What It Takes to Win with Loyalty

Tim Glomb: Welcome, everyone, and thanks for joining us for another great session here at Cheetah Digital. I am joined today with Jodi Rausch. She is the senior director of integrated loyalty solutions and partner here at Cheetah Digital PK. Jodi, thanks for coming to Denver.

Jodi Rausch: Thanks so much for having me. I mean, what's a great reason to come to Denver but for all of this?

Tim Glomb: Of course. And we're going to dig into some really great things here. But let me tell you first what we're digging into. As a Forrester recognized leading loyalty services provider, PK has been helping clients win customers through brand affinity and emotional connection for over a decade. By focusing on more than just points and rewards, their work focuses on building one to one relationships and connected points of engagement beyond just transactions for their clients and their customers. Jodi's here really to help us reveal developing trends in the membership landscape that are turning one off customers into brand ambassadors. Did I get all that right? Does that sound like what we're going to talk about?

Jodi Rausch: You got it now. That was perfect.

Tim Glomb: Okay. Cool. And to kick things off, we have three main areas of conversation today in this webinar. So together, Cheetah Digital and PK, we bring together a lot of unique, interesting solutions. What you're going to learn today are things about how to think beyond traditional loyalty program structures. Then we're going to move into how emotional loyalty differentiates and deepens member engagement and retention. And then lastly, we're going to follow up on how to effectively use data to create truly personalized member experiences at scale. Where do we want to kick this off?

Jodi Rausch: So I think we should just kick it off talking about how loyalty looks in the market today. And certainly for decades, it was all about, you're going to spend$ 100 and we're going to send you a coupon. And especially once it got into the retail space, certainly points and miles for hotels and airlines has been around even longer. And again, you would just redeem them for more travel.

Tim Glomb: So basically, take some actions, transact with us, and then we'll probably give you points that are redeemed for more of the things you're probably already going to buy from us.

Jodi Rausch: Exactly, exactly. And I think that what we have found is that for a lot of retailers and a lot of brands, that transactional loyalty, it's great, it did its job for a long time. But it's almost created a snowball effect because especially if you are offering more of a, I don't want to call it necessarily a commoditized product, but if it's a product that I could get elsewhere, I'm going to be loyal to you for the points that I get, and I'm going to keep coming back because I've trained myself. But then someone else could offer me a little bit richer, a little bit richer, and then I'm tempted to switch. Or it could be the same offer, but they have one more little value add piece. So I'm not really loyal to you outside of a transaction. I'm not loyal to your brand. I'm loyal to the get from my spend.

Tim Glomb: Yeah. So I mean, look, I'm going to dumb it down. It's like an animal. An animal's loyal to whoever's got the treats and the best treats.

Jodi Rausch: Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. So as we're thinking about: How do we move away from that? And how do we make people, our members, our best customers, really kind of stay with us? Outside of just offering them coupons and rewards and discounts, it's making sure that we're talking to them and creating an emotional connection. And we talk about that, and I know Cheetah talks about that as emotional loyalty. So how do I make sure that they're loyal to me from an emotional standpoint and it's outside of the purchase? I believe in the same things that you do as a brand. You understand who I am. You cater to who I am. You've created a deeper relationship, so I've become not just a heavy spender and a big user of your product, I'm now a brand ambassador. I'm an advocate. I am telling everyone, " Oh, you've got to go check out X, Y, Z retailer, or X, Y, Z brand because not only is their product great, but look at all these other cool things. They know who I am. They add more value to my life than just a coupon."

Tim Glomb: Got it. And with that come new formats. Right? There's new ways to engage people. It's not just, oh, Tim spent another$ 100, send him his 10 points, or 100 points, or whatever it is. What do those look like? What's the new landscape of structure and format look like?

Jodi Rausch: Yeah. That's a great question. So really, we're seeing that points, some people are still keeping ahold of them because they tend to be table stakes. And you don't want to cut people off at the knees, you don't get points anymore. But what's more appealing and what we're especially hearing from younger audiences and emerging demographics is that they like that emotional connection. I want to engage with you as a brand. I want to have an experience. I want to feel like you know who I am and that you're not just talking to me like you talk to everybody else who shops at your store. So there's really creating that emotional connection, and giving me new opportunities of how to engage with you, or create a community. And I can engage with other people who love your brand the same way that I do.

