Brands are continually seeking innovative ways to enhance member engagement and provide additional value through their customer loyalty strategies. Integrating travel experiences into rewards portfolios has emerged as a compelling strategy to achieve these goals.
In this edition of Leaders in Customer Loyalty: Industry Voices, Loyalty360’s Ethan Perry speaks with Nowell Outlaw, CEO of Switchfly, a travel experience platform that assists companies in creating memorable moments for their customers and employees. Outlaw discusses Switchfly's role in enhancing loyalty and rewards programs, its expansion into employee recognition solutions, and the impact of personalization and AI on the future of customer loyalty.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Good afternoon and good morning.
This is Ethan Perry, directorof Content at Loyalty360,
welcoming you to another editionof our Leaders in Customer
Loyalty Industry Voices series.
In these episodes, we talk tothe leading agencies, technology
partners and consultants in thecustomer channel and brand
loyalty world about thetechnology, the trends and the
(00:25):
best practices that impact theability of brands to drive
unique experiences, enhanceengagement and, most importantly
, enhance customer loyalty.
Today we have the pleasure ofspeaking with Noel Outlaw and
the CEO at Switchfly.
Welcome, noel, hi morning.
Well, thank you so much forjoining us.
Can you start by telling ouraudience a little bit about
(00:46):
yourself, your role withSwitchFly and your background
Sure.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
So I'm a serial entrepreneur, right.
I've done all kinds of things.
I've owned my own softwarecompany.
I actually owned a small aircharter business in Broomfield
for a period of time.
I ran prior to Switchfly, I rana artificial intelligence and
machine learning company youknow, venture, backed and all
(01:14):
those things in the Bay Area andstarted with Switchfly about
three and a half years ago,which is a travel, basically
loyalty platform for drivingexperiences to consumers.
I'm the CEO.
I've kind of been a CEO almostmy entire career.
That's just one of those thingsthat you kind of learn to do.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Excellent, awesome.
Well, can you tell our audience, who may not be familiar, a
little bit more about Switchflyand how you support brands,
loyalty efforts, what you guysdo and what industries you work
with?
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Sure, I mean, I tell people jokingly that SwitchFly
is the silent, silent partnerthat you've never heard of,
right, so we drive primarily.
Switchfly is a 20-year-oldcompany and we have been in the
loyalty space for 20 yearsactually 21 years and primarily
servicing travel Right andtravel loyalty programs are a
(02:11):
big deal, right, I mean anyonewho's flown, you know the people
basically on the plane or theflight attendants handing out
you know, join the XYZ airlinecredit card thing, earn points,
do this, do that.
Loyalty is a big deal in travel.
And Switchfly specializes inpowering vacation programs.
(02:33):
So we are a completelywhite-labeled engine that is
sitting kind of behind thescenes but also in front of the
scenes.
So we are the user experiencethe scenes, but also in front of
the scenes.
So we are the user experience.
We are the booking engine foreverything from flights to
hotels, to car rentals, toactivities.
We power some kind of keybrands like American Airlines,
(02:56):
jetblue Airlines, vacationproducts and also American
Express on a global scale,internationally.
So we're a global company.
We have just under 200employees but we operate
effectively seven by 24, by 365,on a spinning the earth in a
(03:17):
circle basis, because we're allover the place.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Very cool.
So, as a global brand, they'reworking with people across.
You know travel.
How do you define customerloyalty and what does that mean
to your organization?
Speaker 2 (03:31):
um.
So what's interesting is thatwe actually transitioned the
company about two and a halfyears ago, so that we're we're
actually beyond just a travelcompany, so we're actually, as a
tech company, we're actuallyalso a travel agency.
So now we're actually theseller and record of travel as
well, and loyalty in travel isvery specific about what are you
(03:57):
providing to that consumer forthat experience and and what
we're seeing is that you know weare powering both individual
travel sales right for peoplewhere they can reward themselves
with travel, as well, as youknow our customers where it's
using your points.
(04:18):
So if I have points on americanairlines, I can actually cash
those points in as well as addadditional funds in order to buy
my vacation to Hawaii.
Make sense, yeah very cool.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
That's an interesting place to be right now with all
of the shifts happening.
You know we saw in our mostrecent state of customer loyalty
report that 79% of brands ingeneral have an interest in
updating, enhancing or redoingtheir loyalty offerings.
Do you see specific places inyour industry where someone's
(04:52):
leading the charge in loyaltyinnovation, and what are they?
Speaker 2 (04:54):
doing differently right now, yeah, I mean.
So what we found?
We at Switchfly so veryspecifically travel, so just
narrow in on what we do, so veryspecifically travel,
no-transcript it's.
(05:37):
You know, those players havemade their vendor decisions.
It's not an open field, right?
And so the interesting marketthat we opened up and unlocked
was in what's called the HR tech, or the rewards and recognition
space, which I consider.
Brand loyalty is coming throughyour employer, so your employer
is giving you points, just likeyou get points for a credit
(05:59):
card to redeem for merchandise,gift cards, those kinds of
things.
