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#488: ITA Group on Quantifying Emotional Loyalty: Turning Connection into Measurable Business Impact

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In this episode of Leaders in Customer Loyalty: Industry Voices, Loyalty360’s Ethan Perry sat down with Chris Jones, Senior Vice President of Engagement Solutions at ITA Group, to explore how brands are translating emotional loyalty from an abstract concept into a measurable driver of business growth. 

As a returning guest, Jones expanded on themes from his previous conversation, sharing findings from ITA Group’s latest research on emotional connection and how it amplifies the impact of value and ease within loyalty programs. 

SPEAKER_01:

Good afternoon and good morning everyone. This is Ethan Perry from Loyalty360, welcoming you to another edition of Leaders in Customer Loyalty Industry Voices. In these episodes, we talk to the leading agencies, technology partners, and consultants in the customer loyalty world about the technology, trends, and best practices that impact the ability of brands to drive the unique experiences that generate customer loyalty. Today we have the pleasure of speaking with Chris Jones, the Senior Vice President of Engagement Solutions at ITA Group. Welcome back to the podcast, Chris. I'm glad you could be here again.

SPEAKER_00:

Hey, Ethan, great to be here with you. Thanks.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so for those who may not have listened to our conversation back in May, can you just give a quick overview of how ITA Group supports a brand's customer loyalty efforts and some of the industries you work with?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, absolutely. We are a professional services and technology agency. And so we work closely with clients to design, implement, operate, fulfill, analyze, and optimize customer loyalty programs. We also work in the employee engagement, employee reward recognition space, the channel and sales incentive space, experiential events, and we do primary research and experiential learning and development. Today, obviously, we're talking about customer loyalty, but our business touches a lot of broad areas.

SPEAKER_01:

Awesome. Well, uh, speaking of customer loyalty, the last time we talked, you really emphasized that true loyalty is built on both value and ease, with the emotional connection with the customer serving as an X factor. The latest research that you guys just presented in your recent webinar takes that concept even further. So, what motivated ITE Group to explore emotional connection like more deeply right now?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, sure. Well, I think there's a couple of things. One is that as a lifelong marketer in consumer products, agencies, uh, retail, financial services, I've kind of known deep down, and all of our peers will probably say, yeah, we know that emotional connection drives behaviors from our customers, our consumers, uh, whoever they might be. Um, but when you said it's the X factor, no one's really satisfied saying something's the X factor. It's always better if we can quantify it and really show it. So we took value and ease from the prior studies and we said, let's try and quantify the incremental impact when people have these kind of emotional connections. And that's exactly what the study did. It showed that it's not only an independent factor, but it's a multiplier that adds value to brands and businesses through their loyalty program when it's present, in addition to value and ease.

SPEAKER_01:

Awesome. Yeah. Well, since you know we've talked about that and you've done this new research, have you noticed a shift in how brands are talking about or internally prioritizing emotional loyalty when they're looking at customer loyalty program strategy?

SPEAKER_00:

I don't know why I would say there's been a shift. We've been talking about this with our clients and implementing with our clients for a number of years now. Um, but what I do think is research like the one we've recently published is giving marketers and loyalty leaders additional confidence to pursue it, where it wasn't just like, as you said, an X factor. It's a quantifiable driver of incremental benefit. So I think people are not only continuing to talk about it, but they're feeling increasingly confident, acting on it, moving in that direction, taking steps to really inject it into their programs.

SPEAKER_01:

Awesome. Well, the I know that uh some of the research findings really revealed that advocacy is co-influenced by both the perceived benefit on the part of the customer and their emotional connection to the brand. What surprised you most about how those two elements kind of interplay with each other?

SPEAKER_00:

Um, gosh, I I mean, I don't know if it's surprised us. I think, again, we're just really glad that we can bring insights to the industry that proves quantitatively that they're both playing a factor. And so maybe people who see the study would be surprised that, oh, good, we finally got it quantified in a way we say, this is four times the impact. This is two times the impact. And together you get six times the impact. So I think maybe it's a good surprise to the readers of the survey to say, oh, I can go back to my team and say, this isn't just feel-good stuff, this is quantifiable, and we can drive our business with it. So that's probably the most surprising thing that we have people able to be well equipped to make that case within their businesses.

SPEAKER_01:

Certainly, yeah. And I know that the APIs around that are can be difficult to quantify, especially when you're going to justify a spend within your loyalty program. So I think that your that research is really interesting and provides some folks with some ammunition to have in those discussions about the importance of it.

