Being a Digital Leader - the Good, Bad AND Ugly of Digital Transformation
Join us as we dive deep into the world of digital transformation with real-life stories of breakthroughs and challenges from the front lines. In each episode, we'll sit down with industry experts, AND Digital consultants, and other influential figures in the technology space to hear about their personal experiences of leading digital transformation initiatives.
We'll explore what worked, what didn't, and the lessons learned along the way.
Being a Digital Leader - the Good, Bad AND Ugly of Digital Transformation
How AI and data are revolutionising customer loyalty programs
Join us for an insightful episode with Liz Gaskin-Payne, a leader at IAG Loyalty, as we explore the fascinating world of customer loyalty programs and digital transformation. Liz shares her unique career journey, beginning as a broadcast engineer and evolving into a pivotal figure in loyalty management. Throughout her journey, she has developed invaluable skills that revolve around problem-solving, customer engagement and strategic thinking.
In this episode, we delve into how data and AI are reshaping customer experiences in a rapidly changing landscape. Liz discusses the importance of personalisation in loyalty programs and the necessity of understanding customer behaviours for successful engagement.
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Welcome to our podcast. Being a digital leader the Good, the Bad and the Ugly of Digital Transformation I'm absolutely delighted to be joined by Liz Gaskin-Payne of IAG Loyalty today. Liz, thank you for joining us. I know your career has spanned a super interesting journey, from broadcast engineering to business analysis and loyalty programs. Latterly, Liz has played a key role at IAG Loyalty, shaping strategies and delivering real value to customers and driving trust through the loyalty programs that you're engaged with. We'll dive into how data and AI are transforming customer experiences and we'll explore Liz's leadership lessons in very high pressured environments. Plus, we'll also touch on your personal insights, liz, what excites Liz about the future of loyalty, and a few fun things about your travel habits and favourite tools. So huge welcome, liz. It's brilliant to have you with us today.
Speaker 2:We'll jump straight in. It'd be brilliant if you could introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your role. Of course, so I am Liz Gaskin-Payne, hello everyone. And I've been at IG Loyalty for eight years. So just for those who are not on in the know, ig Loyalty looks after Avios, the currency, so the loyalty currency for the airlines such as British Airways, iberia, aer Lingus, welling and others. I started at IG Loyalty as a business analyst, did that for a bit as a business analyst, did that for a bit, then moved on to become a program manager for a short period looking after a transformation program and then decided to do a little sideways, step into product ownership and have worked my way through various products since that time and for now I look after the product manager for their reward flights. So the seats that you can buy on planes are just for loyalty customers.
Speaker 1:Brilliant and obviously as an avid fan and collector of my avid points.
Speaker 2:I'm super excited to meet you.
Speaker 1:I'm so fascinated because earlier in your career you were in broadcast, yes, and maybe you could tell us a little, a little bit more about that journey and um, you know, I know quite a few people who've started their careers in that space. It is incredibly specialized and unique in terms of the challenges that it brings. Yes, um, and your pivot is a really interesting one, so I'm really fascinated to understand what led you to leave broadcast and go into the world that you now operate in.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's not kind of what I was visualizing at 21. But here we are but yes. So yeah, like you said, I got a degree in broadcasting and my first job was straight out of university being a technical operator for QVC, the shopping channel, and that was just sort of doing a bit of everything you know sound engineering, camera operating so on and so forth and one of the areas was looking after the play out, so making sure QVC could reach the masses and everyone could get their midnight shopping, and I really liked that bit. So after about a year and a bit I saw a job come up in the Discovery Channel Playout Centre doing a very similar thing, but at big scale. They at the time, I think, looked after about 100 channels across Europe, middle East and Africa, so went in there as a transmission um, so using some of the skills from previously, but um sort of getting to starting to work with big companies, big channels, um, and what happened there is obviously you're looking after there were six of us on shift.
Speaker 2:You're looking after x number of channels um yourself on your shift and obviously things break and you've got to watch 10 things simultaneously and you've got like, hey, what's broken, how do I fix it and sort of starting to react quite quickly, and I found that I loved that sort of right. There's a problem here or something that needs to be done, what we're going to do, quick react, sort of thing. So did that um, and turned out I wasn't terrible at that. We got quite um. You know it was quite good at managing different things simultaneously and reacting quickly and making some good decisions. So they asked me to lead that area for a bit. Um again. Fine, so instead of 10 channels, I was looking after myself. I was responsible for all the channels while I was there, 100 plus channels. And you end up getting into this thing where you know you're firefighting a lot. It's a 12-hour shift, things are going wrong all the time and you're putting it and you're putting out live output.
Speaker 1:So yeah, yeah, it was yeah, it's not recorded the pressure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the pressure was 100. You don't want any dead air, no, we get fine, we got fined for that. So you know there was. And then obviously people would notice something was off air and they would call you going why is this off air? And like yes, we know it's off air, we're fixing it. Um, but again that problem solving and looking at something like overall and and doing that whole like analysis like like an analysis of okay, what's going on here?
Speaker 2:is this working? What do I do next? Um it's something I've really loved. I found it really energizing.
Speaker 1:Um you're an adrenaline junkie I am because, there must be an aspect to it that there is incredible pressure and you have to stay very calm and go through a sequence of things to get to the root cause yeah, absolutely, and it seems to sharpen my brain.
Speaker 2:I tend not to faff around so much when something's going wrong. Um, so loved that. And what was happening was, obviously I was reacting to live problems. But then when you then you started seeing patterns and I was like, well, this problem keeps happening. Why is this problem happening? It's like variations but the same thing. And it turned out it was um, I was like, can we dig into this? Because I'm at the reacting end of it and I'm not loving it. No one likes things breaking at 3am. Um, can we see whether we can fix it? Um, so I got asked to do a secondment with the department that was potentially causing us these issues at play.
Speaker 2:Out, I was like, yeah, great, I'd been doing shift work for a while. Then I was kind of ready for a bit of a break. It's really tiring. Um, they offered me a nine to five secondment for three months. It's like, okay, cool.
Speaker 2:So I went and spent some time with that. It was the content and language department. So we're responsible for creating all the languages that sit on top of the programs, because obviously we're going across all of Europe. So, and that was where we were seeing a lot of our problems. So I spent three months with them. I spent time going through all their processes, talking to a million people, and then came back with a right this is where it's going wrong. Can we do this, this and this? They were like yep, give it a go.
Speaker 2:And we reduced the error rate. It was something crazy. I meant to look up the stat before today, but it was. It was something silly, like a 90 reduction in a couple of months in errors. And then I realized I love this stuff. I liked looking at problems, I liked over, you know, I liked, um, that, that, that problem solving that, trying to do better, you know, trying to improve all the time piece. So it sort of took me out of broadcast. At that point I was working for you know, a broadcasting company, of course one you know a big one out there discovery channel, but actually stepped away from my degree at that point and moved into that more business analyst role. And then, um, yeah, some logistics meant that discovery channel I needed to start looking elsewhere and and that's you know.
Speaker 1:Then I found your home at IAG loyalty after that point well, what a brilliant story. And probably thinking about kind of and we'll come on to talk about your role now yeah in more detail, but you know, at that time you were working this business analysis. But it's also in an environment where obviously very process driven, but also technology, yes, being a really key part of what and how you, you know, how you deliver, yeah, content yeah, I I find it's helped.