And what we found was that noneof the vendors in that space
had travel as a segment, right?
We did a bunch of marketresearch into that space and it
was like, hey, all these vendorsreally want travel, right, and
(06:22):
even the consumers, right.
The ultimate consumers are likewhy do I keep having to buy
gift cards?
Right, because that's a badprocess.
Why can't I have travel as anexperience and use my points to
buy travel?
So that's what we did.
The interesting thing is westarted that about two years ago
and we've gone from zero and wenow have about 25 million
(06:45):
consumers around the world whocan exchange their points for
switch flight for travel usingthe switch flight platform yeah,
that's interesting.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
We recently just published an industry
perspectives article about theimportance of engaging with your
employees to make your customerfacing loyalty program more
successful, and how you engagewith those internal customers
reflects how you engage withyour external customers.
You know?
So that's very cool.
So you know, among, like thenew technologies, everyone's
talking about ai.
(07:16):
There's a lot of discussionabout gamification, zero party
and first party data collection.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
What do you think is going to have the biggest impact
on customer loyalty programs in2025, and why?
I think it's AI and understandI spent five years running an AI
company, right, so I have akind of a background in this.
You know, we trained over abillion data points to build our
(07:43):
data models, right, and the.
I think the thing that loyaltyprograms will start to learn is
they will start to learn the um,the persona really, the persona
of who their consumer really is.
Right, and you know there'sthere's the data collection
piece and all this other stuff,but what I'm talking about is,
(08:05):
um, you know, if you think aboutNetflix, right, like Netflix
isn't a loyalty program, but,boy, consumers sure are loyal to
Netflix Right.
And if you think about theengagement with a platform like
that, it's really, it's smartenough to know, in a lot of ways
, what you want next, right, andI think that, as loyalty
(08:29):
engages in some of these modelsand things get smarter, what
you're going to see is hey, youknow before you're thinking
about it.
In our case, here's a vacationpackage to Hawaii, and you were
just thinking about the vacationpackage to going to Hawaii,
right?
Or here's, you know, if youlike vacation packages to beach
resorts here's three beachresort kind of things, right,
(08:53):
and, and there's there's some ofthis engagement is happening.
But I think that the, theloyalty programs, are going to
start to get smarter about thisRight when, where it's tailored
to fit the consumer ahead ofwhen they're thinking about it,
and that's just.
You know, we see that all overthe place.
I mean, oftentimes people jokeabout, you know, google serves
(09:14):
me an ad and I was just thinkingabout that and people are
checking their cell phones going, is the microphone on?
And it's like no, no, themicrophone's not on.
It's just smart enough topredict right, predictive
behaviors and I think loyaltywill, over time, start having
some of that stuff that'sstarting to get there.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
Very cool.
No-transcript, no matter wherethey connect with you.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Yeah, that's a hard one, right?
So one of our customers is ahotel right, and they are
working on this.
It is extremely hard.
And if you think about a hotelbeing in-store right, and they
are working on this, it isextremely hard.
And if you think about a hotelbeing in store right, what
they're looking for is you knowwhen you go to their resort
(10:21):
right, so you've purchased aroom, you've purchased a trip,
but now when you're walkingaround the resort, the reader
boards are offering you thingsthat are specific to you, right?
So as you walk by, things, thethings that you're seeing might
be relevant for your agenda atthe resort Right, and things
(10:45):
like that.
And you think about, you know,think about Disney, like, as
they can tailor stuffspecifically for you, right?
I think that that the you'regoing to start to see that
integration.
So it's recommendationsregardless.
It doesn't matter if you're inthe store or out of the store.
If you think about, you know ifanyone's been on an airplane
(11:06):
lately, right?
The very cool thing about theiPhone is you know if you're
using the United app or AirCanada app or American Airlines
app.
When you land at the airport,it tells you where to go, right,
so you're now transitioningfrom a digital experience to an
in-store experience, right,where?
Now I'm in the airport.
Now I'm walking around.
(11:26):
Now, all of a sudden, right, Iknow, you're at the airport,
you're a points consumer.
Right, you have a three-hourlayover.
What are the recommendationsthat I could make to you?
Right, here's a $5 off couponto go to your points at snooze
in the Denver airport, concourseB, upstairs.
(11:49):
I go there all the time, butthose kinds of things, right, if
you think about the digitalin-store going from device right
Device to the in-storeexperience, that's what's going
to start happening.
Right, you're on the plane,you're bored.
Hey, here's an idea, right,recommendation, and now it's
(12:11):
going to drive your behaviorkind of in the airport for what
you do before you're bored.
Hey, here's an idea, right,recommendation, and now it's
going to drive your behaviorkind of in the airport for what
you do before you go to yournext flight.
I, I see that comingimmediately.
Amazing, I, I would love to geta coupon during a layover, for
sure.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
So, that's a great you know example of how those
kind of personalization thingscan hit people where it's,
adding value for everyoneinvolved, for sure, awesome.
