#LEAwards 2021 spills: Singtel dials up on interactivity to drive stickiness

Singtel was awarded Overall L&E 2021 Brand of the Year for its campaigns, “Launch of the first ever Singtel Dash Rewards Loyalty Campaign”, “SingtelStepUp” and “Singtel X NETS Click Campaign - Never Miss A Moment”.

The brand also won Bronze for Best Loyalty Programme - Financial & Insurance and Best Loyalty Programme - Telecommunications, Silver for Best Card-Based Loyalty Programme and Best Use of Rewards & Incentives, and Gold for Best Loyalty Programme – Launch / Re-Launch, Best Loyalty Programme – Lifestyle, Best Membership Programme and Best Use of UI / UX Design, at MARKETING-INTERACTIVE's Loyalty & Engagement Awards 2021. 

Cheryl Ko (pictured), associate director, digital rewards at Singtel, told MARKETING-INTERACTIVE that instant gratification was key to driving adoption and stickiness during the pandemic. She also explained how brands have to integrate interactivity on top of its services to drive consumer engagement.

This interview is done as part of MARKETING-INTERACTIVE’s winners' and finalists’ interview series for Loyalty & Engagement Awards 2021. To find out more about the awards, click here.

How has your marketing shifted in 2021 as we come to terms with the pandemic?

Ko: In 2020 when circuit breaker first started, many organisations had to pivot to be more agile and transform their businesses with new processes and a focus on digital. Consumers on the other hand were more open and receptive in discovering new initiatives, which eventually became the new norm.

In 2021, coming to terms with the pandemic, these new norms have shaped consumers’ expectations where accessibility, ease of use, and a unified consistent user experience with real-time updates where they could enjoy instant gratification were critical in driving adoption and stickiness to the brand.

Singtel Dash underwent a brand invigoration in Q3 2020 and launched Dash Rewards, where customers will be rewarded even more than before across the various activities that they do with Singtel Dash. Customers can now earn points, discover, and redeem from over 180 of their favourite rewards seamlessly within the app. In addition, customers can easily track their reward points expiry, points earned and progress to qualify to the next tiered membership status.

Customer centricity was key in building the success of the Dash Rewards programme. How we achieved this was through involving our customers from the very start of our creation journey of Dash Rewards; understanding their preferred functions and benefits in our pre-launch MVP closed looped feedback, co-creating a simple, intuitive seamless experience together and lastly, consistent on-going improvements based on our customer analytics and survey feedback.

Leveraging on our advantage of a mobile financial lifestyle service app that covers a range of business from payments, remittance to insurance; our data analytics allowed for highly personalised and targeted messaging to cater to an individual’s persona and needs. Combining science and art together with the ability to automate and grow our program capabilities was essential in delivering the instant gratification and personalised experience that customers seek.

What was one shift in consumer behaviour in the loyalty and engagement space that surprised you?

Ko: Making financial services engaging can be challenging, as one’s personal financials is often seen as a serious or tedious activity. The gamification of customers’ experience for their finances is an interesting development to address that challenge; allowing users to engage with their app more effectively and turn their everyday routine, normally overwhelming financial tasks into a more enjoyable and rewarding activity.

With so many options, how can brands build up loyalty with their consumers and stand out?

Ko: Customers are looking for brands that go beyond being largely transactional to one that relates to them, is fun, light-hearted with the element of surprise and delight while helping them to get a sense of success and achievement. Other than the ability to earn points and membership tiering in a loyalty programme; a game of chance as well as completing quests and missions through a single digital platform are increasingly gaining traction among customers.

To address this, Singtel Dash recently launched Dash Town, an in-app quest-based challenge with various missions for users to earn free spins. With these free spins, they can then spin the wheel to win different types of sure-win prizes from Dash reward points to merchant vouchers.

What can we expect from your brand in 2022?

Ko: We will be enhancing Dash Town, focusing on our features, quest-based challenges and creating more interesting ways that we can reward our customers for their engagement and usage on the app. With a variety of products and services lined up, partnership collaborations as well as the expansion of our rewards catalogue, we are excited to bring more value to our customers as an all-in-one mobile wallet, while using rewards to continue bring surprises and delight to keep our users engaged.

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