Tim Glomb: Okay, cool. Well, look, let's dig into the weeds here. What does a new format or structure mean and look like? I'm sure there's a lot of people watching today who say, " Hey, we have points for purchase. And yeah, we want to evolve. We want to go emotional." But what does this look like? What has to happen?

Jodi Rausch: Sure. Changing a format is not necessarily for everyone. Maybe the format that you have today is great, but you need to add more of that engagement, more of those personalized experiences, whereas other brands are really finding great success in kind of branching out, thinking about other ways of offering loyalty that we haven't really done before in the past, and is becoming much more of a trend. And that includes subscriptions, it includes paid programs. It includes paid tiers. So if we want to dig into that further, think about, we were speaking about this earlier, Amazon Prime. You're loyal to it because you're seeing value. And you aren't paying attention to the price tag of it because you're seeing value. And a lot of people say, " Well, that's not really loyalty. It's not loyalty." Well, it is because loyalty's an outcome. And if I am loyal to this brand because of what I get from them, because of the experience, doesn't matter if I'm paying$ 119 a year or not, I am not going elsewhere. And when I think of, oh, I need to order X, Y, Z, I usually start with Amazon because I'm already getting the value out of it. That's where you go to first. And I know that a lot of retailers hate to hear this. But how do you make sure that otherwise, if you're not Amazon, that you're creating that habit and that tendency, so that when I do need, whether it's a T- shirt, or I need new sneakers, or I need whatever it is, that I don't go to Amazon, I come to you?

Tim Glomb: Yeah. And you're right. I don't want to name too many brands here because there are some brands that I personally just, no matter what, I go to. Pendleton is one. I'm wearing them. Anyone who's watched Thinking Caps or any of our sessions has seen me in a Pendleton shirt. I go directly to pendleton. com. And every time I go to Portland, Oregon, I cross the bridge and I go down and I go to the factory. Amazon, this week, I had to go to Milwaukee. I needed some props for one of our signal sessions, ordered them all online. Unfortunately, UPS, the shipment was delayed, but they made it so easy for me to return them at a Whole Foods. I was traveling, I was in a hotel, but I could easily go down the street to the Whole Foods, return them, not have to worry about them. So you're right, never even care about the$ 109, $119, whatever it is per year because they make it easy, quick, fast. I know it's going to show up. Wasn't their fault, it was UPS at that point. But they made it incredibly easy to return them with no penalties.

Jodi Rausch: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yep.

Tim Glomb: What else do we have in formats and structures here?

Jodi Rausch: Sure. Think about paid programs, as someone who, they don't have a free program, similar to Amazon, but they have like an REI, an REI.

Tim Glomb: Love my dividends from REI.

Jodi Rausch: Yes. And while it's a little bit of a different structure because of the co- op and the dividend, and it's a one time fee, but you still have to pay to play. It's that one. And if you're a frequent shopper, or even a relatively infrequent shopper, you're going to see, no pun intended, the dividend pay off of that initial investment in your membership. You also see programs like, and let me know if we're calling out too many brand names here, but think of AMC. They have their stubs program. It's a free program. They also have a paid program on top of it. So if you want richer benefits, if you want better things, if you want to be treated even more special every time you go to the theater, you want that better experience, you're willing to pay for it. And so there is a free program, you get to know the value that you see out of the program, and then you say, "I want a little bit more." So it's almost like an upsell.

Tim Glomb: Got it. All right, yeah. I don't go to the theater that much, but we actually just talked about going to see the James Bond movie that came out recently with my son, so I might have to experience that and look at upping my AMC theater experience. Well, those are great examples. Yeah, even like Clear, which I use Clear a lot because I travel a lot. And it's funny because I don't necessarily associate Clear with the airline that I travel with, but that is a paid thing that makes my life easier getting through the airport. So I think Clear as a business solution probably is thought about as a loyalty or like some enhancement on top of that travel experience, regardless of who you fly, whether I fly American Airlines nonstop, or I fly another airline, Clear is probably living on top. That's interesting.

Jodi Rausch: Yeah. And I won't name what airline I frequent, but I do get Clear discounted as one of my member benefits, and so that really starts tying things together. And while it's a different service and I'm still paying for it, now it's now really part of my travel experience. And I do equate it back with the program that I participate in.