So what are what are the mostcommon reasons that loyalty
programs, in your opinion, failto meet their goals, and how can
you know some of your?
You know how can brands addressthose issues?
Speaker 2 (12:47):
You know, I think that you know specifically in
travel, right so, how Coca-Colaruns their program.
I'm, you know, I think that youknow specifically in travel,
right so, um, you know howCoca-Cola runs their program.
I'm, you know no idea, but Ithink, in, in travel, it's it's
making sure that you're matchingthe consumer need with what
you're offering, right.
So, um, you know, if you'reprimarily servicing, uh, north
(13:12):
America, right, a lot ofconsumers stay within North
America, so you have to makesure that you're not offering
the wrong thing, right.
And what I mean is, you know,like, trips to Iceland, as an
example, in the middle ofDecember, well, who wants to do
that?
Right, that's not a big deal.
You know, um, a trip to Cancunin in August, well, that's hot,
(13:37):
like that doesn't?
That doesn't match, right, um.
But you know, a trip duringspring break to Cancun, well,
that's different, right.
And so I think, I think thetrick is, um, the the thing is
making sure you're reallythinking through the
buyer-consumer relationship andwhat you're targeting with them
(13:57):
to actually do.
So it's a lot aboutsegmentation of your consumers
as well.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
So what do you think is working really well for some
of your clients right now whenit comes to building successful
loyalty programs and strategies,and if you have an example or
two you could share, we'd loveto hear about it?
Speaker 2 (14:15):
You know, a lot of them are.
It's really about promotionsand offers and deals and
enhancements, right?
So if I'm a loyalty member,well, what do I get for that?
Right, Airlines are great atthis, right.
So, you know, if you do X,we'll give you Y Right.
Sign up for the gift card, Signup for the credit card, We'll
(14:36):
give you 80,000 bonus miles.
If you buy this thing now,we'll give you triple Right,
Things like that.
And I think that that that is awinning strategy in air
specifically, which is, you know, basically rewarding the
consumers, right.
And the other thing that yousee is, as you build up loyalty
(14:57):
status, right, that you'regetting more and more successful
as a consumer in what loyaltyyou get.
Right.
So that could be a hotel, thatcould be, you know, an airline,
things like that.
So if you're a frequent flyer,you know 25,000 miles, but if
you're a you know 1K flyer, youget a whole different kind of
(15:19):
rewards, if you will, tomaintain that engagement.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
So what do you think are the most critical metrics
that brands can be using rightnow to track?
Speaker 2 (15:31):
the success of their loyalty programs over the course
of this year.
It's engagement for sure.
I think that the biggest thingis are the consumers engaged?
I mean, there's a lot of stuffgoing on in the world and you
know we are starting to see incertain spots a little bit of
weakness in the market right fortravel.
(15:52):
And you know the biggest thingis really tracking.
Are the users coming back?
Are they engaged?
Are they shopping?
Or is my general userpopulation, you know, are things
slowing right in the market?
That's the biggest conversationover the last month I've had
(16:16):
across every customer, which isdo you have a perception that
things are slowing down?
Speaker 1 (16:25):
So are there any other metrics that you think are
being underutilized oroverlooked when people are
looking at their programs?
Speaker 2 (16:33):
I think that you know not especially.
I mean, you know, theseprograms are metric driven
beyond belief, right?
So it's kind of hard to find ametric that you say, well,
that's not really working.
You know, I always payattention to things like you
(16:54):
know what's the average cartsize, how you know what the
consumer is loading up on right,and in our case, is it
increasing or is it decreasing?
And that's an important metric,right, because with what we do,
you know, we've got programsthat run their average cart size
maybe $8,000, right, versusother ones that are doing $600.
(17:18):
Well, if all of a sudden thatstarts changing, that might
change.
You know the Like, whenconsumers feel that they're
flush, right, so flush with cashyou know the stock market's
going up, things like thatthey're okay with spending more,
right?
Well, it's okay to book thefive-star hotel, it's okay to do
(17:40):
.
And there's some consumers thatdon't care about that stuff at
all.
But what you'll see is that, asthere's, you know, trepidation
in the market, little concernshere, concerns there.
Now, it's okay to sit at thefour-star hotel, right?
So instead of the five, we'regoing to the four, and instead
of paying, you know, $500 anight, we're paying $300 a night
(18:03):
right, and so any kind ofshifts in that dimension is
probably something people needto pay closer attention to.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
That's a hard one, though, to assess, so um so, are
there any programs out therethat you admire or that you're
loyal to from you know, in acustomer loyalty program, and
what do you like about theirofferings?
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Um, you know I, I, I don't live on airlines anymore.
I used to.
Um, you know, I, I, I don'tlive on airlines anymore.
I used to.
Um, I think that the airlinesdo a great job at customer
loyalty.
They really pay attention totheir high value um customers.
You know, including I don't knowa month ago, and I think I've
(18:54):
got my book in here, and youknow I'm sitting up in the front
of the plane.
It's a long trip and you know,and this is what I mean by
taking care of your customer asa loyalty person, and the I
don't have it.
