#LEAwards 2021 spills: Westpac NZ on addressing consumer demand to foster loyalty

Established in 1861, Westpac NZ provides a full range of retail and commercial banking and wealth management products and services to customers throughout New Zealand. It worked with Mastercard to launch "hotpoints Pay", which allows hotpoints credit card customers to use their hotpoints wherever Mastercard is accepted.

Its "hotpoints Pay" campaign, executed in partnership with Mastercard, was shortlisted as a finalist for Best Use of Rewards & Incentives, and won Silver for Best Loyalty Programme - Financial & Insurance at MARKETING-INTERACTIVE's Loyalty & Engagement Awards 2021. 

Grant Reid (pictured), senior product manager for consumer banking at Westpac NZ, told MARKETING-INTERACTIVE that its new loyalty feature was launched to address consumer demand, and it clearly got traction as its hotpoints Pay accounted for nearly 40% of all redemptions; just four months after launching. 

He also explained that customer loyalty is not something companies have to "do", but rather is earned when they meet their consumers' needs.

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.

What was the key focus of your loyalty strategy in 2021 as we come to terms with the pandemic?

Reid: Before the start of the pandemic, we had already been working with Mastercard on delivering a new loyalty offering that gave our customers more flexibility, transparency and personalisation. We conducted extensive customer research and behavioural studies, and it was apparent that our customers desire an instant, digital experience, with full autonomy to decide on how their points can be used.

Pandemic or not, we wanted to provide just that – a customer-centric, digital and scalable rewards programme where members are rewarded with what they want, when they want it, every day. For that simple reason, we went ahead and launched hotpoints Pay in August 2020.

What was the one shift in consumer behaviour that surprised you?

Reid: Just how quickly our customers adopted hotpoints Pay. We launched hotpoints Pay towards the end of August 2020, and by Christmas it accounted for nearly 40% of all redemptions. November and December of that year saw the highest number of redemptions in 21 years since the initial launch of the programme. In hindsight, the new hotpoints Pay was able to address customer needs during the pandemic.

A key feature of the new programme allows customers to use their rewards points to cover the cost of purchases at any merchant that accepts Mastercard. This has empowered customers to use hotpoints in ways they simply couldn’t do previously. We saw a wide range of unique redemptions ranging from school fees, hearing aids to medical bills. Customers who were under financial pressure as a result of the pandemic could tap into hotpoints Pay to ease some of that pressure.

With so many options, how are you continuing to build up loyalty with your customers and stand out?

Reid: We all know that loyalty is not something "you do" as a company. It’s what you get from your customers when you meet their needs - leading to stronger emotional connections with your product and brand. For us, customer centricity is central to everything we do. In the case of hotpoints Pay, we focused on making things easy for the customer and giving them control.

This remains a large part of our loyalty strategy in 2022. We plan to build on the successes we’ve had with hotpoints Pay so far, and concentrate on making the programme even easier to use! We have a series of exciting enhancements lined up, including a more simplified user experience, so stay tuned!

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