Jen LaForge 0:00

Welcome to Stacked. I'm Jen LaForge. This is a show about how real people and real brands are stretching value in today's economy. Not theory, not generic money advice. We're getting into how rewards, loyalty, partnerships, and digital tools actually work and how they're being used in real life. Let's jump in. Today's guest is Elizabeth McNeil, Director of Marketing for Travel Co-Brand, Business and Commercial Cards at RBC. She spent her career building and scaling some of Canada's most recognized loyalty programs, including Scene Plus across grocery retail, travel, and partnerships. Alyssa, thank you for chatting today. I've been really excited for this conversation. You've had such a colorful career. You've worked across travel, retail, grocery. Given that, what would you say that most people miss about value that loyalty just doesn't pick up on?

Elizabeth McNeil 0:56

I love this question because I think it enables me to do one of my favorite things, which is talk about the philosophy of value. And the idea that I think it's it's quite a recent thing in human history that the idea that we decided like these cowrie shells or that these pieces of paper had a value that we assigned to them. That, you know, if you go back into history, it's more about barter systems. It's more about individual people assigning value to what they believe in. And so you like when we think about the concept of value, we have both inferred value as well as like actual real value. Um we talk, as I think travel does this very, very well of talking about like value that people assign to things that doesn't necessarily have a dollar value. So things like, you know, you have a dedicated phone line. That's something that like you can't actually put a price on. But when you need that, when you actually have that available to you, and then maybe that gets taken away, like you will miss that for the rest of forever. So I think that that's always something that I think people tend to forget that people assign value to things based on where they're at in their stage of life and how they're approaching a particular problem.

Jen LaForge 1:59

Perfect. So that's that's your perspective deep within it. If we were to zoom out, what would you say the average consumer, how would they define value today?

Elizabeth McNeil 2:09

I don't know if there's one definition though. I think that that's like the interesting thing. Like there's there's definitely a group of consumers that, you know, dollars are still key. You know, we're we know we're living in a K-shaped economy. So there's people who absolutely value is defined by the individual dollars that they're getting. And there's people who, you know, the the value is about something that they actually can't buy. You know, the idea of the priceless experience, the idea of getting ahead in line, the fact, the idea of the lounge, the idea of being able to have an experience that nobody else can have. And you know, you think about like the Taylor Swift tickets, the people were willing to spend exorbitant amounts of money to say that they'd been somewhere, to say that they'd been front-row center. But then you've got other people who are looking at it going, I am never going to pay that amount of money. And I think that that's the challenge is that there's not one customer definition anymore that unites everyone. And I think that's also what loyalty programs are grappling with.

Jen LaForge 3:00

Yeah, very fair. Very fair. Thank you. So then as someone who's built these monstrous loyalty programs and been part of that, um speaking of things breaking, what are some of the the biggest problems running and operating and building these massive loyalty programs and and what should consumers know about how things break?

Elizabeth McNeil 3:22

I mean, I think when you think about things breaking, I mean, I I think it's always a classic. Like, you know, when you go to the performance and the the performer knows what's happening behind the scenes. They know every single thing. The customer doesn't see that. They don't know the notes, they don't see the music in the background. They are just expecting it to show up every single time. And I think when we talk about like things breaking, I guess one of the things that I always love to go to immediately that I think brands and and companies often think about when things are breaking is the idea of the call center, right? That you know you sort of end up in this unhappy path because something has gone wrong, you're calling the call center. And I always think personally that we need to think about the call center as part of the entire marketing flow. Because if you are a good customer of any brand, if you are using a brand enough, if you are using a service enough, you're going to end up at the call center. It's not necessarily because you've had a problem. It just that's the natural part of life. And I, some of the brands that I love the absolute most are because I've had an incredible conversation throughout the call center, or I've had an incredible experience with a call center agent. And so, you know, I I think mistakes are like we talk about mistakes, we talk about points of failure, but I think the best brands understand that even friction points and points of failure can be a way to bring someone back into your ecosystem if done right.

Jen LaForge 4:37

Fantastic. Now, speaking of things breaking and that ecosystem, coalition partnerships is big in loyalty. And you know, obviously more things for for things to break. But aside from that, um, what does a true partnership look like in the loyalty space in reality versus on paper? What are your thoughts on that? I was asked this question, so let's let's see how aligned we are.