SPEAKER_00:

Sure, I hope so. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

You know, and I think one thing that kind of plays into emotional loyalty, and it's something that we talked about in our last conversation, is signature experiences that are of and from the brand. You know, in your research, you know, the you guys emphasized customer appreciation is a key way to be an emotional loyalty driver. How can brands operationalize appreciation beyond simply giving discounts in a way that's going to authentically resonate with people?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it's uh it's probably one of the most important, one of the most complex things that we do with clients to drive that part of their business. I think it's first important to start out with this idea that appreciation is a feeling that your member senses. It's not something that you tell them you're appreciated. You've got to show it, and then they feel it. And so it's not a program. And how you achieve it is going to be very different brand to brand. I think you might give people special access. You might give them uh invitation to a special experience. You have to be personalizing and you have to be recognizing milestones and moments. Um would you be willing as a brand to support a cause that matters to the member, not just one that matters to the brand? I think when you acknowledge those shares' values, those are all, which I just mentioned, things that are absolutely free for a brand to do. And they they engender a sense of appreciation on the part of the member. So I think it's really important to say we don't appreciate as a brand. We do things that make the member feel a sense of appreciation. And then, you know, the member will hopefully say, Well, that really, that brand really showed me appreciation. So I think there's a lot of things you can do that are, you know, not necessarily financial, but really give people a sense of appreciation.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and that kind of segues into you know, talking about many loyalty programs, one of the pitfalls they fall into is relying too heavily on transactional rewards. You know, and you gave a couple examples there, but from your perspective, what are the most effective non-monetary or experiential levers brands can pull to increase that emotional connection and at the same time, you know, increase perceived value?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I think this is kind of an interesting topic for us to talk about, especially with kind of uh viewers of your podcast who might say, well, who's who are we talking about non-monetary, the consumer or the brand? And I think it's important to say sometimes when we talk non-monetary, it means you're not giving a financial benefit to the member. But that doesn't mean it doesn't cost us something monetary as the brand to provide it. Like I'm a loyal Marriott Bonvoy member, and they give me access to great experiences. Those aren't free for the brand to put on, but I would think of that as a non-monetary experiential benefit that I could use my points for or might actually be invited to, anyways. And so keep in mind, non-monetary, the way we talk about it is it just isn't your regular discount or your regular cents off or your regular points turn into uh cash or free goods. It's about an experience. And I think when you think about that, there's also things that don't have to cost your company money. And we talked about some of them a minute ago. If you're making sure that you're giving information or access or showing a certain mindset, personalizing, maybe you're saving a member time by curating the things they see and the things that you recommend. Those can all be ways that you add value in non-monetary ways, I would say.

SPEAKER_01:

Awesome. Yeah. Well, one of the other things that you know we've seen surfacing is that community and belonging are strong emotional motivators. How are leading programs cultivating cultivating a sense of shared identity or participation in their loyalty program among the members?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I think there's a lot of brands that have kind of what I would not in a negative way say is borrowed interest, right? They've connected their brand to some other cause and together they both care about it. But it's not always rooted directly in the brand. One of the stories I often tell uh about work that I've done previously, our business has done is Casey's General Stores, Casey's Rewards. I was at Casey's when we designed and launched that program. It's a brand that has now 2,900 stores, and nearly half of them are in towns of 5,000 people or less. So when we created that program, of course we had points, fuel discounts, free pizza, but we also added in the ability to take those points and give them to your local kindergarten through 12th grade school in the form of a cash donation. So that's not just connecting with a cause, that's connecting to a personal cause for the people in those small towns, and it's doing it in a way that's true to the brand because Casey's was loved for showing up in those small towns when other retailers probably wouldn't be present. So it's important to the consumer, it's true to your brand, and it's actually showing appreciation in a shared way. So I think that's one of the best examples. We we still talk to clients about how would we emulate something like that? Not every brand's gonna do that, but what's true about your brand and how we bring that to life in your program?

