Members of the ACRS team attended the Australian Loyalty Association ‘Customer Loyalty & Engagement Conference’ in Sydney. The event provided insight across the customer loyalty journey from high calibre speakers specialising in retail, aviation, sport and entertainment.

1. Customer Loyalty & Engagement Conference
The Star Conference Centre, Sydney
June 2015

2. 2
Seminar Details
Customer Loyalty & Engagement Conference
Conference: 18 June, 2015
The Star Conference Centre, Sydney
http://loyalty2015.floktu.com/
The Australian Loyalty Committee was founded in 2012 by some of Australia’s leading loyalty
experts. The aim is to foster knowledge sharing across Loyalty, CRM and Customer Engagement
and build a community of like-minded individuals. To build on this success and broaden the
exposure of the Loyalty association we hosted the first dedicated Loyalty & Customer Engagement
Conference on June 18th in Sydney, bringing together the most recognizable customer
engagement experts to share innovation & insights for building customer loyalty.”
Members of the ACRS team attended the Australian Loyalty Association ‘Customer Loyalty & Engagement
Conference’ in Sydney. The event provided insight across the customer loyalty journey from high calibre
speakers specialising in retail, aviation, sport and entertainment.
Customer Loyalty & Engagement Conference

3. 3
Seminar Highlights – Lewis Pullen, NRL
Testing & Measuring Loyalty
Lewis Pullen, Marketing and Customer EGM, NRL
 Testing and measurement is the best way to learn what is working and what is not.
 Proper testing and measurement means failures are successes, if you learn from them.
 Aiming to create Australia’s biggest sporting community growing engagement through participation.
 Transforming membership cards into a transaction and loyalty device.
Lewis discussed the strategic priorities for the NRL in 2015 which included strengthening clubs, world class stadia, investing in
the future value of rights, reputation, and fan engagement. Further, the NRL is driving social engagement through a listening
platform and data insights. In doing so they hope to connect fans with key influencers during major events and respond with real
time shareable content. As a result, fans are expected to post and retweet which amplifies the strength of the brand.
Customer Loyalty & Engagement Conference

4. 4
Seminar Highlights – Neil Thompson, Velocity
Loyalty & Execution
Neil Thompson, CEO, Velocity
 Loyalty programs often fail during the execution stages of development.
 Execution is pivotal across the full spectrum of the customer experience.
Neil highlighted the huge success Virgin Australia has achieved with their Velocity loyalty program in the highly competitive
airline industry. The loyalty program centers on creating a global network, offering family benefits, status benefits and faster
rewards. With Virgin expansion plans into space travel, Velocity will also expand their frequent flyer program to include ‘Space
Class’. Velocity also run local campaigns with their BP partnership, which promotes the accessibility of international travel
through Velocity’s tiered loyalty program.
Customer Loyalty & Engagement Conference

5. 5
Seminar Highlights – Sally McNamara, Victorian
Racing Club
Successful Partnerships
Sally McNamara, Loyalty Strategy Manager, Victoria Racing Club
 Embed loyalty in the business culture, clarify the true objectives of the loyalty strategy and measures of success.
 Becoming a customer centric organisation is complex and getting it right is crucial to creating value.
 Important to fine tune the design through financial and scenario testing.
 Technology is half the challenge, but the end result is worth it for a 360 degree view of the customer and an improved
customer experience.
Sally talked about the Victorian Racing Club’s ten step process for developing loyalty. The process involved both strategic
development and strategic execution. The ten steps Sally discussed included; (1) loyalty strategy framework development, (2)
market research and data analytics, (3) model design and value proposition, (4) test and learn, (5) commercialisation, (6) platform
selection, integration and implementation, (7) lifecycle communications and customer targeted marketing, (8) multi-channel and
digital optimisation, (9) measurement and reporting, and (10) evaluation and innovation. The presentation highlighted the
importance of personalisation and variation, by tapping into a customer’s lifecycle, life stage, repeat behaviour, transactional
insights, favourite products, interest and social issues. Sally also suggested that loyalty balances on a ‘knife’s edge’ of customer trust.
Customer Loyalty & Engagement Conference

6. 6
Seminar Highlights – Lincoln Hunter, Loyalty Legal
Legal Matters
Lincoln Hunter, Principal, Loyalty Legal
 Legal matters can impact your business as well as some of the most common mistakes organisations make when
developing and managing their loyalty program.
 Tax is particularly important to understand the consequence to a retailer and members of a loyalty program.
Lincoln highlighted the importance for retailers to consider the regulations that might impact on loyalty programs and how they
interact with their customers. He suggested five key things to keep in mind, (1) unfair contracts, (2) data use, (3) exclusive
dealing and third line forcing, (4) financial products and AFS licensing and (5) tax. In addition, Lincoln indicated that any
commercial electronic message must ensure they comply with recipient’s consent, contain accurate information about the person
or organisation that authorised the sending of the message and contain a functional ‘unsubscribe’ facility to allow recipients to opt
out from receiving messages from that source, with the request honoured within five working days.
Customer Loyalty & Engagement Conference

7. 7
Seminar Highlights – Sean Sands, ACRS
Data & Insights
Dr Sean Sands, Managing Director, ACRS Monash Business School
 Collect the right data and use it in combination with consumer research to bring direction changing insights and relevant
segmentation to your business.
 Over half of brands (54%) struggle to manage the amount of data available.
 Companies that apply big data and analytics into their operations show productivity rates and profitability 5% to 6% higher
than those of their peers.
Sean discussed how big data enables managers to make decisions on the basis of evidence rather than intuition. He outlined
major problems faced by retailers in relation to data. The first was that many struggle to manage the huge amount of data
available to them. He suggested not to start with data and look for a solution, but find a problem and let it guide you to the right
data. The second problem he identified was privacy regulations around capturing customer data. Sean also discussed that it can
be difficult to determine who and how many people are required to interpret the information and create actionable insights. Speed
is also a critical factor for retailers, as they need to take advantage of real-time data and make quick-response changes as
needed. Data allows retailers to focus on personalisation and customer services by building relationships with the brand both in-
store and online. Sean concluded by reiterating the importance of being predictive, using the connected world to pre-empt the
behaviour of customers and provide a seamless transactions that meets their needs.
Customer Loyalty & Engagement Conference

8. ACRS
Department of Marketing
Monash Business School
Level 6, Building S
26 Sir John Monash Drive
Caulfield East, VIC 3145
T. +61 3 9903 1124
E. acrs@monash.edu
W. monash.edu/acrs
Customer Loyalty & Engagement Conference