Elizabeth McNeil 5:02

Yeah. I mean, I think it often is about what two different brands can bring that neither one of them can could do on their own, right? So I actually gave a talk recently about co-prands and the concept of co-brands. And I was explaining that a co-brand is like a chimera, and a chimera for maybe some of your viewers who are not as in into Greek mythology as I am, is a multi-headed beast, right? So you've got the head of a lion and you've got the head and sort of mid-quarters of a goat, and you've also got a snake on the tail. And the idea that you can achieve way more together as a co-brand team than any one of those individual animals could do on their own because they're each bringing their own skills and abilities and customer bases to that partnership. That's the best type of partnership.

Jen LaForge 5:46

Love that. Very different response. So that's why we're we're good together. Okay. Um we'll break that down later.

Elizabeth McNeil 5:51

I was gonna say I want to know what your response is because I think I would be interested. Yeah.

Jen LaForge 5:55

And it it marries very well with yours, I think.

Elizabeth McNeil 5:58

No surprise there. No surprise there.

Jen LaForge 5:59

Right. So so two different partnerships um in a coalition, there's scaling on both sides. Yeah. Um, I know one thing that you love talking about is clean scale. So let's talk a little bit about how you can scale loyalty programs cleanly, in particular with partnership.

Elizabeth McNeil 6:18

I mean, like when we talk about scaling, are we talking about like getting more members? Are we talking about overhauling your data? Like, I think there's so many ways to talk about scale.

Jen LaForge 6:25

Let's focus on growing a program and leave some of the the technical back-end pieces out of it. Like, how do you make um, for example, you're recently working uh for a loyalty program that is competing against some of the biggest loyalty programs in Canada. Obviously, you want to scale and compete. Um, let's focus on that lens. Yeah.

Elizabeth McNeil 6:45

I mean, I think and the reason I ask is because I think there's there's multiple different ways to define scale. Bigger is not always better, right? Like you can have so, so many members, you can have so many touch points, but you know, Canadians are infamous for being members of more loyalty programs than other any other country. We are we are unique in this space. And so it's not just quite enough to have someone join the program, because realistically, everyone joins every program. You go to the cashier, they're like, oh, you're gonna, you know, give me your email and get 10% off. That's a loyalty program. It's a certain type of loyalty program. To me, scaling is is really about how do you actually double down on the members that you have and how do you make sure that you're thinking about those people, where they are at in the journey, how you can make things even more impactful for them, how can you add more value to their life? How you can you give them things that they actually maybe don't even know that they want yet? That's the always the you know the infamous Henry Ford adage, rather than just scaling and growing and growing and getting bigger just for the sake of getting bigger.

Jen LaForge 7:40

So I think I'm gonna go off track a bit here because you've got me thinking all over. Two questions. The first one, I really want to can you share maybe with the audience from like a brand's perspective on why have a loyalty program? What are the benefits to to the brand, the retailer, the company of having a loyalty program? What are they looking for? And why would someone in your position want to double down on the value versus the size and scale?

Elizabeth McNeil 8:06

I mean, I think that there's so many reasons to have a loyalty program. And it really depends on what your your brand goal is, right? Like one of the things an old mentor of mine, we have this ongoing debate of if Duolingo is a loyalty program or not. Because like in so many ways it is, right? It has an incredible UX system, it gives you points, it lets you talk to your friends, it gives you streaks, like all of these things. And I'm like, by the traditional like values and the traditional definitions, Duolingo is a loyalty program. It keeps you coming. Trust me, every single morning that owl yells at me because I haven't done my French yet. So I think there's there's so many different ways you can have loyalty programs and so many different reasons you have a loyalty program. But really, the fundamental from a brand perspective is so that you have access to the data that enables you to give the your absolute best customers the best experience possible. That you can know what they're interested in, what they like, um, and then you can give that back to them in value. That's the reciprocity that all loyalty programs function off of, that give and take. So it's a very caring retention effort. Yeah. I mean, we all know how like it's expensive to acquire new people, right? Like acquisition is one of the most expensive things to do. Losing people out the funnel is even more expensive because then you got to get more people to fill that funnel back in. If you can keep people and not lose them and have them eventually, ideally become advocates of your brand and have them bring other people into the funnel, that's just like earning and value in spades, really.