The flight attendant, the headpurser on the plane I was asleep
leaves me a note.
(19:15):
Right, dear Mr Outlaw, happybirthday, cause it was my
birthday right, signed by thecaptain with a card right, like,
let me tell you, like that,that level of attention to a
consumer sitting on yourairplane, like that's great
customer service and I thinkthat that airline, they just do
a good job at that stuff, right,you know?
(19:38):
And and I think a lot ofloyalty programs can learn from
some of those examples right,which is like really paying
attention to your, your highvalue customers in such a
consumer friendly way.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
That's amazing.
What a cool experience to getthat nice personalized thing.
I really especially when you'retraveling.
I'm sure it brightened your dayand gave you a little bump for
that long flight, you know.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
Yeah, it was great so and it, like you know, it had
me engaged with her and then Iactually took a picture of it
with her name and I sent it intoUnited.
I didn't hear a reply, but I'mlike, you know, this is awesome,
right?
This is like really, really Ibelieve in that about taking
care of your customers, cause Ithink it's important and you
know, it's like nice to seepeople that that think the same
(20:25):
way.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Awesome.
So do you have any closingadvice or thoughts on, you know,
loyalty programs in generalthat you want to share with our
audience?
Speaker 2 (20:35):
No, I think that you know.
I think that travel loyaltyright is an important segment of
the market right, and itdoesn't matter if you're an
airline, hotel, a rewards andrecognition company or just a
general loyalty program that'slooking for other ways to engage
with consumers, because whatwe've seen is the gift card
(20:58):
reward and the merchandisereward is not as encouraging to
the consumer as travel is right.
I mean, every one of my travelreward programs that are HR
based for rewards andrecognition are going gangbuster
right, and there's a reason forthat because people you know we
(21:19):
learned from COVID, rightPeople want experiences and
people want to travel right.
And so I think that if you're aloyalty program going, how do I
get the engagement right?
Because people aren't comingback.
I can definitely tell you thattravel is one of those things
that gets those consumers tocome back to your site to engage
(21:40):
with you, for sure.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
Awesome.
So what's next for Switchfly aswe move forward in 2025?
Speaker 2 (21:48):
We're closing more deals, right, we've closed eight
new customers in the last Idon't know six months, um.
So for us it's growing andexpanding and and launching new
programs all around the world,um, and and doing that very
successfully.
So it's, it's really a growth.
We're definitely on a growthcurve, um, since we've added
(22:10):
this ability kind of to be anall-in-one for a loyalty program
.
So not only are we thetechnology, we're everything
else that goes along with it.
So customer service, fraudprevention, merchant of record,
all of that stuff.
We're kind of travel in a box.
So show up to their doorstep.
(22:30):
If you need to plug this in 45days I can have you live.
And that's really interestingbecause now you have the ability
to go faster and engage morebrands quickly, right, awesome?
Well, we like to wrap up ourinterviews with our famous quick
fire questions.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
I like to try and keep these to a, you know, one
word or a short phrase to answerthe question.
So how would you describe yourwork life?
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Describe my work life Probably whimsical.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
If you have a day or a week off from work, what are
you doing?
Speaker 2 (23:09):
I'm usually outdoors hiking or skiing.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
Nice.
If you could live in any cityor country, where would you live
?
Speaker 2 (23:17):
Pucon, Chile.
Very specific Is that for theskiing.
There's skiing there, but it'sbeautiful Nice, If you could go
back to school again.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
What would you study?
Speaker 2 (23:30):
I'd probably go to law school.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
Nice.
Uh, what facet of your jobwould you like to know more
about?
Speaker 2 (23:38):
Um, probably the psychology of marketing more.
And what facet of your jobwould you like to know less
about?
Uh, legal contracts.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
Cool.
So what motivates you whenyou're tackling the challenges
at Switchfly?
Speaker 2 (23:58):
What motivates me Really?
Just, you know, getting thingsresolved right and like seeing
if we can find answers quickly.
I'm not a bureaucracy guy, sojust getting there, getting an
answer and moving on.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Cool.
So what do you draw inspirationfrom?
What really lights your fire?
Speaker 2 (24:15):
uh, I draw inspiration from a friend of
mine named bob goff, who wrotelove does, which is a book, for
you know how you change yourlife and do do crazy things.
So um.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
So what is your favorite sport or hobby?
Speaker 2 (24:33):
Uh, probably well, outdoors hiking, skiing and
sailing.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
So and uh, what do you typically think about at the
end of the day?
Speaker 2 (24:45):
Probably my family, and then you know, did I do
something good today?
Speaker 1 (24:50):
Awesome.
Well, Noel, thank you so muchfor taking the time to speak
with us today in our Leaders inCustomer Loyalty series.
We love having you as part ofthe Industry Voices podcast.
It was really great gettingyour perspective on customer
loyalty and, you know, we lookforward to learning more from
you and the team at Switchflythroughout the year.
Thank you, everyone for tuningin to Leaders in Customer
(25:11):
Loyalty today.