SPEAKER_01:

That's awesome. That's a great example. Um, so we kind of touched on this earlier, but you know, a major barrier for a lot of loyalty leaders is internal advocacy, you know, convincing all of the stakeholders that emotional loyalty can drive measurable ROI. So, what advice would you give on selling this concept internally, particularly to finance or operations leaders who love to focus on hard metrics?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I think there's probably three things I would suggest. One is if you're just getting into this world, or even if you're in a loyalty program, this new research that you and I have been talking about actually shows quantifiably across several different, very disparate industries, that those dynamics are present. So you could lean into that research. The second thing we do with clients is we take an actual program and we show the ROI that you get from members relative to non-members. And so quantifying what's happening in the program, something we do, you know, with one of our clients recently, the CFO said, I'm I've I've got questions about whether this actually generates positive ROI. And we developed a pro forma PL just for the loyalty program. And their finance team came back and said, Yeah, we validate that. This is a creative to our business. And then the third option is if you don't have the data and you want to say, well, I see the research, but what can I tell? We also build kind of what if models and kind of assumption-based PLs for programs for our clients to show them what kind of outcomes they could expect, but also what kind of outcomes would they need to yield a positive ROI. And all three of those kind of have an important role depending on where you are in your journey.

SPEAKER_01:

Awesome. Well, that's great advice. And I think that anyone can glean something from that to take to help quantify this sometimes ethereal topic. So looking ahead, like at the near future, like how do you see some of the emerging technologies from you know AI and predictive analytics and all of those things? How do you see that enhancing or potentially diluting the emotional aspect of customer loyalty?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I mean, I think it's fair to say I believe our business believes that AI will enhance those capabilities. If you think about some of the topics we've talked about, curating information, personalizing experiences, determining the next best offer for you, not for people who are sort of like you, but specifically for you, AI has the ability to unlock that at scale in a way that humans alone would struggle to do regularly. So we're confident that it's got a role. Like anything though, you said kind of could it dilute it? Well, if you if you're not putting it in place smartly, if you're not working with a provider who's tested it, validated the model, shown you the guardrails and the pros and cons, yeah, it could be misused like anything. Um, but we're pretty confident that the work we're doing on our own and for and with clients will be amplifying that impact, not diluting it.

SPEAKER_01:

Awesome. Well, finally, Chris, what's the next frontier for ITA Group? Like, what do you guys intend to focus on in the end of this year and in 2026?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, you know, you kind of know where we're heading with customer loyalty based on the research we've done and the work we've talked about. Um, one of the things we're doing, which we're we feel like we're kind of uniquely positioned to do, when I mentioned earlier that we're in the employee reward and recognition space, the channel incentive space, and the customer loyalty space, is we're working with clients to connect the dots between those. Oftentimes those are kind of independent programs. And we know, kind of, again, like people would say intuitively, yeah, employee experience can never, you know, is going to constrain or enable your customer experience. We believe that and we see it in our clients' businesses. And so we're working to really connect those dots with clients to show them how can this program for employees, this program for your distribution channels, and this program for your consumers be more synergistic with one another. So that's kind of a next big frontier for us.

SPEAKER_01:

That's awesome. Can't wait to see what you guys do.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, love to share it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Cool. Well, uh that brings us to our world famous quickfire questions. These are a different set than you did last time. So we like to keep it to one word or phrase uh so that we can keep it short, but I'll just jump right in. All right, good. What is your favorite word? Uh family. What is your least favorite word?

SPEAKER_00:

Uh goodbye.

SPEAKER_01:

What excites you? New ideas. What do you find tiresome?

SPEAKER_00:

Process and policy.

SPEAKER_01:

What book do you like to recommend to colleagues?

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, The Daily Stoic is a fascinating one.

SPEAKER_01:

What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, I'd love to be a studio musician.

SPEAKER_01:

What do you enjoy doing that you don't get to do very often?

SPEAKER_00:

Uh see my older sons in person.

SPEAKER_01:

What inspired you to become the person you are today?

SPEAKER_00:

Uh probably my dad, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

And what do you typically think about at the end of the day?

SPEAKER_00:

Hmm. Well, when I'm thinking about something that wasn't the day that went on, it's probably planning a trip somewhere or a next adventure.

SPEAKER_01:

And how do you want to be remembered by your friends and family?

SPEAKER_00:

Uh, I hope I'd be remembered as generous, figuratively and literally.

SPEAKER_01:

Awesome. Well, Chris, thank you so much for taking the time to come back on Leaders in Customer Loyalty. It was great getting updates from you on everything ITA Group is doing, and we look more forward to seeing the research report when it drops and learning more from you and the team in 2026.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, thanks for having me, Ethan, and thanks for the work you do on behalf of the industry and the expert uh expertise of the industry. So appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01:

Thanks so much. And I want to thank everyone else for tuning in to Leaders in Customer Loyalty Industry Voices. If you haven't already, please be sure to subscribe to Leaders in Customer Loyalty Podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Follow Loyalty360 on YouTube and LinkedIn, and please join us every Tuesday for Industry Voices. We'll see you next time.