Jen LaForge 9:30

So I want to dial back because you said something really fun and interesting, and that's about Canadians, and I'm very Canadian. I love Yep. I I love the what's different about us. And you said that Canadians are very unique in that we on average have more loyalty programs than, say, our friends in the US. Why do you think that is? Like, what is it about like our market or our culture that drives that? What would you say? Do you know?

Elizabeth McNeil 9:57

I mean, I think it's a couple of things. I think the US never quite embraced, like, they really got more into the credit card space. I think that they went co-brand credit cards for a long, long, long time. So they use co-brand, they use credit, they use banking as a system of loyalty rather than just creating a loyalty program as a feeder into a credit card. Um, so I think that's one area that they just kind of went in a different space with it. I also think about, you know, how big the US is and how many individual markets that you have. And so you have chains that are only in, you know, one or two states. You have certain like so I I do think that they have loyalty programs, but when you think about Canadians, so many more of our brands are national in orientation. And so people join all of the different loyalty programs across the like coast to coast. Whereas if you think about like, you know, In and Out as an example has a huge following, they almost don't need a loyalty program in so many ways, but they're also very specific to a certain geography. So I think that's that's also kind of your balance, right? Like we sort of have the perfect mixture of we're a small population, and yes, we have a lot of regional variation, but a lot of the brands that we have, you know, and and again, this you could look that this as a good or a bad thing, but they're quite national in in scope and in scale.

Jen LaForge 11:16

Well, you're telling me we're on the right track here with Stacked, because one of the things we want to do is really help Canadians understand the real the definition of value. Yeah. Um, but also how to make sure it's easy and it's frictionless, and it doesn't mean having every single loyalty program on your phone or your app or in your pocket and you know, wallet full of punch cards. So we're gonna help um everyone narrow that down.

Elizabeth McNeil 11:37

Like you can't wrap your head around this many things, right? Like you sign up, you get the discount, you throw the card in the bag more times than you don't because it's just you can't get there. There you go.

Jen LaForge 11:46

We're gonna remove all the noise. But you're gonna help.

Elizabeth McNeil 11:48

Maybe you're gonna you're gonna get everybody there. So they're gonna speak loyalty better than any of us.

Jen LaForge 11:52

Absolutely, with your help as well. I wanna switch it um because you are now back in the travel space almost uh explicitly in your new role. Um, before we get there, part of your success, I think, is uh, you know, grit and grind, but also driven by passion. And I happen to know that you're a very passionate traveler. Yes. Um but you're a unique traveler um in that you really love immersing yourself in culture and in experiences. So before we get back into travel, give me just a the 30 seconds on your passion in travel and how that's gonna feel you to uh to expand on the travel loyalty side.

Elizabeth McNeil 12:28

I mean, you've you've hit the nail on the head. I love travel quite possibly more than anything else. I think I'm like the 1% of people that would like ideally like to spend more time in an airport. I freaking love them. Um I think the the travel is the great unifier, right? And you know, not to beat the old cliche, but I think the world is getting more and more divided. I think travel is a thing that brings us together. I think through travel I've seen more and more that we're all more or less the same. People want the same things, people have the same goals, they have the same hopes, they have the same fears. Like nobody, if you look around the world, is enjoying the space we're in. Or and I think that travel is the great like antithesis to some of the narratives that we're seeing, become far, far, far too prevalent. Um and and travel, like to me, I think it it becomes a bit of a chicken or an egg situation, but because I travel because I am curious, but then travel makes me more curious about the world, which makes me better at my job, which makes me more passionate about the things that I really care about, is that like unending curiosity to know more, to understand, to know different things and to get different perspectives. So it all kind of like ties together.

Jen LaForge 13:28

Absolutely. I think you need that. And the reason I ask that is because travel is a category in the loyalty space itself is hyper complex in that um it's not a direct transaction one and done, and you can fulfill on it, but travel has multiple pieces, multiple providers if you're doing packages. There's the booking time, there's a consumption time. So managing a loyalty program around travel can be far more complex than, say, the traditional retailer grocery space. So, can you speak to a little bit more about the complexities within travel and loyalty and why you think it's it's been so successful and valuable in that space since almost the beginning of loyalty?