Tim Glomb: That's a psychological, emotional attachment to that, and I know exactly what you're saying. And we have a great client, Bowtech Archery, through the Pure Archery Group, who partners with all sorts of other brands. So when you buy one of their products, you're offered free access, or early access, or a three month membership to an online subscription with one of their partners. And really, they're just all coming together to make the extra value add and get all of their customers excited about each other. And it's a great cross sell and cross promotion. Okay, cool. So we've explained some paid, different formats and structures you should be thinking about. Where do we go from here? Transactional versus emotional?

Jodi Rausch: Yeah. Let's dive into transactional versus emotional.

Tim Glomb: Why don't you recap and define transactional for us again, just so our viewers know exactly what we mean by that?

Jodi Rausch: Sure. So transactional loyalty is really that you're where I go to purchase. I think of you as the purchase. I don't necessarily think of you outside of the purchase. And I keep coming back because you're going to reward me. You're going to give me something in exchange for me making that purchase. But my head is in it, my heart may not be, because I may not have the true loyalty that I think of as emotional loyalty, that will keep me with you even if maybe a richer offer comes along.

Tim Glomb: Oh, got it. All right. So transactional, it's kind of basically rewarding you for payments and literally transactions, discounts, rewards, and things like that. Emotional really gets you into that brand ambassador, advocate state.

Jodi Rausch: Yes, absolutely. You're making that deeper emotional connection. You're building a relationship with the brand. And conversely, the brand is building that relationship with the member.

Tim Glomb: Yeah. And not only that, they're getting a ton of data in that human like connection and communication between them. Do we have some good examples that you'd like to share around who's doing emotional well?

Jodi Rausch: That's a good question. I think one of the best examples, and I'll start with the explanation first, is: How do I engage my members in between their purchases?

Tim Glomb: Sure, yeah.

Jodi Rausch: Because if I'm only thinking about you when I run out of printer paper, or when I run out of ketchup, then again, that ties back to the transactional. The emotional loyalty is: When do I think about you in between? So where do I go for content? Where am I getting tips and information that maybe I would have to go somewhere else?

Tim Glomb: I was just going to say user, yes.

Jodi Rausch: So I would think one of my favorites is Sephora. Sephora is known for giving people tips about how to use product. They're giving them tips about how to apply makeup. They're allowing them to actually even come in or online do virtual try on of product, which is something that if you're hesitant about buying something, I like the experience of being able to try it on, to see what maybe a certain shade of makeup might look like on me. And then say, " Okay. I think I like that. I'm willing to try it because I've had that virtual experience that then ties into the transactional." So it's all connected, very much so.

Tim Glomb: So the emotion in between props up the tent between these transactional tent pole interactions, where the CFO's like, " Hey, did we sell Sue, or Mary, or Tim, or Skip the product?" Well, not yet, but hey, look, we're propping them up. I love the Vans Family. We're working, we're joint on that one. In fact, PK Group brought that to Cheetah and Cheetah powers the Vans Family, so thank you for that. But the way I love that Vans goes about it is, I'm an avid skateboarder, even at age 47, I'm an avid skateboarder. You saw me limping around. I got hurt last week. My son is at the skate park five days a week. I am buying shoes online for him constantly. I buy shoes for me once every two months, maybe three months. But the amount of content they give me in between, they tell me my local skate shop, they have some awesome things where I can go vote on artists. And what do I like? It's not just points for purchase. In fact, with Vans, I don't even think you can redeem your points for discounts. It's really points for merchandise you can't buy, or experiences you can't buy. And that's an amazing example of emotional in between that transactional. It's a great app, tons of content. I'm going to ask you about this because what Vans does really well, they send me multichannel messaging. They send me emails. They personalize things for me. They've got me on SMS. So again, they're not always trying to sell me. They're just trying to say, " Hey, skate shops, or surf shops, or snowboard shops, they need your help right now. Check out this thing, signature shoes, early access to products." How I'm is it when you're baking out or expanding your loyalty program, building from scratch, that you have that multichannel approach here to keep that emotional going?