Speaker 2:You know, even in my career now there's nothing to do with it, just that sort of underlying knowledge and understanding of technology, even though broadcast and you know what I do now is very different but I do find it's helped um understand when working with developers, it, etc even now you're not intimidated by it and quite interested in it yeah, I mean, I know very little about software development in terms of the actual process, but yeah, like you say, not intimidated by it.
Speaker 2:It's like you know, talk to me about it. I'd like to learn. Don't ask me to code, but I'd like to learn what you're doing.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, so and and tell us a little bit about your journey. So you, you, you made the move um into IAG loyalty and maybe talk to us about kind of your journey that you've been on since joining. Yeah sure.
Speaker 2:So, um, yes, and, like I say I, I decided to um, move to IG loyalty. Well, they offered me a job and I accepted it, obviously, um, and then, when I went in, they were just starting a transformation program and they had brought in project managers and business analysts as part of that, working on various different areas of the business, of the transformation program. And, to my knowledge, they haven't really had business analysts in IG Lawty at that point. So it was a new role, which is great. I loved it because I could make it what I wanted it to be, which is great. I loved it because I could make it what I wanted it to be. You know, there was a lovely broad scope and off I went. So they had me working on various different initiatives across quite a wide range, which was great because that was how to know the business very, very quickly when you're working across multiple different areas. So, yes, I worked with them, was supporting them with. You know the basics of requirements, gathering recommendations, things like that, and just helping the transformation teams, the project managers, etc. Be like, ok, I think we should be doing this, you know, I think we should be doing this next. This is why this is what I'm seeing and off we went.
Speaker 2:And one of the last things I got involved in as a business analyst was a massive project which was the move of the Avios travel reward program, as it was originally known, and moving it into the British Airways executive club. So I joined that as a business analyst. It was huge, you know. It ran for nearly, you know, about 18 months and halfway through that there was uh, the the project manager at the time left and the program director turned around to me. He's like, do you fancy giving it a go? He's like I think you can do it. I was like Nick, are you sure? Like this is enormous.
Speaker 1:And he's like no.
Speaker 2:I'm here if you need me, but give it a go. And that was kind of my first step away from the detail of business analysts. Obviously, business analysts, you've got to get in and know an awful lot very quickly, but you know project management and then subsequently product management. You have to learn how to know enough, but leave the detail to those who you know that, whose job it is. And that was a fascinating project, so stressful, a lot of like.
Speaker 2:So it was a massive, massive increase in my skills throughout that 18 months. It was not something I'd ever really done before, but I had some amazing support and guidance. There was a really strong team around me. You know they knew I was learning on the job and none of us wanted to fail. So it was really lovely and collaborative and it worked really well. You know, we got it done.
Speaker 2:And then after that it was the move from product sorry project to product, which I've been asked about before, like why didn't? Why the move? And while I enjoyed my brief time being a project manager, you don't have any say over what you're going to, what you're doing. You know you're this is what you're delivering. Can you make sure it's done, please? Which is fine. I proved I could do that, but I was really interested in product ownership management because you drive it, you make the decisions with, obviously, other things supporting you on that, but you can shape it and I was really excited about trying that and it's that was a learning curve too. But well, it's been a few years now and still here and you're doing well so brought you close to the customer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the proposition, what you actually, as an organization, are putting out into the market, yeah, and and being a part of shaping that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, you know, if you're putting something in front of the customer, you want it to work, you want it to add value. If it doesn't, okay, I'm going to do something else. But yeah, that having that yeah, like you say, that much closer step to the customer and seeing how they react to something you think they'd like, it's really fun. Some of the things we've done my with the customer research and and things like that they're like oh, you did that. Well, my team did, but, yes, you like it seeing your work.
Speaker 1:It's really actually go live and be in the market and delivering results. It's so satisfying yeah, and I think you product in the space of loyalty is a really exciting place to be and that in itself is quite a specialized kind of area. So and you know we talked about the customer loyalty programs obviously like a key lever for a lot of big organizations, brands, when it comes to maximizing customer lifetime value. How do you? I'm interested in the transit, you know, the transition into loyalty itself yeah.
Speaker 1:Also the kind of immersion that you would have gone through.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:To upskill in that space? Yeah, and then it'd be great to start discussing. How you know, we talk about the customer and and delivering to them? How do you go about making decisions about what you're gonna even? Put in front of a customer. Should we start there?
Speaker 2:we could start there yeah, we could start there. So it's a really interesting one, because no customer wants the same thing when you get down to the detail. But you have, we sort of we always try and start with well, what are the problems we're trying to solve? Okay, how do we identify the problems trying to solve? So it all, it all, boils down to data in some way, shape or form. Um, you know, we, we do research, we, we look our analytics, we go out and talk to the customers. We see, you know, we have a look at all of our insights of where people are saying I don't like this. You know, and that's where you start. Well, that's where we start of. How do we, you know, how do we make this better? How do we deliver what they want? What are the? You know what they're trying and what are. What are the problems they're currently having?
Speaker 1:um, yeah, I think that's I'm I'm fascinated um also in the nuggets, because I think you find such like there's sometimes very nuanced customer insights yes um, I think there was um somebody that I was speaking to. It led out at one of the big supermarket chains in terms of their data um delivery and they were talking about you know, they discovered, for example, it was before we we were, we were all mandated to buy reusable bags yes but they found that people who chose to buy reusable bags had a very high propensity to convert into insurance products as well so like really niche.
Speaker 1:Or you know, there's that famous toothpaste, yes, one that you know. Where you buy your toothpaste typically is where you do the vast majority of your grocery shopping. Yeah, were there any? Are there any surprising facts and insights along those lines?
Speaker 2:I know we're going a bit off, pete yeah, I'm just trying to have a thing with no. No, no, we can park it I can't come up with something.
Speaker 2:Um I I don't know whether it's unexpected, but I always, whenever we talk to our customers, I always get really surprised, in a lovely way, about how passionate some of our base are. Um, you know, they are absolutely obsessed sounds bad, but it's not obsessed but they're obsessed with using their avials and collecting them and the best ways to use them, and they are creative. You know, I have worked for avials for eight years. I know how to use the currency, but I, every time they come in, I'm like, okay, wow, teaching me. Um, you know the ways. Um, we had a guy come in um one of our research nights. Um, our insight at night um program that um, our lead UX researcher, bonnie, runs um every once in a while, and he came in. He was like I'm really excited to talk to you guys. I've been using my Avios to travel to every country in the world and I'm nearly finished. I've got two more to go.
Speaker 1:So he was telling us all about it and this amazing journey he'd been on.
Speaker 2:So I do, I love it. I do like. You know, you've got these. You have people who use Avios and it adds value, and then you just get the people who it just seems to form quite a big part of their life.
Speaker 1:Well, it's a very. I mean you're helping somebody see the world and have all these incredible experiences so yeah, I think there's.
Speaker 2:There's actually quite an emotive aspect to it yeah, and I think so, and I think you know, I know um we might get onto loyalty of this thing as well, but you've earned these avios like you've earned your money, you've put effort into getting it, and one of the things that comes out, and that comes out a lot in our customer research, is it's. It's not just, um, you know how much money you've put into trying to get these avios, it's actually. Do you feel that what's coming back is valuable to you when you're using them? Does it feel good to you? And that could be anything? You know and we and we do see that there's not just a sort of a singular way that people perceive value when spending avios.
Speaker 1:It's very much personal, yeah, which I find really interesting what, and also you traverse such a diverse um range of customers yes, there is not going to be a one-size-fits-all there, you know.
