Aristocrat: Loyalty360 Awards Recap Series | 2023 Loyalty Expo

Aristocrat is a global leader in gaming content and technology and a top-tier publisher of free-to-play mobile games. Operating in the Americas, Europe, Middle East and Africa, and Asia Pacific, the brand delivers end-to-end solutions for customers in more than 300 jurisdictions across the globe.

A finalist for the 2023 Loyalty360 Awards at this year’s Loyalty Expo in Orlando, FL, in the B2B Customer Loyalty category, Aristocrat received the silver award.

Mark Johnson, CEO of Loyalty360, spoke with Vanessa Lisnard, the Program Manager of Commercial Strategy at Aristocrat Technologies, Inc., about the brand’s award-winning presentation, bringing a B2B loyalty program to the gaming industry, and the next exciting step for Aristocrat.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:05

Good afternoon, good morning, Mark Johnson from Loyalty 360. I hope everyone's happy, safe and well. I wanted to welcome you to our Loyalty 360 award recap series, and in this series we're speaking with award finalists from the 2023 Loyalty Expo that was held in Orlando in May. And today we get to speak with a district rat. They were finalists at the 2023 Loyalty Expo in the B2B customer loyalty category, actually taking home silver, and today we have the pleasure of speaking with Vanessa Luznar. She's the program manager of commercial strategy at Ristocrat Technologies. Vanessa, thank you very much for taking the time. How are you.

Speaker 2: 0:41

I'm doing very good. How are you?

Speaker 1: 0:43

Can you give us a brief overview of what you presented for your awards presentation at the 2023 Loyalty Expo?

Speaker 2: 0:48

Yeah, so this is our second year presenting at the Loyalty Expo and I like to say that in our first year presenting, we introduced the program. We introduced real returns to the loyalty world in its very small infancy stage, and what we brought to the table in 2023 is how successful the program has gotten. I mean, even within the last six months, we grew about 113% for engaged and enrolled users on the program, and so that was really the center and theme of our presentation this year is we really wanted to show that there is a need for customer loyalty within our industry and that there is opportunity for us to continue to grow.

Speaker 1: 1:38

And what are a couple of things that you are most proud of when it comes to your brand's customer loyalty program and program efforts.

Speaker 2: 1:44

Absolutely so. One of the things that we've come across is the internal buy-in right. And because gaming is such a unique industry and it's very rooted in its culture I don't know how what better you can up this out, but it's a very hard industry to change and because real returns is brand new, or the concept of a loyalty program for a B2B customer base is brand new, that has been the hardest challenge is to introduce something of its kind to our customers and then also introduce our program internally and so, by the right ways of adding it in strategically, to say this is the value of it has really made it more of a success.

Speaker 1: 2:36

What one piece of advice would you give to someone who's looking to enhance their customer loyalty program, or someone who may be looking to add more customer experience or increase the efficacy of their efforts? What would you recommend?

Speaker 2: 2:50

It's not a one-size-fits-all strategy, especially if you're doing it from a gaming perspective. You really want to take the time to understand your customer base, really understand what needs are not met in the industry and then taking the time to actually find solutions for that and not making your program more difficult than it needs to be.

Speaker 1: 3:16

And last question what is coming up for a risk to grab? What new plans do you have for strengthening your customer loyalty efforts?

Speaker 2: 3:25

The one thing that we've been really focused on is making our real returns loyalty program a one-stop shop for all customer data, and so if a customer, for example, wants to see their order status, or if they want to come on and see their spend, their overall total value within our company, real returns would be able to provide that, and so that's something that has been lacking within the business and actually lacking in the industry in general, and I'm happy to say that real returns will maybe be the first ones to actually combat that, so we're very excited.

Speaker 1: 4:02

Thank you, Rex, for taking the time to talk with us. Vanessa, Great catching up with you. It was great meeting you at the conference and looking forward to hearing more from your team in 2023.

Speaker 2: 4:11

With them same. Thank you.