#LEAwards 2021 highlight: Telstra turns a minus into a Plus

When it comes to major telco players in Australia, none comes much bigger than Telstra. But to stay on top, it still needs to keep ahead of the game, and its competitors. To help Telstra achieve this aim, the telco tied up with technology partner Mastercard to elevate its Telstra Plus programme, and for its efforts, it took home the gold for Best Loyalty Programme – Telecommunications category at MARKETING-INTERACTIVE’s Loyalty & Engagement Awards 2021.

Challenge

In 2018, the Australian telco industry was facing significant economic disruption due to the roll-out of the network and strong competition from low-cost mobile operators. Telstra recognised that in response it needed to majorly disrupt itself to differentiate and remain competitive in what was becoming a commoditised marketplace.

Telstra Plus was introduced as part of Telstra’s T22 strategy to lead the Australian market by simplifying its operations and product set, improving the customer experience and rewards, and reducing its cost base. Telstra needed to recognise and reward its fiercely loyal customers – some of whom had been with it for more than 40 years. It had a simple perks programme, however, this wasn’t doing enough to benefit customers.

Instead, Telstra built a simple, but sophisticated points and tier-based programme that has real economic benefits for members to help them enjoy the latest technology sooner, and for less, and enjoy unique compelling offers and benefits that thank members for being with it. In turn, the programme provides more reasons to engage regularly with Telstra, stay longer, and ultimately, generates revenue for the company.

Telcos are very different from other industries that have traditionally been strong adopters of points-based loyalty programmes, such as retail and airlines, as the annual spend of a customer is often a lot less and the frequency of engagement is a lot lower, with customers often not thinking about their telco provider for years at a time.

Many telcos globally have attempted points-based loyalty programmes in the past, but have often needed to change strategy as these programmes have not succeeded in gaining scale and encouraging participation.

The priorities for Telstra were to:

1. Enrol: aggressively grow the membership base to scale at 3.5 million members;
2. Engage: entice and embed frequent member interactions with the programme; and
3. Drive new engagement behaviours and shift preconceived ideas of what a customer’s telco relationship looks like.

Strategy

Starting Telstra Plus was an important strategic decision for Telstra. It was integral to get the strategy right at the outset to establish Telstra Plus as a suitable programme for its customers, for the telco industry, and for Telstra’s premium brand.

It wanted the programme to support Telstra’s purpose of building a connected future so that everyone could thrive; so Telstra Plus was created to make it easier and more affordable for customers to enjoy technology.

Following the launch of the programme foundations during the 2020 financial year, it needed to move quickly to establish the programme with Telstra customers, and drive benefit adoption and programme transactions at scale to set up a strong future for the Telstra Plus programme.

Considerations taken into account included limited media budgets required it to be clever in its use of one-to-one and personalisation in digital, and the creativity needed to stand out and illustrate the breadth of the programme.

When it came to Telstra Plus, it needed to make enrolment easier and more convenient – bring the enrolment event to the customer and make the experience intuitive and seamless to join; communicate compelling reasons to join Telstra Plus – develop attractive value propositions that attracted people to the programme and make them feel excited to join, and create advocacy within Telstra’s front line teams (retails stores, call centres and field technicians) – they are the human face of Telstra Plus and it wanted them to truly believe in the programme and convey the same passion Telstra has for Telstra Plus in all its customer conversations.

The other important aspect was engagement. Telstra needed to maximise personalisation through data insights – hyper-personalised recommendations to members about products/offers/rewards they were actually interested in and wanted to know about.

It also wanted to make rewards more accessible to all members – ensuring there is a wide range of attractive rewards at all spend levels, and different technology interests.

It also needed to create excitement and build emotive relationships at scale through these steps:

1. Transcend transactional-only interactions and develop membership relationships built on positive memories and experiences;
2. Create a sense of exclusivity and inclusiveness – make all members feel part of something special, and even more so for members at the gold and silver status tiers; and
3. Embed Telstra Plus across all physical Telstra touch-points – integrate Telstra Plus across all customer interactions to create an always-on presence.

Execution

The telco made enrolment easier and more convenient by presenting Telstra Plus enrolment opt-in across all relevant customer experiences to minimise the effort to join. According to the telco, was as simple as ticking a box. These journeys included the check-out flow of Telstra’s online stores, Telstra’s customer digital ID registration and onboarding experience for its My Telstra app.

It also communicated to customers with time/event-based triggers at opportune times to encourage them to join the programme. For example, when they become a Telstra customer for the first time, prior to the bill due date and at a pre-paid credit recharge event.

The telco also rolled out a series of campaigns designed to provide cut-through and get customers to join now. For example, it made joining Telstra Plus “an easy business decision” with an offer of 5,000 bonus points to all businesses that enrolled during the campaign and the chance to win one of 10 “mobile working packs” full of tech from the Rewards Store to help its small businesses operate on the go.

Telstra created advocacy within its front line teams by engaging its front line teams to educate customers on the Telstra Plus value proposition. This made them feel excited about the programme and encouraged them to enrol every customer they spoke to. This included getting its technicians, who typically don’t drive conversations for commercial outcomes, on board and gave them the tools to sign up members on the spot.

When it came to maximising personalisation through data insights, Telstra embedded its best practice CRM programme across both the Telstra Plus and Telstra business life cycles to capture relevant trigger moments for engagement.

The telco also rolled out hyper-personalised bimonthly “member update” emails where members only see offers that are relevant to them based on their location, interests and tier. Plus, additional redemption communications were sent out every other month, and at cultural shopping moments, to recommend products to redeem in the Rewards Store based on points balance and known attributes

Additionally, the telco also expanded the range on the Telstra Plus Rewards Store to over 500 tech and accessory items so there really is something for everyone. It also introduced flexible ways to pay in the Rewards Store, including “points only, “points + pay” or “points + repayment” allowing members to pay for a portion using points and split the remainder over 12 or 24 months (an Australian first for a loyalty programme).

It also introduced its first external (non-Telstra) partners, Huddle (insurance) and Booking.com so members can earn more points to redeem faster – this was just the beginning with a range of new partnerships on the immediate horizon.

To complement its always-on activity and keep the programme front-of-mind, Telstra activated mass campaigns to excite members – flipping traditional promotions on their head and instead offering all members a guaranteed instant gift with “Open Up Fun”. It also brought live music to its members when concerts weren’t possible through exclusive live-streamed concerts – 20 lucky members even got to meet the artists virtually.

Telstra also gave members “that rewarding feeling” more often by launching new benefits given to its gold and silver members. Adopted a customer-centric design approach to designing the proposition and member experience across VIP service, in-home entertainment benefits and priority access to selected concert pre-sales.

At the same time, the telco aggressively grew in-store redemption volumes by educating team members on the value of points and what members can get with them, and how to position points redemption within the sales conversation. It rewarded stores achieving the highest levels of members redeeming points in-store for tech with 15 giant Christmas crackers packed with prizes up for grabs in the five weeks leading to Christmas.

Results

Consistent enrolment momentum has been achieved since launching the programme in 2019, where Telstra exceeded its initial four-month target in six weeks. Telstra has also added 1.5 million new members in FY21 – reaching the Q4 goal of 150,000 SMB members mid-Q3; Telstra Plus currently totals 3.5 million members and counting.

Meanwhile, a strong focus on engagement in FY21 saw staggering results and has led to ongoing behavioural shifts, including 60% of members are actively engaging with the programme – activating tier benefits, participating in promotions, taking up bonus points offers or redeeming for rewards.

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