Speaker 2:So there's always the challenge, um that we're always facing, of the how do we help as many people as possible, how do we make this as easy as possible, um, for people, because that's what we want really. You know, we're not trying to not make them spend their points, we're trying to help them do it and make it, make it a nice experience. Right, you've put the effort in. Let's help you get something really nice out of it great and and and.
Speaker 1:When it came to switching and really immersing yourself in loyalty as an area, what kind of? How did you do that? Well, a little bit of chi.
Speaker 2:I used avios before I joined them. So, um, I, yeah, I I joined I can't remember but way before I I actually joined ig loyalty and but it's, it's. It's a complex business. Lawty can be complex underneath the hood. Airline lawty can be really complex, really Like there's a lot of rules like tier points and you know how far do you fly and what you get and so on and so forth.
Speaker 2:And obviously, before I joined, did my research. But as a customer, you know what did I like, what didn't I like. But as a customer, you know what did I like, what didn't I like? Um, what? Um, what I thought worked well, what I was like, well, I don't understand this.
Speaker 2:So had my own really valuable, yeah, well, just um, interacting with the program myself. What did I? What worked for me? Um, but then once I got to iG Loyalty, obviously there's the whole right. Someone needs to explain to me how this works at a business level, fine, but then actually all the different areas of the business, how are we all coming together to drive this customer experience and and make it a good one and get people really engaged with the program and my work as a business analyst?
Speaker 2:It helped me so much because I worked across so many different departments in quite a short period of time. It was kind of a really nice snapshot, yeah, um, of what everyone was doing and why they were doing it and what they were trying to achieve, and it it definitely supercharged my learning of that one um. It's something I need to probably do again, because we've, uh, grown a lot as a business and sometimes I'm a bit like, okay, I know which department, but I'm not quite sure exactly what they do these days, because I'm pretty certain last time I spoke to them they were doing something slightly different. So I think it's really important not to stay in your bubble. Yeah, you know, um product, our product team, our product department, can become quite, um, yeah, in the bubble if you're not careful, so that that time to go and talk to other areas of business, work with other areas reacquaint yourself, understand what they're doing, and why?
Speaker 2:um, because nine times out of ten, at some point it's going to have an impact of what you're doing or influence what you're doing. So it's it's important one to make sure you keep doing and not just do it once when you join and then leave it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I suppose you, you, you're very much also driven by consumer behaviors trends and that changes, and that changes quite rapidly. So, um, and I obviously your data, your analysis of all your consumer data, is a key part of staying ahead of that. Are there any other things you do as an organization to make sure you are a step ahead from a product perspective with regards to that?
Speaker 2:So there's always the competitor analysis, right, like, what is everyone else doing? Anyone doing anything cool we'd like to have a go at?
Speaker 2:And I know you know you, you touched on data, obviously we're constantly looking at how it's performing now, but then it's well, what do we want to do next? So we we go about that in a few ways. Obviously we talk to our customers. We try and talk to them as much as we can, either face to face or, you know, feedback tools on our websites. We've also just started really going after experimentation in product. So, rather than committing to bigger builds where you don't really want them to fail because you've put a lot of money, time and effort into it, but sort of leaning more into that experimentation mindset of that learn fast, fail fast, etc. Um to see whether we can.
Speaker 2:Um, yeah, whether we can prove our hypotheses right, because we've got hypotheses from the data that's happening now, so we can see interesting things off. We can see this. There's a potential here. We're making a hypothesis here that customers will want this. Okay, well, let's go do something small and see and see what happens.
Speaker 2:We've we've had some great examples in the last month or so where, um, yeah, tested something in a very small way, um, but I thought it was going to work, but but had actually conflicting evidence whether it was going to or not. So I was like can we do this, do this more? There's a map actually very basic map, um, and maps always test. Well, you show a customer a map, especially like a, a map of here's where you can go. People like this is brilliant, but they've never, they don't always do well in channels. Um, they can be. You know they're not. They're not right if they don't work. Well, um, yeah, people think, well, that looks pretty, but it's useless, right, um? So we did a very lightweight version of a map and it's the most clicked on part of a of the page at the moment. So we're like, okay, successful test, we're going to do more with that map now. So we're doing little things like that um to gauge interest, and if it doesn't work, it doesn't work yeah, and it won't do it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, and you've not spent a lot of time and a lot of money getting to that point exactly, and what has been? What is it? Because that's quite a shift into kind of a rapid, as you say it's really a big shift, yeah um a way of operating. What?
Speaker 2:what has facilitated that like that change so um at ig loyalty, um, our product journey is. Hang on, what year are we in? About five, five-ish years old, maybe a little bit older now. We hadn't worked in a product way before. It had been projects and big projects, and set up the product department exactly for this purpose. But we had a lot to build. You know, there was a lot that needed to be done, a lot of the core, and we've really kind of spent a long time as a department building that core capability and particularly the stuff I've been working on. It was a very long piece of work building that core.
Speaker 2:You know, look after award flights, booking flight and building flight booking journeys is no joke. Airline tech is complicated so it took us a while to get that capability. But now as a product department we're all in this sort of level of maturity where we've got good, robust products that are doing well, doing really well, but there's no big obvious features now to go after next. So we're now all you can really optimize, and we can. We're now very much in the optimization space, which is really. It's fun. I'm having a great time. To be honest, you know, after years of big heavy lifting, lifting, it's now really nice to be like. Well, we know it works, as in this product works, that's great. Let's have some fun tweaking around with it and we may get some really interesting and surprising things coming out of this, as customers react in a way that we don't expect and do something different and fun with that.
Speaker 1:It's interesting you know in in terms of culture in a company, because when you come to talk about you know one of the things that goes hand in hand with innovation is having a culture that also embraces failure yes um and lets people fail yes and it's interesting, the cultural aspect of that shift and how that's felt yeah, it's um, it's an interesting one.
Speaker 2:Like you say that when you said there about um, that failure is okay, that's such a shift for companies. It's really. It was really interesting to watch um and I think we're probably still a bit tentative in some areas on that one, but I think a lot of companies are you don't want to fund things that are going to fail, but, um, we're not going to fail. That might fail, sorry, but um, I think we we have a very good supportive leadership level who are like it's okay, we'll back you up, go ahead.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, obviously, be smart about it right have a hypothesis that you want to prove out, think about the way you can do it as small as possible. So if it doesn't work, cool, yeah, it's. But um, they're very keen on us reporting the successes and the failures so that we can start to really socialize what we're learning, because a failure isn't necessarily a failure if it doesn't work.
Speaker 2:We learn that customers don't want that yeah so it's still a learning and a good learning. You know, yeah, exactly, and we won't do it again. And if someone comes along and goes well, why don't we do this? And we're like well, okay, but we've, we did this, just so you know we've done this and it didn't work. Can we think about a different way of doing that?
Speaker 1:um, you know, and in terms of defining your, you know you talk about developing your hypotheses. Are you? Are you, where are you on the maturity of how you use data to do that within the organization?
Speaker 2:I think we're getting there. We were sort of really leaning into it this year. It sort of started last year and it's really coming into its own this year. I think, you know, our data team is great and and and supportive in helping us like okay, we, is this a good hypothesis? Are we using the data correctly? You know, does that make sense? Um, and I think I think it's becoming um really useful to us as a business and helping us think more, think better about what we're doing. Next we're like okay, you know, I think this. Okay, well, why do you think this? Have a look at the data. Is there anything you know what's pointing you to think this? Um, and it's it's grounding us quite a lot, as opposed to just I've got a gut, I've got, I've got a feeling, yeah, this is gonna be great, we're like which is fine, you know, and I think a lot, as opposed to just like I've got a gut, I've got, I've got a feeling, yeah, this is gonna be great.