If you haven't already, pleasesubscribe to the Leaders in
Customer Loyalty podcast on yourfavorite platform and follow
Loyalty360 on YouTube andLinkedIn, and then please come
back next week for another greatepisode of the Industry Voices
podcast.
Thanks again.
Good afternoon and good morning.
This is Ethan Perry, directorof Content at Loyalty360,
welcoming you to another editionof our Leaders in Customer
Loyalty Industry Voices series.
In these episodes, we talk tothe leading agencies, technology
partners and consultants in thecustomer channel and brand
loyalty world about thetechnology, the trends and the
(00:25):
best practices that impact theability of brands to drive
unique experiences, enhanceengagement and, most importantly
, enhance customer loyalty.
Today we have the pleasure ofspeaking with Noel Outlaw and
the CEO at Switchfly.
Welcome, noel, hi morning.
Well, thank you so much forjoining us.
Can you start by telling ouraudience a little bit about
(00:46):
yourself, your role withSwitchFly and your background
Sure.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
So I'm a serial entrepreneur, right.
I've done all kinds of things.
I've owned my own softwarecompany.
I actually owned a small aircharter business in Broomfield
for a period of time.
I ran prior to Switchfly, I rana artificial intelligence and
machine learning company youknow, venture, backed and all
(01:14):
those things in the Bay Area andstarted with Switchfly about
three and a half years ago,which is a travel, basically
loyalty platform for drivingexperiences to consumers.
I'm the CEO.
I've kind of been a CEO almostmy entire career.
That's just one of those thingsthat you kind of learn to do.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Excellent, awesome.
Well, can you tell our audience, who may not be familiar, a
little bit more about Switchflyand how you support brands,
loyalty efforts, what you guysdo and what industries you work
with?
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Sure, I mean, I tell people jokingly that SwitchFly
is the silent, silent partnerthat you've never heard of,
right, so we drive primarily.
Switchfly is a 20-year-oldcompany and we have been in the
loyalty space for 20 yearsactually 21 years and primarily
servicing travel Right andtravel loyalty programs are a
(02:11):
big deal, right, I mean anyonewho's flown, you know the people
basically on the plane or theflight attendants handing out
you know, join the XYZ airlinecredit card thing, earn points,
do this, do that.
Loyalty is a big deal in travel.
And Switchfly specializes inpowering vacation programs.
(02:33):
So we are a completelywhite-labeled engine that is
sitting kind of behind thescenes but also in front of the
scenes.
So we are the user experiencethe scenes, but also in front of
the scenes.
So we are the user experience.
We are the booking engine foreverything from flights to
hotels, to car rentals, toactivities.
We power some kind of keybrands like American Airlines,
(02:56):
jetblue Airlines, vacationproducts and also American
Express on a global scale,internationally.
So we're a global company.
We have just under 200employees but we operate
effectively seven by 24, by 365,on a spinning the earth in a
(03:17):
circle basis, because we're allover the place.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Very cool.
So, as a global brand, they'reworking with people across.
You know travel.
How do you define customerloyalty and what does that mean
to your organization?
Speaker 2 (03:31):
um.
So what's interesting is thatwe actually transitioned the
company about two and a halfyears ago, so that we're we're
actually beyond just a travelcompany, so we're actually, as a
tech company, we're actuallyalso a travel agency.
So now we're actually theseller and record of travel as
well, and loyalty in travel isvery specific about what are you
(03:57):
providing to that consumer forthat experience and and what
we're seeing is that you know weare powering both individual
travel sales right for peoplewhere they can reward themselves
with travel, as well, as youknow our customers where it's
using your points.
(04:18):
So if I have points on americanairlines, I can actually cash
those points in as well as addadditional funds in order to buy
my vacation to Hawaii.
Make sense, yeah very cool.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
That's an interesting place to be right now with all
of the shifts happening.
You know we saw in our mostrecent state of customer loyalty
report that 79% of brands ingeneral have an interest in
updating, enhancing or redoingtheir loyalty offerings.
Do you see specific places inyour industry where someone's
(04:52):
leading the charge in loyaltyinnovation, and what are they?
Speaker 2 (04:54):
doing differently right now, yeah, I mean.
So what we found?
We at Switchfly so veryspecifically travel, so just
narrow in on what we do, so veryspecifically travel,
no-transcript it's.
(05:37):
You know, those players havemade their vendor decisions.
It's not an open field, right?
And so the interesting marketthat we opened up and unlocked
was in what's called the HR tech, or the rewards and recognition
space, which I consider.
Brand loyalty is coming throughyour employer, so your employer
is giving you points, just likeyou get points for a credit
(05:59):
card to redeem for merchandise,gift cards, those kinds of
things.
And what we found was that noneof the vendors in that space
had travel as a segment, right?
We did a bunch of marketresearch into that space and it
was like, hey, all these vendorsreally want travel, right, and
(06:22):
even the consumers, right.
The ultimate consumers are likewhy do I keep having to buy
gift cards?