Jodi Rausch: I think it's critical. I think it's critical because not all of your customers, not all of your members interact with you in all of the channels. So you could, if you're only interacting with people on mobile, what if someone's not really... They're not connected with you mobile- ly, then you're going to miss them. And they're going to miss the messages from you, so you're not building that connection with them. I think the omnichannel approach is critical. I think making sure also that you understand your customers. When you are building this program, when you're designing the program, you need to understand what their behavior is across different channels. You need to understand what they expect from you and how they want to engage with you. So allow them that opportunity to say... You said that you've signed up with SMS for Vans Family. Maybe I don't want SMS from Vans Family. Maybe a push notification via my app is good enough. Allowing your members the choice and the control over: How do I want to hear from you? When do I want to hear from you? I think is critical because we've all gotten eight million emails from a retailer, or two, or more, where you get an email every single day. And you've stopped really opening them. You've stopped listening to them because not only are they not personalized to you, but it's constant. It's a constant thing. And I'm hard pressed to think of a brand that I need to hear from every day.

Tim Glomb: Fair, fair. Yes, the barrage of messaging. I have a great mentor who always said, " Customer doesn't give a damn about your marketing plan." So if you have all these needs, you're forcing it down their throat and they're not reacting, well, maybe just ask them what they need. I wanted to go back a little bit about discounts and coupons versus creating experiences, building community, and getting to true engagement. What are your thoughts there? What are the must haves? What are the big high level bullets that people should be keeping in their minds as they explore this and build these out?

Jodi Rausch: Yeah. I think the more you know your brand and how people engage with your brand, or how they want to engage with your brand, what does your brand stand for? What do your customers want to see out of your brand? That starts kind of opening up the door for you to figure out. Is it content that they're looking for? Is that a way to engage? So it's information about local skate parks, or how to get involved with local skate shops, or there's a US Open of surfing, and maybe you're a big surfing fan. That information is key and it you become a trusted advisor, a source for that sort of information. But I think too when we think about what we are giving people, or our members, as value, we have the monetary rewards. We talked about that, the discounts and the coupons. What are the other ways that we can provide them with value? And so much of it is an experience that is bespoke to me, so you know who I am, you know how I engage with your brand. I feel like my experience with your brand is different than maybe my friend's experience with your brand. And you would experience that in your example about Vans Family. If you have a friend who's a big surfer, maybe they're hearing different messages than you are because you've identified as a skater. They have identified as a surfer. How do we make sure that we not only understanding who our members are, but then talking to them because we know who they are? Talking to them in such a way that we're recognizing, I know who you are, I know what you want from me. I know what you're shopping for. I know what you're interested in. And create a different experience in that way.

Tim Glomb: Okay, but discounts and coupons. If somebody wants to stick with, maybe that's what they have right now, or they're thinking that's an easy way to start, there is some negative effect from those potentially. What are the negatives of just doing a points for purchase reward?

Jodi Rausch: Yeah, for sure it's margin erosion. I think when you think about discounts especially, there's a benefit of a reward. Sure, you're getting them to come back in. They have to make another purchase to use it. But in essence, you're always giving away margin. Every time you are giving away a reward, every time you're giving them 20% off because you're a great member, fantastic. The members love that. And they will always say, if you survey them, " What do you want most out of a loyalty program?" They're always going to say, " I want free stuff or I want big discounts." But you're giving away margin. And that is especially the case when you have a very frequent shopper who's coming in and spending anyways, they were going to make that purchase. And now you're just giving them that purchase for less. And so massive, massive margin erosion. If you think about the other things that we can give them as value, whether it's an added convenience, whether it's added utility, whether it's special content that they might find really appealing, personalized experiences even. The more that we can provide our members with those more bespoke and value added benefits, the stickier they become and the less margin we're giving away on every purchase. So that is something that we really encourage people to start thinking about is: How do you not give away margin with every purchase?