Speaker 2:We're like, which is fine, you know, and I think a lot of great ideas obviously start with I think this might work, but that you know, that whole working with the data team, working with our analytics, to be like I'm seeing something here that could back that up or, if you don't, okay, but what's a good test of that? And a small test of that to gauge demand and help you build the data, help you build the evidence, and just keep going on from there. So, yeah, it's a really exciting time for us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it sounds like a huge shift in terms of the culture, the ways of working.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So everybody's been on on the journey a substantial journey to get to where you are today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, like I think there was two, maybe three product owners when we started and now, uh, over 20, 30 of us, I think now, and and teams under all of those. So you know so and it's an established way of it's very yeah, and it's spread outside of digital product, if you will. You know there's other areas of the business that are set up in product in that way yeah yeah, and it and it and it works.
Speaker 2:It gives people ownership and that feeling of accountability and something they can invest themselves in and be part of, rather than just a. Can you do this please? You know? So I think, um, yeah, it really helps with engagement when you're part of shaping what we're going to do yeah and then optimize. Yeah and then continue and how we make it, experiment and optimize.
Speaker 1:That's super interesting. So, like you know, absolutely you've you've made it really clear that gathering customer insights is really vital for you as an organization fuels a lot of the work that you're doing. Yeah, can you share specifically how programs, um, like insight at night, have shaped your work? Yeah, and maybe explain what that is?
Speaker 2:yeah of course, yeah, fair enough. So Insight at Night is a program that's set up by our lead UX researcher, bonnie Bonnie Silver, and what it is is that it's an evening where, with pizza and wine which is always welcome where we invite customers from the British Airways exec club to come in and talk to our product teams. So when Bonnie sets one of these up, she goes around all the product teams. She's like I'm setting another one of these up, have you got anything you want customers to give you their feedback on? And it's normally a new feature. Um, you know, we think you're developing this. What do you think? Or feedback on an existing journey, um, or feature, and to see what you know, what customers feel are working for them or whatnot. So we go all that together and then, um, and then, and on the evening itself, um, we all, um, we're all set up and the customers wander around and we explain to what we're doing.
Speaker 2:And then the last one we did I just gave them a brief. Like. It's a flight search tool. Have a look, have a play. I'm not going to try and guide you, just tell me what you think.
Speaker 2:Like is it intuitive? Um, these weren't the questions I asked, but the things we were trying to gather were is it intuitive? Does it make sense? Can you find what you're you want to find? Because most customers start with something in their heads um, and it. It's great. You know it's all very well.
Speaker 2:Um, it's another really powerful tool in our arsenal. You can run um qualitative and quantitative research and show customers wireframes and whatnot, but there's something about having a customer sitting down right next to you with your laptop in front of them and they are just going for it. You know they are clicking around trying to do what they would normally do and it uncovers all sorts of weird and wonderful things, which is great, things that um wouldn't necessarily fit in a standard qa plan. You know of, you know how we test it, but actually helps us really? Um really helps us with usability? Does it? Does it make sense? To someone who may not know a huge amount of what we do? I do, I say to my team quite a lot. I like we've been here. Possibly we haven't been here too long, but it can blink you when you know so much about it.
Speaker 1:You look at it so much. You know how it works.
Speaker 2:So it's. They're great. Those evenings are great to have a fresh pair of eyes on it and a completely fresh pair of eyes, and to hear the guys. You know the customers that come in talk about. You know what customers that come in talk about. You know what they like, they're like not fan of that or share how they use avios and the various loyalty programs and what will work for them. It's just.
Speaker 2:It is just a really nice um way of way, yeah it is, it is and it's lovely to talk to them and they love coming. You know the feedback's always great. They're like it was really interesting to see what you guys are doing. This is really exciting.
Speaker 1:Well, I think for the raving fans, and you have many yeah being able to be part of that, you know experience, being able to work the product team and, yeah, help, influence and and shape is exciting yeah, they love they.
Speaker 2:Well, they seem to love it you know, they get. They're like oh, I really like this. Well, you also you you.
Speaker 1:You also get all the non-verbal cues. You know how people are physically. You know you can tell a lot by observing you really users actually utilizing the product.
Speaker 2:So yeah, yeah, if you can see, they're like trying to click around trying to find things and you can ask them. You're like can I ask what you were trying to do here, which, um, when you use tools like hot jar that do screen recordings, you can't ask that because it's you know, you just can see them moving back and you make an assumption right, you you're not hearing the thought process. No, so it's, it's great, it's really great. Yeah, that's really interesting they.
Speaker 1:They are really fun. Yeah, and keep the customer very front and center in the mindset of the product teams and everybody who's working in the business. Yeah, and obviously we've touched on data loads, but obviously the capability that now exists when it comes to data platforms, um, it is very different to what it was a few years ago, and the tools and the insights it gives, yes, um, how, how do you think having that level of sophistication when it comes to data has changed the nature of loyalty programs?
Speaker 2:I was having a good think about this one um and I think it's loyalty's been on a really interesting journey. Um, particularly since the pandemic um, loyalty now needs to work really hard. I think. If we think about you know the original loyalty programs of 10 years ago. You had a physical card when you shopped scan, and I can't recall using my points on those, but probably did. But now a lot of companies have loyalty programs, huge numbers of companies have loyalty programs in some way, shape or form. So it's those programs have to work really hard to get someone to invest in theirs and data has become really key in trying to shape that and try and grab that.
Speaker 2:So things like personalization are now so powerful. Customers want it to feel tailored to them, because so many companies do it well, right. So when you, you come across something that looks a bit generic and I am, so data is key there. What do customers want? What does this customer want? And that that capability is now there to be able to drive those experiences and really attract and retain those customers, which is really cool. Um, and data and tech, I guess overall they people want it to be easy. You know if it's an effort. No, you know, because you can go somewhere else. Yeah, well, one, we're all very time poor and two, you've got a million other ones to choose from. You know, whatever your sector you don't like the loyalty program, you don't feel like you're getting anything out of it are the one that will. So data helps us hugely with that, with that increasing customer demand, that demand for excellence and value in your loyalty program.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's really interesting and I think, having that curation based on the data that you have on me as a consumer, yeah you're doing the heavy lifting in curating on my behalf.
Speaker 2:I think it's all about ease now in any way, shape or form. Like you say, it's, it's the making sure what you see is relevant to you when you decide to engage, whether you know, in the case of avios, whether you're collecting or whether you're spending, that it's easy, it's accessible all the time. You know you don't have to go, you know you don't have to sit down at your laptop for two hours trying to figure it out or whatever, and you can do it on the go. You know customers, people demand that from their tech now, um, so, yeah, it's, it's so critical that we we continue that focus on the customer, you know, put ourselves in their shoes.
Speaker 2:What would I want? I certainly want, we want a clunky experience that made this really difficult for me to do. Just won't do it anymore. Yeah, so we, we have to lean into that massively, um, even if it feels a bit oh gosh, there's an awful lot here. Where on earth do we start? But as a business, that's how we you know how we're going to retain people, how we're going to engage them and keep growing the Avios fans.