Right, because that's a badprocess.
Why can't I have travel as anexperience and use my points to
buy travel?
So that's what we did.
The interesting thing is westarted that about two years ago
and we've gone from zero and wenow have about 25 million
(06:45):
consumers around the world whocan exchange their points for
switch flight for travel usingthe switch flight platform yeah,
that's interesting.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
We recently just published an industry
perspectives article about theimportance of engaging with your
employees to make your customerfacing loyalty program more
successful, and how you engagewith those internal customers
reflects how you engage withyour external customers.
You know?
So that's very cool.
So you know, among, like thenew technologies, everyone's
talking about ai.
(07:16):
There's a lot of discussionabout gamification, zero party
and first party data collection.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
What do you think is going to have the biggest impact
on customer loyalty programs in2025, and why?
I think it's AI and understandI spent five years running an AI
company, right, so I have akind of a background in this.
You know, we trained over abillion data points to build our
(07:43):
data models, right, and the.
I think the thing that loyaltyprograms will start to learn is
they will start to learn the um,the persona really, the persona
of who their consumer really is.
Right, and you know there'sthere's the data collection
piece and all this other stuff,but what I'm talking about is,
(08:05):
um, you know, if you think aboutNetflix, right, like Netflix
isn't a loyalty program, but,boy, consumers sure are loyal to
Netflix Right.
And if you think about theengagement with a platform like
that, it's really, it's smartenough to know, in a lot of ways
, what you want next, right, andI think that, as loyalty
(08:29):
engages in some of these modelsand things get smarter, what
you're going to see is hey, youknow before you're thinking
about it.
In our case, here's a vacationpackage to Hawaii, and you were
just thinking about the vacationpackage to going to Hawaii,
right?
Or here's, you know, if youlike vacation packages to beach
resorts here's three beachresort kind of things, right,
(08:53):
and, and there's there's some ofthis engagement is happening.
But I think that the, theloyalty programs, are going to
start to get smarter about thisRight when, where it's tailored
to fit the consumer ahead ofwhen they're thinking about it,
and that's just.
You know, we see that all overthe place.
I mean, oftentimes people jokeabout, you know, google serves
(09:14):
me an ad and I was just thinkingabout that and people are
checking their cell phones going, is the microphone on?
And it's like no, no, themicrophone's not on.
It's just smart enough topredict right, predictive
behaviors and I think loyaltywill, over time, start having
some of that stuff that'sstarting to get there.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
Very cool.
No-transcript, no matter wherethey connect with you.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Yeah, that's a hard one, right?
So one of our customers is ahotel right, and they are
working on this.
It is extremely hard.
And if you think about a hotelbeing in-store right, and they
are working on this, it isextremely hard.
And if you think about a hotelbeing in store right, what
they're looking for is you knowwhen you go to their resort
(10:21):
right, so you've purchased aroom, you've purchased a trip,
but now when you're walkingaround the resort, the reader
boards are offering you thingsthat are specific to you, right?
So as you walk by, things, thethings that you're seeing might
be relevant for your agenda atthe resort Right, and things
(10:45):
like that.
And you think about, you know,think about Disney, like, as
they can tailor stuffspecifically for you, right?
I think that that the you'regoing to start to see that
integration.
So it's recommendationsregardless.
It doesn't matter if you're inthe store or out of the store.
If you think about, you know ifanyone's been on an airplane
(11:06):
lately, right?
The very cool thing about theiPhone is you know if you're
using the United app or AirCanada app or American Airlines
app.
When you land at the airport,it tells you where to go, right,
so you're now transitioningfrom a digital experience to an
in-store experience, right,where?
Now I'm in the airport.
Now I'm walking around.
(11:26):
Now, all of a sudden, right, Iknow, you're at the airport,
you're a points consumer.
Right, you have a three-hourlayover.
What are the recommendationsthat I could make to you?
Right, here's a $5 off couponto go to your points at snooze
in the Denver airport, concourseB, upstairs.
(11:49):
I go there all the time, butthose kinds of things, right, if
you think about the digitalin-store going from device right
Device to the in-storeexperience, that's what's going
to start happening.
Right, you're on the plane,you're bored.
Hey, here's an idea, right,recommendation, and now it's
(12:11):
going to drive your behaviorkind of in the airport for what
you do before you're bored.
Hey, here's an idea, right,recommendation, and now it's
going to drive your behaviorkind of in the airport for what
you do before you go to yournext flight.
I, I see that comingimmediately.
Amazing, I, I would love to geta coupon during a layover, for
sure.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
So, that's a great you know example of how those
kind of personalization thingscan hit people where it's,
adding value for everyoneinvolved, for sure, awesome.
So what are what are the mostcommon reasons that loyalty
programs, in your opinion, failto meet their goals, and how can
you know some of your?
You know how can brands addressthose issues?
Speaker 2 (12:47):
You know, I think that you know specifically in
travel, right so, how Coca-Colaruns their program.
I'm, you know, I think that youknow specifically in travel,
right so, um, you know howCoca-Cola runs their program.