Tim Glomb: It makes total sense. Mike Ribeiro, the CEO of Reach, who's a long time, 35 plus years in loyalty, we have some great sessions in the library at cheetahdigital. com, he explains his attitude towards that. And again, he really knows his stuff, so go check that one out. And just recently, I met Erin Levzow, who's the VP of marketing technology at Del Taco, and they do give away$1 or$1 off your next purchase of$ 3 or more. But there's a value exchange there, so if you are going to just give away product that someone was probably already going to buy, tacos in that case, they require you to take a survey. So now they're getting actual information back, really slick survey, simple, easy to use. Usually can happen inside the loyalty app if you're using an app. But now you're actually getting something back for that free product. So to your point, try not to just give away free things that people are already going to buy. If you're going to do that, maybe attach it to an act that they have to take, so you're getting more data. And with that data, I want to move into emotional loyalty. How do more programs drive emotional loyalty? And can you talk a little bit about the information and data you're getting beyond just transaction? Right? Because transactional loyalty, yeah, you know what they spent, you know what time they spent it. You know what location they went to. That's all important information. But what kind of information can you get from an emotional loyalty based program?

Jodi Rausch: Sure. I think really appealing to what they care about. And there are a number of different ways to capture that. I think we'll probably talk about zero party data throughout this interview, but certainly, the more that I can understand about who you are and what matters to you, what incents you to want to engage with different brands? What holds you back from engaging with some brands? And we're seeing more and more, and we spoke about it a little bit earlier, the younger demographics, the younger audiences are really feeling much more drive towards brands that share social values with them, that share, I would say anything from climate change to social justice, you name it.

Tim Glomb: Sustainable products.

Jodi Rausch: Sustainability is a huge one, especially now. The more that we can share our position as a brand and as a retailer, I think the more we start engaging on that emotional side, and that drives a lot of impact from them, but we have to capture it almost primarily through progressive profiling, or if there is a way through some sort of a survey, some sort of, maybe we have a special product line that's all about sustainability, or really focused on sustainability. When you see customers and members really shopping that line in a very committed way, you can start making some assumptions about what matters to them.

Tim Glomb: Sure. And you mentioned progressive profiling, just to kind of explain that a little more for viewers that aren't using it, it's basically, hey, we're gaining some insights on you. And our system, or platform, whichever you're using, knows, okay, well, let's not ask that question, or we already have that in the bucket. We know that Jodi loves the mountains, not the beach, let's move to the next question, or let's get the next signal, so progressively building out that profile on that customer. You also mentioned one of my favorite topics. And again, viewers here at Cheetah Digital know that our CMO, Richard Jones, and myself are huge proponents of zero party data. We live, eat, and breathe it. We have for years, well before it was coined the phrase zero party data, psychographic information. Explain to me how your point of view of how zero party data can make a difference. What's possible with it, personalization, et cetera? And maybe I would love to hear your definition of what zero party data is because I talk so much about it. I'd love to know what your definition is.

Jodi Rausch: Sure. So when I think about zero party data, I think about data that is willingly provided to me from my customer, my member. In some ways, observed data, but it has to be in my mind, an observation that is not transactional because then that's just transactional data. And it doesn't thank you tell you a whole lot. But I can observe how you shop. I can observe how you browse when you're online. I can observe how you browse when you're actually in a physical location, and do some heat mapping and really try to understand better how you operate as a member, how you operate as a customer. When we think about using zero party data and using it effectively, I like to almost think of it as a choose your own adventure.

Tim Glomb: Sure, the books, yeah.

Jodi Rausch: I'm aging myself a little bit.

Tim Glomb: I'm right there with you.

Jodi Rausch: The Choose Your Own Adventure books, and depending on what you answered, you flipped to the certain page. And I think that well delivered, well executed loyalty programs are very similar to that, where I've raised my hand and said to retailer X, Y, Z that this is what I love to shop for at your brand. So let's send you down that path, but then maybe I say, " I'm really looking for a specific product." So you kind of veer to the right. And then I need something that matches, you veer to the left. Whereas maybe a best friend is interested in that same product, but maybe they don't have a certain need when I have a need. So they're on the very different path. Maybe they want to engage with a how to, or what are the current trends, and they want to hear more content. Maybe they're off in a very different direction than I am, so their experience with the same retailer is vastly different than mine.