Speaker 1:As you say, in an ever competitive market when it comes to getting consumer buy-in, um, and I you know we're talking um about data being data driven. There is something in there and I think when we first caught up, we touched on this, in that, you know, you get a lot of insight out of your data, um, but but you, you also need to, at the same time, yes, be data driven, but there is an element of blue sky thinking that you might miss if you become, yes, solely data driven.
Speaker 1:So, when it comes to real creativity and innovation, how do you manage getting the balance between those?
Speaker 2:things. It's a really good question because, like you say, if you you know, creativity, innovation is great and should be encouraged all the time. Right there's. There's a few things we've done over the years to make sure that we we keep that um. You know, on the sort of the day-to-day, a lot of stuff does start with data, but how we utilize that, what do we do with that. That can get really creative for the team. Um, we have.
Speaker 2:We have great fun me going like okay, I'm seeing this, I've got this hypothesis. Guys, what do you think we should do? I'm open to all suggestions here. So there's that part, um, where, okay, yes, you start data-driven decision, but the flights, hotels, etc. So we all got together and spent a day ideating. Well, we did it beforehand. Actually, we came up with some ideas beforehand, but we deliberately didn't put any data in to that one. We gave a few areas of focus, like there was some travel trends stuff, there was some how to enhance tech things like that, but no data underneath it as to what's happening now. It's like guys, come up with some ideas. My goodness, we have 50 ideas submitted for that one. So those opportunities were just like what you know what do you create that space almost for people?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah not to be, like, solely focused on the data, but be able to really yeah, just like guys think freely around the space. What do you?
Speaker 2:think you work on it yeah how, you know, what would you do with it? And it does come up with some really interesting ideas and we've had, you know, some of them.
Speaker 1:Um well, some of them were released last year, so yeah, it works um, and we'd be remiss getting through a podcast talking about digital transformation without mentioning um ai yes, of course, and uh, you know, cutting through and there is a lot of hype, but cutting through all through all the hype when, particularly in your space, where you're talking about vast amounts of data, ai has been, you know, a big consideration for you.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:Do you have any kind of recent examples where it's been like a use case, where it's been really helpful in helping to solve a challenge, a challenge?
Speaker 2:yeah, it's just, it's a smallish one, but it was really valuable. So, um, actually happened a couple of weekends ago. Um, so, in reward flights, because the the seats that are available are limited. It's valuable, you know, as data. People want to find the seats, so sometimes that does result in people trying to get access to to that information and we're very good at spotting that and we know how to block it. You know it's. It's not a new problem for us.
Speaker 2:However, after one of these incidents, the guys came to me. They're like there's, we'd really like to try this. We've seen an ai anomaly detector. Um, that watches the traffic and the patterns and it will tell us if it thinks it's seeing something dodgy. Like guys give it a go, like you know better than us trying to figure out whether we're seeing something by human eye and see and see what ai does. 40 hours later it picks something up over the weekend. It was brilliant. Yeah, you know um, and it's, it's, I think um.
Speaker 2:What I found really fascinating about ai is obviously when people think I either think chat, tbt, etc. Etc. But actually these little smaller use cases where it can help you analyze data, an event, something and and you know, and accelerate that conclusion and just say we're seeing this spot the pattern, spot the pattern and train it right, you know, and learn from it. And it's, it was. I loved it, it was. I was so felt like a real win. It was such a real win, you know, and on something in theory so small. Um. So, you know, the team and I are are looking at those opportunities as well as customer facing ones.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so how do you? What's your kind of you know? Because there is you know in tech there is such a propensity for you know organizations saying we've got to do something.
Speaker 2:Yes, it is a buzzword.
Speaker 1:Yes, what are we doing with AI?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Like how do you safeguard that it's actually really adding value for you?
Speaker 2:So it's a really interesting question. We're just starting our AI journey. So it's a really interesting question. We're just starting our ai journey. Um, and that was one of the first questions I asked I was like how do we make sure we're not just chucking it in because it's the shiny new kid? Um, and the way we're sort of going about it is the. Okay, we've identified a.
Speaker 2:Where is ai going to help us? Is it on build time, you know? Is it on human time, as in someone's not sitting there analyzing data? Is it going to help us do something better for the customer? It's got to be a. What is it doing? What benefit would it give us over the, the normal approach? If you will and sometimes it doesn't right it, it will. It doesn't give us exactly what we need or it makes it a bit more confusing, or it's a high risk of things like hallucinations and things like that. But actually, if you sort of, if you do that whole like what, what's the additional benefit it will give? Or does it do something different or better that we would like to try, then try it right, but if it doesn't, no, let's just not chuck in a chat, because that's what everyone's doing yeah, so it.
Speaker 1:It probably just comes back to your philosophy and your approach to innovation yeah is, you know, being able to experiment with it literally and really demonstrate whether it does or doesn't add value. But but I agree with you across the the array of those domains that you've called out, yeah, um, yeah, and we're we're trying it everywhere, like we're starting to look at it everywhere.
Speaker 2:There's the you know the working of the team itself, their day day job and how it helps them, and um, we're using it to analyze um like search behavior. Um was just starting that piece of the you.
Speaker 2:Obviously we can see what people are searching for when they're looking for a fly and that's great, but is there any interesting trends or patterns which, if you think about it, you know a data scientist that may take a while to spot, to spot and to generate those insights and having ai to be like. Well, this is what ai is saying and as, and it doesn't necessarily need to be gospel, as well I think that's a really important point to remember that just because ai is saying something, let's not immediately assume that is the gold standard and that's what we have to do.
Speaker 2:It's the? Does it make sense? Do we want to validate this another way, just to be sure, before we go ahead? You know, I think it's, um, I think it's got the potential to be really powerful, but I think, um, there has to be a lot of thought, um about what's it, what's it, what's the benefit it's giving, is it helping or is it hindering? Um, rather than just doing it as a thing we have, to do because it's shiny.
Speaker 1:Now, if you take the search kind of area that you're experimenting in, how, like? If you're comfortable to explain, yeah you know, like what is the use case from a search perspective?
Speaker 2:so it's um. I love this one. I was talking about it yesterday um. So we have lots of data about what people book and that's great and really useful and valuable to us. But when you're dealing with reward flights, where it's limited availability, you know there's only um 12 to 14 seats per per plane, depending on plane. We don't know whether that's what the customer actually wanted, actually wanted you know, the, the.
Speaker 2:We've not really had the capability to look into that in detail up until now and I'm really excited about it because when you're looking at, okay, customers are booking these destinations, these dates, great. But actually the search data is showing us something really different. Um, you know, they're searching for all these different things and you can start to drive some really interesting insight off that it's, it's the. Are people really fixated on a date or a destination and that's what they're trying to do, or are they browsing a lot more? And therefore, if you try to suggest something to them, they'd be really open to it. And you know where are the areas of high demand, because we're using booking data for that, quite rightly at the moment.
Speaker 2:But actually, if you go back to search data to show you where the real demand is, something else so it it's really going to help us in my team in flight on what we do next, because if we can see that customers are looking for something fundamentally different, or, for example, you're seeing a customer, they search London first and then they do Paris and then they do Rome. You're like city breaks. You know, is's my assumption, they're looking for a city break and you can start to drive some really interesting patterns and then it goes into the personalization piece of here's some natural groupings that we're seeing our customers searching for, like they're they're going around all the islands of the Caribbean trying to find a flight in the Caribbean.