I'm, you know no idea, but Ithink, in, in travel, it's it's
making sure that you're matchingthe consumer need with what
you're offering, right.
So, um, you know, if you'reprimarily servicing, uh, north
(13:12):
America, right, a lot ofconsumers stay within North
America, so you have to makesure that you're not offering
the wrong thing, right.
And what I mean is, you know,like, trips to Iceland, as an
example, in the middle ofDecember, well, who wants to do
that?
Right, that's not a big deal.
You know, um, a trip to Cancunin in August, well, that's hot,
(13:37):
like that doesn't?
That doesn't match, right, um.
But you know, a trip duringspring break to Cancun, well,
that's different, right.
And so I think, I think thetrick is, um, the the thing is
making sure you're reallythinking through the
buyer-consumer relationship andwhat you're targeting with them
(13:57):
to actually do.
So it's a lot aboutsegmentation of your consumers
as well.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
So what do you think is working really well for some
of your clients right now whenit comes to building successful
loyalty programs and strategies,and if you have an example or
two you could share, we'd loveto hear about it?
Speaker 2 (14:15):
You know, a lot of them are.
It's really about promotionsand offers and deals and
enhancements, right?
So if I'm a loyalty member,well, what do I get for that?
Right, Airlines are great atthis, right.
So, you know, if you do X,we'll give you Y Right.
Sign up for the gift card, Signup for the credit card, We'll
(14:36):
give you 80,000 bonus miles.
If you buy this thing now,we'll give you triple Right,
Things like that.
And I think that that that is awinning strategy in air
specifically, which is, you know, basically rewarding the
consumers, right.
And the other thing that yousee is, as you build up loyalty
(14:57):
status, right, that you'regetting more and more successful
as a consumer in what loyaltyyou get.
Right.
So that could be a hotel, thatcould be, you know, an airline,
things like that.
So if you're a frequent flyer,you know 25,000 miles, but if
you're a you know 1K flyer, youget a whole different kind of
(15:19):
rewards, if you will, tomaintain that engagement.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
So what do you think are the most critical metrics
that brands can be using rightnow to track?
Speaker 2 (15:31):
the success of their loyalty programs over the course
of this year.
It's engagement for sure.
I think that the biggest thingis are the consumers engaged?
I mean, there's a lot of stuffgoing on in the world and you
know we are starting to see incertain spots a little bit of
weakness in the market right fortravel.
(15:52):
And you know the biggest thingis really tracking.
Are the users coming back?
Are they engaged?
Are they shopping?
Or is my general userpopulation, you know, are things
slowing right in the market?
That's the biggest conversationover the last month I've had
(16:16):
across every customer, which isdo you have a perception that
things are slowing down?
Speaker 1 (16:25):
So are there any other metrics that you think are
being underutilized oroverlooked when people are
looking at their programs?
Speaker 2 (16:33):
I think that you know not especially.
I mean, you know, theseprograms are metric driven
beyond belief, right?
So it's kind of hard to find ametric that you say, well,
that's not really working.
You know, I always payattention to things like you
(16:54):
know what's the average cartsize, how you know what the
consumer is loading up on right,and in our case, is it
increasing or is it decreasing?
And that's an important metric,right, because with what we do,
you know, we've got programsthat run their average cart size
maybe $8,000, right, versusother ones that are doing $600.
(17:18):
Well, if all of a sudden thatstarts changing, that might
change.
You know the Like, whenconsumers feel that they're
flush, right, so flush with cashyou know the stock market's
going up, things like thatthey're okay with spending more,
right?
Well, it's okay to book thefive-star hotel, it's okay to do
(17:40):
.
And there's some consumers thatdon't care about that stuff at
all.
But what you'll see is that, asthere's, you know, trepidation
in the market, little concernshere, concerns there.
Now, it's okay to sit at thefour-star hotel, right?
So instead of the five, we'regoing to the four, and instead
of paying, you know, $500 anight, we're paying $300 a night
(18:03):
right, and so any kind ofshifts in that dimension is
probably something people needto pay closer attention to.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
That's a hard one, though, to assess, so um so, are
there any programs out therethat you admire or that you're
loyal to from you know, in acustomer loyalty program, and
what do you like about theirofferings?
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Um, you know I, I, I don't live on airlines anymore.
I used to.
Um, you know, I, I, I don'tlive on airlines anymore.
I used to.
Um, I think that the airlinesdo a great job at customer
loyalty.
They really pay attention totheir high value um customers.
You know, including I don't knowa month ago, and I think I've
(18:54):
got my book in here, and youknow I'm sitting up in the front
of the plane.
It's a long trip and you know,and this is what I mean by
taking care of your customer asa loyalty person, and the I
don't have it.
The flight attendant, the headpurser on the plane I was asleep
leaves me a note.
(19:15):
Right, dear Mr Outlaw, happybirthday, cause it was my
birthday right, signed by thecaptain with a card right, like,
let me tell you, like that,that level of attention to a
consumer sitting on yourairplane, like that's great
customer service and I thinkthat that airline, they just do
a good job at that stuff, right,you know?