Tim Glomb: Yep, that makes total sense. I want to share something. I want to share a graphic here, something I received in my inbox from a program, a loyalty program I am within. I won't say the industry. I won't say the brand name, but we'll blur that out. But here's a missed opportunity in my opinion of a great zero party data opportunity. I got an email that said, " Hey," basically said, " Hey, Tim. Want to go to the beach or the mountains?" Exactly what I said a little earlier. Right? That was the subject line in the email. And I was so excited. I was like, " Ooh." Literally, it ended with a question mark. Right? I was like, " Great. I'm going to open this email. I'm going to tell them. They've now opened up the floodgates and have give me a bullhorn to tell them what I care about. And I'm going to get asked all these great questions and everything." Unfortunately, that email when I opened it said, " Hey, doesn't matter. We've got both." And it proceeded to give me a bunch of content and links to click on. Hey, you like mountain escapades, click here and we'll show you all these great things to go to the mountains. Hey, you want to go to the beach, we'll give you this. Hey, you want to go to the prairie lands of America, click on this. And I was so bummed out. I was like, " Man, I thought finally this loyalty program was going to try and understand me, get my zero party data, use my data for good, and come back with an awesome personalized offer." And instead, it's not horrible, they gave me relevant content, but they did not learn the psychographics from my brain. Now they may be tracking. What did I click on? And ironically, I clicked on everything. So they had a huge opportunity to ask me the question and give me a mechanism or survey to give them real answers. But now they're probably webmasters going, " Well, Tim loves everything. He clicked on all five of the content blogs we gave me." So there's an example I just wanted to bring up of how a company probably thinks they're getting into that zero party data, and they probably think they're able to use those signals to personalize. But if they had just given me a button to say, " Hey, click here. We'll give you some value exchange. Answer these three, five questions," they could've completely personalized my profile and given me offers, not just content. So I don't know, I just wanted to share that because I got it this week, and I was excited to talk to you about it.

Jodi Rausch: It's a great example. The word that you used is perfect too. It was an opportunity, and it's now a missed opportunity.

Tim Glomb: Well, hopefully they're watching and they see that, oh, yeah, maybe we should've followed that up. Maybe if we asked a question, we should've given Tim an actual thing to give us some information back, not just go on and read. So again, that's a good example of tying your content strategy in with your loyalty program, because even if I wasn't in the loyalty program, and they just had me on the marketing list, that was a great opportunity to start collecting data on me, and then maybe say, " Hey, Tim, you'd be perfect for our loyalty program." Right? And back to our point, we have a paid program you could get into, or here's our free program. Should we just enroll you automatically and send you your membership number? There's a ton of ways you can listen to signals, or get people and information on them before they even formally get into your program. All right. Well, where do we move from here? Do we want to talk a little bit... I have a question for you. Everything we said is inspirational, and people are probably going, " Yeah, yeah, yeah, we want to do that. We want to get into that." This is really hard sometimes. Right?

Jodi Rausch: Yeah.

Tim Glomb: So without going into the weeds, what do you got to consider when you're looking for a partner to do this stuff?

Jodi Rausch: Sure. I think from my perspective, it starts with their approach. And if a partner is just, hey, we've got this... Here's a program that I think would be perfect for you, I would balk at that because: Have you done the due diligence?

Tim Glomb: Have you asked the questions?

Jodi Rausch: Have you asked the questions?

Tim Glomb: Do you understand what the client's really trying to achieve?

Jodi Rausch: Right. So I think the more that you can design your program with data in mind, especially not just the transactional data. Again, going back, and let's do some voice of the customer. Let's do some customer research, some insights work, and pose questions to them that shouldn't ever be, and I alluded to this earlier, it shouldn't be a laundry list of benefits, one of which is: Do you want a dollars off coupon? Because they're always going to rate it the most. But find out how they want to engage with you. Find out what they want to look to your brand for. What do they think your brand stands for? What do they think you're good at? And that might start sparking a few things. We also, at PK, we do a lot of what we call human centered design. And it's really making sure that we are helping our clients really put themselves in the seat of their customers. And if you think about it, we all don't have just one kind of customer. So we'll do a workshop where people are assigned different personas, and you have to put yourself in the shoes of someone who may be very different from you, but you're trying to think of it from their perspective. So often, we get mired down and thinking of it from the marketers perspective. I work for the retailer.

Tim Glomb: Yeah. This is what I need. These are the goals I need to hit.

Jodi Rausch: Exactly. And this is what I think is right, and this is what I think our brand stands for. And that's great as long as your customers think that you stand for that as well. When there's that disconnect, you're going to design a program for people who aren't your current customers. And then you're going to have a mess.