Speaker 2:So, you know, group that or do something with that, and I'm hoping it'll be really powerful data to the business. Um, overall, just with how we help our customers, how we put stuff in front of them, what's you know? How do we help them get who spends their spends, their avios? How do we make it easy and enjoyable for them?
Speaker 1:so, yeah, really, looking forward to that. No, that's really exciting because I suppose, when it comes to the personalization, yeah, that search data will give you some tremendously valuable yeah, insights.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they'll say look at, you know, look at the companies that are doing it. You know, do it. Well, right, netflix, amazon, amazon you know, know?
Speaker 1:and customer expectation and demand as a result of those experiences is tremendously elevated, isn't it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's part of it, as you know, about people expecting loyalty programs to really look after them, rather than the other way around, because we're surrounded by these companies that do this very, very well, and if you can't keep up it, you just yeah, it raises the bar. It does raise the bar, but that's okay. We're up for a challenge.
Speaker 1:We're happy with that and you know, in, in, in, all of the work that you do and you've spoken about it in the context of your broadcast, part of your career yeah also within um iag loyalty.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the the collaboration across departments functions, teams being really critical, and I think you know you've we've spoken about the fact you've worked in really high pressure environments. Um. You lead teams, um you've been part of growing out the product team. How do you keep your team aligned and motivated, um, when the stakes are high? Because, at the end of the day you are doing, you know it is a well-loved and known brand, um, but if you get it wrong and it goes out to a mass market, the stakes are high, right yeah, it's not ideal, um, so my team we've.
Speaker 2:Last year we had probably one of the biggest years we've ever had in terms of high pressured, critical deadlines. Um, uh, last year we we launched a flight setting platform with Aer Lingus and did some things in avioscom, so we had, I literally bounced my team from horrible deadline to horrible deadline for a whole year and they've just about forgiven me. But particularly when it's a big um initiative, therefore more complex, whether you like it or not, it's really easy for myself and for the team to just get a bit overwhelmed with everything that's going on and the noise, right, you know, the bigger and the higher the stakes, the more people like to get involved, right? So, with my team, obviously, what we try and do is what I try and do is say, for example, my development team, try and keep them away from the noise. You know is one thing, um, I'm a little bit of myself and other members of the team a little bit of a filter to make sure that that team can crack on and my team have what we're trying to achieve and the guardrails around it and that's it. Lads, you know that's. Don't worry about anything else. We will tell you. You know we will update you, but don't worry about everything. They want to focus on getting the delivery done, the development done, and that's that's that's key for them.
Speaker 2:Communication to your point is absolutely key. Obviously you've got a development team absolutely working themselves into the ground sorry guys, um. And obviously people want to know what they're doing. They want to know, you know, is it done yet? Can we have an update? And so on and so forth. So the role, like the leadership role we you know I play and others plays is being that that face right. So managing people's expectations, keeping the sort of the panic down for everyone else. We're like this is what's happening. These are, you know, the the, the challenges we're experiencing, but this is how we're going to deal with them. You know we're on track or we're not on track, you know, but but the communication is really key. When you go radio silent, that's when everyone panics. It just makes it exponentially worse. So I think those are the two bits communicateicate out, but keep the team focused on the goal. Even if you're dealing with 12 things, they don't need to know about the 12 things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, love it, thank you. And I suppose leadership and your own personal style of leadership, leadership evolves over time and I think you you know over generations what represents great leadership is very different. Um, I have some interesting conversations with my dad, who's 81 around leadership and and just you know just the differences, right and I I. I also know you are an alumnus of the and we Lead program. I am, which I hope you enjoyed.
Speaker 2:I did.
Speaker 1:What's one lesson from the program that stuck with you personally?
Speaker 2:There's quite a few, which is great. You know, I really got a lot out of that program. Can I have?
Speaker 1:two.
Speaker 2:Yeah, of course, program. Can I have two? Yeah, of course, um. The first one um was very much the the importance of stakeholder management and considered stakeholder management um part of the obviously leadership program.
Speaker 2:You get um a little bit of coaching and I remember having a having a discussion with Nick, who was who was coaching me, and just a bit, like Nick, like I've got varying levels of information. How do you know, how do I structure this, how do I make it appropriate, and I don't want to do a meeting with 50 people. You know how do I do this and it really helped me and he helped me, like you know, with some tips on how to do like big stakeholder maps and kind of the information and who needs to do something off that information, who just needs to be involved. A bit of a reset of my skills, to be honest, because I was it's it's something I know, but I'd hit a bit of a mental block and he was like take a breath and go back to basics and start this again and and that whole how to manage a huge number of people with different needs. You know the team need to know, you know my team need to know certain amounts of information, but I'm talking to data and they need to know something else and my, my manager, needs to know something else and just how to tailor that appropriately. So it was really brilliant for that.
Speaker 2:And the other bit was don't afraid to be vulnerable. I loved that. There was a great moment where one of my, my fellow fellow managers in the course started talking about imposter syndrome. You know she's brilliant at what she does. You would never tell she suffered from imposter syndrome. Um, and all of us were like me too, and just that, that vulnerable, that vulnerable moment where the the eight of us, nine of us who you know were in leadership positions managing, you know, complex teams, having to be like this very confident face who knew what they were talking about all the time. Just having this lovely vulnerable moment all together, a bit like it's okay that we don't sometimes know what the heck we're doing.
Speaker 1:Yeah it's really interesting. And you know, when you talk about innovation and vulnerability, um, you know the kind of if, if you, if you're able to be authentic and be vulnerable, yeah, in that kind of setting, and it kind of humanizes the workplace, doesn't it?
Speaker 2:yeah, I had some really lovely feedback from my team, um a little while ago because, um, you know, just asking them like it's been a big year, guys, how did it go? What could I have done better? You know, 2025 is also going to be quite busy and a few of them said which is you say it was lovely? Was we love? How honest and vulnerable you are with us. You're quite comfortable telling us if you don't know what the heck you're doing or you don't know, and I I loved that because it's always you always feel a bit as a leader. You're like should I be doing this? Should I be saying I have got no idea what to do? I'm going to figure it out but I don't know it is the honest truth, right, and they were.
Speaker 2:They were very honest with me about it.
Speaker 1:They were like would rather you did that you know, but I suppose it up and it gives other people permission when they are feeling like that in your team. Yeah, to also take that approach and share that definitely, which often, I think for a lot of people you know, including myself, it takes the heat out of it.
Speaker 2:It does if we're a bit like we're in this together there's no, I don't like hierarchy anyway, but it takes the hierarchy out of it just like right. Everyone's saying they don't know what the heck we're going to do. Let's work it out together, don't panic everyone. It's it's really nice and it's it's meant. I've got a lovely relationship with my team. I hope they agree with me. But, um, you know it's I'm sure they do. And yeah, where we can be that honest with us, where they can tell me I don't know this, whether we can do this, okay, let's talk it out, and vice versa. So it I think it's a really mutually beneficial. It's a really important part of being a leader, because actually you get a lot out of being vulnerable. Yeah, you actually get, um, some really interesting next steps, results, etc. When you're saying I'm not going to tell you the answer because I don't know the answer, can you help me work out the answer and then you get insights and and opinions from the team.
Speaker 2:You know from members of the team that you just don't, you wouldn't see you otherwise because I'm not a developer, you know? Or, um, I don't, you know, don't work day to day with the backlog anymore, and they're like, oh, we've, you know what about this?