(19:38):
And and I think a lot ofloyalty programs can learn from
some of those examples right,which is like really paying
attention to your, your highvalue customers in such a
consumer friendly way.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
That's amazing.
What a cool experience to getthat nice personalized thing.
I really especially when you'retraveling.
I'm sure it brightened your dayand gave you a little bump for
that long flight, you know.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
Yeah, it was great so and it, like you know, it had
me engaged with her and then Iactually took a picture of it
with her name and I sent it intoUnited.
I didn't hear a reply, but I'mlike, you know, this is awesome,
right?
This is like really, really Ibelieve in that about taking
care of your customers, cause Ithink it's important and you
know, it's like nice to seepeople that that think the same
(20:25):
way.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Awesome.
So do you have any closingadvice or thoughts on, you know,
loyalty programs in generalthat you want to share with our
audience?
Speaker 2 (20:35):
No, I think that you know.
I think that travel loyaltyright is an important segment of
the market right, and itdoesn't matter if you're an
airline, hotel, a rewards andrecognition company or just a
general loyalty program that'slooking for other ways to engage
with consumers, because whatwe've seen is the gift card
(20:58):
reward and the merchandisereward is not as encouraging to
the consumer as travel is right.
I mean, every one of my travelreward programs that are HR
based for rewards andrecognition are going gangbuster
right, and there's a reason forthat because people you know we
(21:19):
learned from COVID, rightPeople want experiences and
people want to travel right.
And so I think that if you're aloyalty program going, how do I
get the engagement right?
Because people aren't comingback.
I can definitely tell you thattravel is one of those things
that gets those consumers tocome back to your site to engage
(21:40):
with you, for sure.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
Awesome.
So what's next for Switchfly aswe move forward in 2025?
Speaker 2 (21:48):
We're closing more deals, right, we've closed eight
new customers in the last Idon't know six months, um.
So for us it's growing andexpanding and and launching new
programs all around the world,um, and and doing that very
successfully.
So it's, it's really a growth.
We're definitely on a growthcurve, um, since we've added
(22:10):
this ability kind of to be anall-in-one for a loyalty program
.
So not only are we thetechnology, we're everything
else that goes along with it.
So customer service, fraudprevention, merchant of record,
all of that stuff.
We're kind of travel in a box.
So show up to their doorstep.
(22:30):
If you need to plug this in 45days I can have you live.
And that's really interestingbecause now you have the ability
to go faster and engage morebrands quickly, right, awesome?
Well, we like to wrap up ourinterviews with our famous quick
fire questions.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
I like to try and keep these to a, you know, one
word or a short phrase to answerthe question.
So how would you describe yourwork life?
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Describe my work life Probably whimsical.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
If you have a day or a week off from work, what are
you doing?
Speaker 2 (23:09):
I'm usually outdoors hiking or skiing.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
Nice.
If you could live in any cityor country, where would you live
?
Speaker 2 (23:17):
Pucon, Chile.
Very specific Is that for theskiing.
There's skiing there, but it'sbeautiful Nice, If you could go
back to school again.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
What would you study?
Speaker 2 (23:30):
I'd probably go to law school.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
Nice.
Uh, what facet of your jobwould you like to know more
about?
Speaker 2 (23:38):
Um, probably the psychology of marketing more.
And what facet of your jobwould you like to know less
about?
Uh, legal contracts.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
Cool.
So what motivates you whenyou're tackling the challenges
at Switchfly?
Speaker 2 (23:58):
What motivates me Really?
Just, you know, getting thingsresolved right and like seeing
if we can find answers quickly.
I'm not a bureaucracy guy, sojust getting there, getting an
answer and moving on.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Cool.
So what do you draw inspirationfrom?
What really lights your fire?
Speaker 2 (24:15):
uh, I draw inspiration from a friend of
mine named bob goff, who wrotelove does, which is a book, for
you know how you change yourlife and do do crazy things.
So um.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
So what is your favorite sport or hobby?
Speaker 2 (24:33):
Uh, probably well, outdoors hiking, skiing and
sailing.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
So and uh, what do you typically think about at the
end of the day?
Speaker 2 (24:45):
Probably my family, and then you know, did I do
something good today?
Speaker 1 (24:50):
Awesome.
Well, Noel, thank you so muchfor taking the time to speak
with us today in our Leaders inCustomer Loyalty series.
We love having you as part ofthe Industry Voices podcast.
It was really great gettingyour perspective on customer
loyalty and, you know, we lookforward to learning more from
you and the team at Switchflythroughout the year.
Thank you, everyone for tuningin to Leaders in Customer
(25:11):
Loyalty today.
If you haven't already, pleasesubscribe to the Leaders in
Customer Loyalty podcast on yourfavorite platform and follow
Loyalty360 on YouTube andLinkedIn, and then please come
back next week for another greatepisode of the Industry Voices
podcast.
Thanks again.
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