Tim Glomb: That's great advice. I mean, the PK Group, you have nearly 5000 employees. You serve tons of clients with a range of services. I think that's really sound advice. And if six or eight people are in a room designing a loyalty program, but you're not really taking that empathetic approach, you're going to mess it up. Yeah, okay. Look, we didn't pay you to come here. We're truly partners. We work with common clients, but you're a great third party service to Cheetah. I need to ask the question. Why work with Cheetah? What do you think is the Cheetah advantage? And we get it, we don't fit every single brand in the world. But what do you see in Cheetah? And I should say you also work with a lot of our competitors, they're just outright competitors. What do you think is the Cheetah advantage? Or I won't even say advantage. What's the Cheetah difference when you start to think of us?

Jodi Rausch: That's a great question. I think the Cheetah difference has been evolving over the last few years. I think that it's very, very clear when we have conversations with you that similar to PK, you're thinking about programs outside of points. You're thinking about how to engage members beyond that transaction. And I think that is critical for Cheetah, for their place in the market. For anyone who's working with customers, you have to think about what's next. And the more that we are stuck in kind of our old cookie cutter ways, one of my least favorite sayings in the world is, " Well, that's how we've always done it." And I think that as marketers, we need to push ourselves every day. And I think Cheetah does that. Cheetah's looking for new ways to recognize, to reward, to engage. And I think that is critical.

Tim Glomb: Okay. From a technical perspective, again, I'm not asking you to say that we're the best because we certainly aren't the best at everything. And you work with other great platforms that really execute great things for great clients. Technically, we talked about zero party data, personalization. We talked a little bit about realtime. But we just assume everything has to happen in near realtime these days to keep the customer there. You've got privacy. You've got opt in, opt out, consent. You've got all these things you have to manage. Is it fair to say that Cheetah's pretty well suited for managing multiple pieces of data, your POS data coming in, your realtime, other data? Is it a platform that you can lean on to cover this personalization collection and execution of loyalty strategies?

Jodi Rausch: Absolutely. Yeah, I would say so for sure. And the more that technology evolves, the more that's important, that you're not just hooking into one part of the retailer's business, that you have your fingers, or in essence, you are connected, as a loyalty platform you're connected across the entire ecosystem within that retailer, so yeah, absolutely critical.

Tim Glomb: Integration, APIs, realtime, batch streaming, et cetera, that's kind of what we set up the customer engagement suite for. How do we wrap up and give our viewers some value here?

Jodi Rausch: I think the biggest takeaways, capture data. If you're going to capture data though, you better use that data because we do hear from customers. They hate it when they provide data and then you don't use it. Think beyond the obvious. Think beyond the spend and get. Think beyond the old tried and true because customers are changing. Customer demands on brands are changing. And certainly, there are bigger expectations as we are continuing to try to compete in an ever expanding market out there of: How do you differentiate yourself from the eight million other retailers that someone could be going and talking to?

Tim Glomb: Yeah. That's fair. That's great advice. Well, look, this has been insightful for me. I hope you found it insightful for you. Jodi, I really appreciate you coming in. You guys are great partners. If you want to see our combined work, go download the Family Vans app, Vans Family, it's great. We work on a bunch of other things together. We've got tons of content for you at cheetahdigital. com. And you can always check out the services offering from Concentrix Catalyst by visiting their new website, which is catalyst. concentrix, with an X, dot com. That's catalyst. concentrix. com. But you can also find Jodi Rausch on LinkedIn. That's J- O- D- I and her last name Rausch, R- A- U- S- C- H.

Jodi Rausch: We consider ourselves the experience engineering firm, so we create the experiences that really drive how customers engage and interact with brands, everything from APIs, so we're similar in that way, APIs, we have loyalty strategies, we have management consulting. We do bots, all sorts of fun things that really kind of help bring it all to life.

Tim Glomb: And even email marketing, you consult on everything.

Jodi Rausch: Sure, absolutely.

Tim Glomb: So one stop shop, go check them out. If you're kicking it around, or looking to reboot your program, or lift up a new one, go check them out. Jodi, can't thank you enough for coming to Denver. I hope you enjoyed the weather. We will see you next time. Thanks, everybody, for watching.

Jodi Rausch: Thanks for having me.