Speaker 1:like that's great you know, so it's, it's, it's really important yeah, and I like your your point around meaningful stakeholder engagement because you know particularly when's it's it's really important. Yeah, and I like your your point around meaningful stakeholder engagement because you know, particularly when there's a lot of change involved as a result of the product. Yes, work that you're driving yeah I think, if your stakeholder engagement is really meaningful, yes, and tailored as an approach, the kind of change off the back of that yeah it is much easier, isn't it?
Speaker 2:yeah, since the, since the um, the leadership course with our digital, I've been putting that all into practice and just seeing the results from that. Just the the like you say, the more meaningful conversations, rather than just a broadcast of what I'm up to like because I have to update. Yeah, people which may not people like listen in one ear, potentially out the other, it doesn't. It's not engaging. But actually, if you're going with the, okay, this is your, your tailored version of my stakeholder management.
Speaker 1:You can have a meaningful conversation, you can actually come up with a plan and, yeah, definitely seeing the benefits from that well, I really appreciate you sharing that and you you know, with so much constant change in tech in your sector, in the space of loyalty, how do you help probably for yourself and for your teams stay focused on the right priorities stay focused on the right priorities?
Speaker 2:that's a really good question, because we are quite vulnerable to change in my product um, because there's a lot going on in the flight world. There's a million different things you can do. We um, we make sure that we. So obviously, every year I have um, the, the kpis I need to deliver against, and that's absolutely fine. You know that ladder up into the business overall goals for the year.
Speaker 2:But then when I sit down with the team, we sit down every quarter and I'll be like okay, guys, for this quarter, you know here's, here's our, here's our KPIs, here's some, here's his three OKRs that I've set for the quarter. This is why this is the data behind it, or the business behind it, because some of it has to be business-driven, not just data-driven, obviously. And then we sit down and we work out how we're going to achieve that together, because I'm not going to tell them how we're going to achieve that, because they're'm not going to tell them how they're gonna do. You know how we're gonna achieve that because they're gonna have to build it. So I want them to be invested in it and it to make sense. They need to get the why and and therefore engage in it, right so? So we do that exercise together. So, for example, one of mine this quarter is understand what customers want when they're looking for a flight. Have some insights by the end of this quarter of what customers want when they're looking for a flight. So we, we all get together and we're just like okay, guys, let's just brainstorm this one out.
Speaker 2:What do you think we could do with the, with the tech we've got you know, with, with the data we've got, with the access to these teams we've got?
Speaker 2:What could we do, you know, generate ideas or vote on it, come up with a few that we're gonna like, three or four that we're gonna attempt to achieve in the quarter, and then everyone knows why we're doing it and everyone can see that everything that they're focused on is leading into this and it helps us with things that aren't leading into this, you know. So if anything comes in and people are like, oh, can you do this, like can you come back? Unless it's unless it's obviously critical, sometimes you do have to drop and do stuff, but it just keeps us focused on the common goal and stops the team going off on a bit of a tangent, because when, at the end of the day, it comes back a bit like does it help us understand this? Or you know any of the other okrs? Like no, we're like okay, let's have a chat as to why you think we should do it, or we're going to park it. Yeah, because actually no, we've gone off on a bit of a tangent it's not a priority.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I found it really helps us, you know, and keeping it in the quarters right because it shifts so quickly. If I set that for the year, yeah, I'm going to burn them down to the ground at some point and start again, but every quarter I like to hope it wouldn't go too dramatically different in a quarter, and we can, and it's small, achievable. Smaller achievable goals keeps the team motivated. You know they're like yeah, we can see what we've done here and this is the outcome in a very short period of time, which is great and and they're really enjoying. Obviously we've come off the back of a massive year, you know, year plus. So moving into this world where we can see nice, tangible outputs every quarter lovely.
Speaker 1:We're all enjoying that massively and I suppose it's taking your product mindset and applying that to your way of leading the team and how you keep everyone on point and accountable and aligned. Yeah, yeah, Just the you know guys, on, on point and accountable and and aligned.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, just the this. You know, guys, come on, this is what we're trying to achieve. Are we sure what you're doing matches this? Yeah, and if it doesn't?
Speaker 1:well, very logical. Oh so yes, it is um, and you know we, we might have people, um, who will be watching or listening, who are entering product or loyalty management without any formal training. What skills or traits would you call out as being maybe two or three key ones that everybody should be aware of?
Speaker 2:It's really interesting because it can be really intimidating. I remember when I started and obviously there's buzzwords flipping everywhere, you know Kanban, scrum, all sorts and I'm like I don't know what the heck I'm doing. And people are trained in how to do these, but I think the sort of the skills that carried me through that is the whole. What do I want to call it? Not being so stressed about the core skills. In the end of the day, product is an agile is developing something quickly with the customer in mind. How you achieve that, it's okay, it doesn't matter if we're not all doing it the same. So that kind of open-mindedness, that whole, you know, accepting that there's about 12 different ways probably a lot more to do this and you just need to work what works for you. So you need to be really comfortable with being uncomfortable.
Speaker 2:I think in the beginning, because there's a lot of buzzwords and a lot of processes that people can and do use. So, yeah, resilience maybe is probably a better word to be uncomfortable in walking into that space where you don't feel like you've got training to back you up. You've got to be ready to learn in that result as well. So you've got to be engaged and learn in that result as well. So you've got to be engaged and passionate about what you're doing. Um, and a really healthy interest in understanding something at a high level. You know, being being interested in what you're doing, I think. I think is is really key. Um, I think you know, if you don't know anything about your product, how can you do anything that you don't need to know? That you know, necessarily, every single detail behind it.
Speaker 1:But if you are there to learn and you're like, yes, I'm, I'm there to learn about my product and how my team work and we know what we're going to try and achieve, how we get there, I'm gonna have to figure this one out, but I think it's a really important point in terms of do it in a space where you're actually you, you do really care about the outcome that you're delivering and you, you have a personal interest and passion in the product and the area that you're working in I think so, um that's my, you know no I mean I, I totally would be aligned to that, because I think I struggle to get out of bed every morning.
Speaker 2:You gotta if I do feel you gotta love what you do. You may not love it every day, don't get me wrong, but you know there's an. I do feel you need to be invested and interested in what you do. Like I came over to ig loyalty because I love to travel, I was already a member of avios. I'd already had a great time spending avios. I was like I would like to. Yeah, you know I'm clearly intrigued by this program, so I'd like to come and and work for them and see how that goes.
Speaker 2:So I do feel you know you've got to be engaged in something, whether it's the product itself, you know. So for me it's the product itself. You know I love what I do. Or the you know you're engaged in taking like a big complex. You love taking a big complex problem and making. You know you're passionate about breaking that down. Or you love developing a team. There's got to be something, because you've got to, you've got to own and drive this thing and no one's going to tell you what you should be doing next with it. Well, they can, but that's not the whole point of the product.
Speaker 2:Less fun, right you know, and it's not really the point of the product. The product owner's meant to be saying you know, it's all good sort of driving the direction a bit, so you've got to have a passion there and, like you say, you've got to want to get out of bed in the morning. Right, it's, it's a very long time to be working if you're not loving it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I, um, I'm fully aligned and and um, as digital continues to accelerate, we've touched on ai. What? What excites you about the future of loyalty programs?