Elizabeth McNeil 14:10

Yeah. I mean, I think it goes back to something I said off the top, which is that the the travel space, specifically airlines and specifically hospitality, has really understood and wrapped their arms around the intrinsic value of certain things. So, you know, not having to wait on a phone line if you're a high-tier status member, the idea of lounges, the idea of, you know, you don't have to wait in this long security line, you can cut right through, um, you know, you can get priority. I think they have like parking now. Like they have so many things. They've made the journey from end to end seamless. And to your point, the complexity is that there are so many pieces, so many, like, you know, both from an internal, like an organizational perspective, from a team's perspective, from an ops perspective, like there's so many pieces that touch that journey. And trying to figure out how to make it cohesive and one fulsome experience that a member can go through and be like, wow, I actually really feel valued. I feel important, and I feel like they care about me. Yeah, there's a huge amount of back-end logistical work for that. But when it comes together, it's it's truly incredible.

Jen LaForge 15:11

It's amazing. This is like a masterclass on the psychological, you know, value of psychology of value. Yeah. Um, you've nailed it. Travel has nailed it. Um, but things can break along the way. I mean, that's a hyper complex system to be building a loyalty program in there. What breaks most often, or what is, I think, the biggest pain point that you have to constantly be working and evolving to satisfy that that definition of value for consumers?

Elizabeth McNeil 15:38

I think the hard thing becomes when the people expect something and then it gets taken away from them, right? Like we think about all the different drivers of loyalty, people like earning points, people like, you know, socializing, people love community, but there's a principle of like defend so that you you really don't want to lose your tier status, you really don't want to have your points expire, you really don't want to be, you know, if you're promised a certain I guess experience in terms of like going through security, and then for some reason the security line is super, super long anyway, you feel like you've lost something. And that again, it's quite a an interesting motivator. We've seen time and time again, like people will take the craziest routes at the end of the year to make sure that they get enough points to maintain their status. But when we also get it down to like an individual interaction level, if people feel like they're supposed to have something and they get that taken away from them, that that can be very, very difficult. And that's hard to come back from, depending on how that happened to occur.

Jen LaForge 16:37

So it's funny, I have a blink within the history of time uh where I was in programming, and one of the first things that we were taught was to underpromise and over-deliver. Yeah. And so back in the early days, I'm aging myself here, but when you we had to wait for a software to upload, and it would say it's gonna take three minutes. Yep. It's really only gonna take 30 seconds, but they're telling you three minutes so that when it's done.

Elizabeth McNeil 16:59

Well, it's like restaurants, right? They'll tell you, like, oh, the wait list is half an hour. It's actually only 20 minutes, but they also want to make sure that they are over delivering on that process.

Jen LaForge 17:07

If you waited 31 minutes, oh God, Lord help you. You're gonna be walking away from the restaurant. So so that represents, I think, a different challenge. And when you're when you're scaling and building on a loyalty program, in that it's so dangerous to take something away. Yeah. So how do you add or complement and keep a program interesting to consumers in a very sustainable way where you're not risking that, oh, well, we have to do this, we have to take this away, or oh, we can't do this anymore. Talk about the complication there.

Elizabeth McNeil 17:43

Yeah, I mean, I think at a certain point you also have to pick, right? Like we, I think part of the challenge of where we've kind of landed from a loyalty ecosystem is trying to be all things to all people. And we know this individually as humans. We know this from a company perspective, we know this from a national perspective, like however you want to look at it from a layering. You can't be all things to all people. You have to choose, you have to figure out who are the people you want to retain, who are the people who are gaming the system. And you know, maybe they're gonna come, maybe they're gonna go, but that's gonna be their choice. And make sure you're investing your time, your effort, your dollars in the right places. Because there are, there are people that are, you know, there are bonus chasers, there's people who sign up for every single credit card so they can get the welcome offer and then they hit the road. And it doesn't, you know, those people are not worth actually trying to keep because that's their behavior, that's what they're gonna keep doing. But there are real people who are valuable, who are gonna keep growing you, like giving you more business, who are themselves going to keep growing. How do you make sure you find those people and invest in those people and focus in the right place?

