have given consent for the brand to interact with them.  

Muthya offers a “hub and spoke” analogy when describing a loyalty program that’s aligned with preference-centered technology. 

“Normally, you have a preference center. If you’re sending email, the email service provider (ESP) may have a preference center. Loyalty technology may have a preference center where you’re collecting the data. Your website might have some other piece of information — it’s collecting the data,” outlines Muthya. “Bringing it all together becomes yet another complicated technology. But if you have a ‘hub and spoke’ system with one technology, all the information collected at different places comes together in a central place.”  

That system can be leveraged by loyalty programs. Ensuring client requirements are met through the technology vendors they partner with in terms of how they collect the data is also a part of how Ansira assists clients. In terms of privacy and security, how the data is stored and tracked is critical, especially when considering laws and regulations like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), where the right to be forgotten must be honored. 


Keeping Customer Loyalty Simple 

Ansira works with clients to create a simple program. A loyalty program must be understood by the customer, and it should generate value for the customer, too. When Ansira engages with a client, it looks at customer requirements, use cases, and program goals and objectives. Next, Ansira considers the infrastructure the client is operating in. If it’s a cloud infrastructure, Ansira wants to understand the different pieces of technology integration. The third component is knowing what data is available and determining what else might be needed. The overall technology stack rounds out what Ansira evaluates when helping brands design their loyalty programs.  

Muthya agrees that getting 100% buy-in from executive management is vital for program success.  

“Time and time again, I’ve seen loyalty become a byproduct of an enterprise objective versus loyalty as the main product,” says Muthya. “If it becomes a byproduct, it’s very easy to shelve it if there are competing priorities.”  

When looking at a client’s technology, infrastructure, and data, Ansira must understand the pieces the client wants to modernize. Are they planning to migrate e-commerce? Who are the technology vendors? 

Sometimes, a client is using an old platform or point-of-sale system, and items will need to be migrated. If a brand is trying to introduce a loyalty program at the same time, the process is often stuck until the point-of-sale technology is migrated.  

Muthya likes to keep things simple. At the same time, sometimes it’s worthwhile to experiment with new technologies. “If you find there is value, you can jump on it very quickly.”  


Looking Forward  

While artificial intelligence (AI) is already “the next big thing in the industry,” it will be a priority for Ansira to leverage AI and machine learning (ML) to make loyalty programs simpler when partnering with clients. Understanding how a customer interacts with a loyalty program (e.g., redeeming points) and why they are doing so is key to understanding how to next communicate with that customer. Using that information to drive marketing communications — generated by loyalty triggers — will be supported by AI and ML technologies. Muthya also nods to ROI as one of the biggest considerations for Ansira and its clients.  

“We are also introducing something called ‘empathy in AI’ — understanding customer context, why they are engaging with the brand, and then leveraging those attributes to communicate to customers,” finishes Muthya. “That’s the next big thing for us.” 

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Quick-fire Questions     

What is your favorite word?   

Humble. 

  

What is your least favorite word?    

Hidden agenda. 

 

What excites you?    

Intellectual curiosity. 

 

What do you find tiresome?    

High-maintenance individuals. 

 

What book do you like to recommend to colleagues?  

No Bullsh!t Leadership, by Martin G. Moore.  

 

What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?  

Teaching. 

 

What do you enjoy doing that you don’t get to do often?      

I like playing badminton and golf.  

 

Who inspired you to become the person you are today?    

My wife and daughter.  

 

What do you typically think about at the end of the day?  

Just being thankful for the day. 

 

How do you want to be remembered by your friends and family?    

As somebody who makes them laugh every day. 

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