Speaker 2:um, well, there's a few bits there. So the personalization element that's becoming so powerful really fascinates me, because we want people in our loyalty programs, every loyalty program wants people in their loyalty programs and getting value out of it and coming back and developing that deep connection with the brand and I think personalization and potentially the role AI plays in that is going to be so exciting to see. It can be quite clunky it has been quite clunky in the past, right, taking a data set and doing something quite static with it potentially. But now we're in this really dynamic space where we can tailor experiences for you and not just for you every day, you depending on what you're doing at that moment in time.
Speaker 2:I've had a really interesting um discussion previously about my travel behavior and actually, if you look at me, you know my demographic 40s. You know it was a milestone. I'm not sure how I felt about it. Um, you know, but you know, living, living in the southeast, etc. So on paper this is. You know my demographic is x, but how I travel doesn't match up to it. Sometimes it doesn't, sometimes it doesn't, but sometimes I travel for work and then sometimes I take my kids on the, on the all-inclusive, and then sometimes I go on a girly holiday with my friends and then sometimes I travel on my own. You're multifaceted, I am multifaceted, as are we. All right, and putting you into a bucket based on your sort of absolutes, I don't I, I works to a degree.
Speaker 2:It is a no, that's a great word for it. It is an oversimplification because, particularly something like travel, you don't. You know you don't always go on the same holiday and you shouldn't. You know, if you don't, you know you don't always go on the same holiday and you shouldn't. You know, if you don't want to, you shouldn't have to. You know you can, you should be. You know people are open to budget travel and they're open to high-end travel and they're open to long haul short haul and beach breaks and city breaks and all sorts, you know.
Speaker 2:So that ability to react to how the customer is behaving in the moment, rather than just a flat response. Really looking forward to that, I think that's that's that's really exciting and because I, you know, I look at myself, I'm like I would love that. You know, you can see that I'm searching for single traveler, so bring me stuff that you think I'm gonna love yeah and I think you're right in that.
Speaker 1:We've spoken about personalization for a very long time. Yes, because I think as humans, we all. It resonates as a of course, as a concept um, and the tech, the tooling, um, hasn't really been able to deliver to it until recently now yeah, yeah, so. I think I agree. It's going to be really exciting to see what companies such as yours um yeah do to bring the consumer closer to experiences that they otherwise wouldn't have been aware of or considered and that's the thing, that's what we're trying to do, right?
Speaker 2:you know it's. You may start with an idea in mind, but wouldn't it be amazing? Be like well, we can see you're starting to look at this. Have you thought about this? And open up a? An amazing thing you'd never, you never would have thought of, because obviously, the world is vast and there are many, many things you can do, like where to start with, where you're going to go. If we can help simplify that down and provide a relevant you know relevant ideas to spark, you know, engagement, you go off and you have an amazing holiday to somewhere you didn't really know about before. Isn't that a great experience? You know you're like avios. Told me I could go here. I went and it was great.
Speaker 2:You know. So it's, it's, I think it's. You know avios and and and other loyalty programs. There's huge opportunity there. Potentially a bit scary about how much you know, we'll know about people, but I think it's the value exchange.
Speaker 1:Is there right? If the value exchange is there, yeah, well for a lot of consumers they don't oh, value is so important.
Speaker 2:It comes up over and over again in our research. You know, I want to feel like I'm getting value and it it could be monetary value, but a lot of the time it's nothing to do with monetary value, it's the. I feel like I've got something I want out of this.
Speaker 1:You understand me as a consumer. Yeah, and it was high value to me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, which could be?
Speaker 1:anything, yeah right, no, that's really interesting and we've touched on travel yes and uh. So we I'm really interested in in understand and you work in the space um, what is your favorite travel destination that you've been to today? And I'm really keen to know that, any hot locations that you are going to be visiting in the future.
Speaker 2:You've got me on one of my favorite topics, um, so, uh, I would say my trip to Japan last year. Um, a lot of people have been going to Japan recently. There's a very good reason for it, because it's really good um, I went. I went last august terrible time of year to go, very hot, oh, it was so hot. But I I had a um, a um an opportunity where my parents took the kids away on holiday for a week and I was like I think I'm going to jump on a plane and go somewhere. Very lucky, I do.
Speaker 2:Loyalty does spectacular travel, travel benefits, which which allows these sorts of things to happen. Um, alongside, you know, using my avios. And I went, and I went on my own and I had some plans, but I walked 60 kilometers in three days and had the best time. Um beautiful place. Um, so highly recommend, if anyone, if you get to go, because it's great.
Speaker 2:Um, what we're doing next? So, um, I have this tradition with my group of friends, um, that whenever any one of us hits 40, we go away. It's my turn. It was my turn last year. Love it. Um. So we went to rio, rio de janeiro, which was fantastic. Um, this year it's it's one of my friends and she um set me some criteria. I I got to do some personalization on her, basically. So I was like Kate, just tell me, you know just where's your, where's your guidelines. And I came back with her some recommendations and we're going to Cappadocia in Turkey. Oh wow, um, this year, um, which I'm really excited about. Um never been to Turkey, but it looks, it looks astonishing. So we're gonna go do that. Uh, where else? I will definitely go somewhere else yeah um, but there is always somewhere.
Speaker 1:Yeah, really exciting, and I'm sure your friends really love having somebody who's very specialized and come up with, uh, really highly personalized recommendations on travel destinations.
Speaker 2:They also loved the avios element because these flights I used my avios as my birthday present to her and you know, maximize everything I know about the currency and and got those flights for very, a very good, good price. You got a good deal. I got a good deal, um, but you know because, um, you know, if I know, if you know where to look, there's some great stuff in there. So we're like, right, we're going.
Speaker 1:I see like uh Liz's tips and hints on getting the best out of your.
Speaker 2:uh, yes, yes, I have been hit up for that before I can imagine.
Speaker 1:Dinner party conversations. I am sure yes, and you know us well at Anne Digital I do, and you know we love our Anne titles.
Speaker 2:I know.
Speaker 1:You know a little bit about ourselves and our professional lives. We all have normal job titles, but our Anne titles denote something about our personal lives, so it speaks to us bring our whole selves to work. Yeah, um, if you had an and title, what would it be and why?
Speaker 2:I don't think this one's going to be a shock, really, but it would be. And travel agent. Um, now, the reason why I say this is you probably gathered from me going on about the various trips I've been taking. Like I'm, I love organizing this stuff for people and and organizing where to go and how to do it.
Speaker 1:Well, oh, liz, you sound like the perfect friend.
Speaker 2:I knew they were friends for a reason, but no, it's um, it's such a passion. It's such a passion of mine. I love traveling, which is great, considering where I work and and how to do it in a way that feels great, you know, and Avios, I find, is such a such a key part of that for me, just like you're having this experience and you haven't actually paid that much for it, and this loyalty program you're part of has unlocked this experience for you. So, yes, I am the designated it's a very natural and title yes, travel agent.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's so lovely.
Speaker 1:I mean I think you, um, you speak so passionately and eloquently around kind of your role, but how you epitomize what it can mean when you find you know those common areas between the discipline you love working in things you love doing in in your life and and the power of bringing those things together yeah, no, I love it.
Speaker 2:I'm very lucky. I'm very lucky where I sit and what I do. It allows me to merge both sides of my life well, all the job.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's amazing and it's been so lovely to get to know you a bit better. I know a lot of our team work closely with you and the iag loyalty team, but it's really lovely to spend time with you, thank you so? Much. Um, that is everything for this edition of the good, the bad and the ugly of digital transformation. Um, if you have enjoyed um our podcast today, please do remember to follow and subscribe so you'll always know when there is a new episode out to enjoy.