Jen LaForge 18:45

Okay. So you are a professional across the board, whether you're building the loyalty programs or you're taking advantage of them. So, of course, on Stacked, I'm gonna have to ask you how you personally stack your loyalty programs and your points and your cash back on all these amazing trips that you are taking. Can you kind of give us a real-world example of the behaviors that you are taking to stack the most value on your next trip? Great question.

Elizabeth McNeil 19:13

I think what I would suggest to any, you know, viewer or listener is it's all about focus for me. Like you've got to pick a certain couple of things. And again, this goes back to like you can be a member of a ton of different loyalty programs, but you've got to pick a few. You know, it a lot of it comes down to the credit card. You've got to make sure you have the credit card for the program that makes the most sense to you. You've got to make sure you're putting your spend on that credit card where it makes sense. You've got to make sure you pay attention to the accelerators because that's really where the money is. Um, but also thinking about the, again, I know I keep harping on this, but the intangible benefits. Like thinking about yes, there's points, and yes, we earn and yes, we burn. But you know, if you can get a credit card, if you can get into a loyalty program that gives you access, that gives you, you know, peace of mind, like knowing what you value. I love a lounge, I'm just that person. I don't necessarily care about bringing a ton of bags because I pack very light. But for a family who's traveling with their kids and you know, older parents or they've got a stroller, for them, again, this goes back to what we were talking about at the beginning, is like value might look a little bit different. They might be way more interested in the idea of free check bags or getting a companion voucher so they can bring their partner, they can bring their parents to look after the kids, like really getting clear on what you want, what's gonna make your trip or your experience the best ever, and then going it all in on that.

Jen LaForge 20:30

I couldn't have asked you for a better answer. What one of the things we were talking about when we started this was that definition of value. Yeah. And it not being so cheap or less than, yeah. Um, and being more behavioral and being more emotional. Yeah. And I think you just hit the hammer on the head in all of those regards. And I'm gonna go home actually and redefine value to me because I'm not a lounge person. Everyone's surprised, I'm not a lounge. I like just sitting in the airport like a regular non-lounge person. So that's not in my definition of value. I wouldn't look for that.

Elizabeth McNeil 21:00

But that's okay. That's your definition of value. I think about like the story that I always like to tell in these instances is a story about my father because my father will only go shop at one grocery store. It doesn't matter. And you might think that he goes and shops at this grocery store because he likes the produce or because it's convenient to him or because he gets good value. No, he likes the parking lot. He knows that he can go to the parking lot. It is a really big parking lot, he will always get a spot, and he just thinks it's the greatest parking lot since sliced bread. He talks about it constantly. Um, and that's why he goes to this grocery store time and time again. It's not the most convenient one, it's not the cheapest, it's not the one that gives him the most value. He loves this freaking parking lot. But then, because he goes to this grocery store all the time, he knows where everything is. So he's developed a familiarity with it, which is incredible. So that then that keeps him there. That's the retention side of it. Now he goes there enough that people know his name, and then he starts to feel valued. He starts to feel like, oh, I'm, you know, I'm a top-tier customer. And that's a different type of loyalty. That's not a program. That's not something that, you know, he's getting by swiping a card, but that's how he defines value. And I think about that all the time when people ask me about like, you know, what's a loyalty program? What does it get you? Like, I think about my father.

Jen LaForge 22:06

I am picturing these stories in the boardroom, and this is how loyalty programs evolve, and that next great benefit or value add comes from. Exactly. It's a story from Elizabeth at the 9 30 a.m. meeting. Well, thank you so much for uh for coming here today, for talking about uh your experience in the loyalty space, helping us understand what's important and how it breaks and scales, um, but mostly uh for sharing how you stack uh and what's important to you uh as you do so.

Elizabeth McNeil 22:33

Oh well, thank you for having me. I'm so honored and honestly, like I'm so excited for this podcast because I think it's more than needed. Excellent.

Jen LaForge 22:39

So you'll come back? Absolutely. Okay. Until next time then, thank you. And that's it for this episode of Stacked. If you found this useful, follow along as we interview leaders shaping the future of retail and learn how value really works behind the scenes. And if there's a topic you want us to unpack, I'd love to hear from you. See you next time.