Unlock winning strategies in customer loyalty with Jitesh Malik

Jitesh Malik is the Global Head of Digital Sales, Payments, & Loyalty Program at Prudential PLC. With 27 years of experience in the financial industry, Jitesh shares with us about the ins and outs of creating a loyalty program in the insurtech industry. How do you differentiate yourself from your competitors and put yourself in the forefront of customers’ minds, and how do you better retain your customers in a world where switching between different insurance companies is the norm? Watch the video & read on to find out more!

What are the top 3 most common mistakes you see made when constructing a loyalty program that is designed to attract Gen Z and Millennials (Who are typically not brand loyal), and why do you think this is?

Every loyalty program serves 4 generations, namely Baby Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z, and having a one-size-fits-all approach is a mistake most loyalty programs make. People from generations are at different stages of their lives, and their needs and demands are different from the different generations. Gen X will be looking at comprehensive insurance solutions while Gen Z will be looking for a program that provides them with inclusivity and diversity, and lifestyle choices such as hybrid working.

Instead of “enhancing” loyalty programs with points and rebates like most others out there, think about personalising, gamifying, and simplying loyalty programs. Having a difficult loyalty journey and redemption options will disincentivise consumers to join. The first approach is for companies to digitise loyalty program, achieving real time insights to change the program, being able to pivot whenever needed. This is crucial as Gen Zs are constantly pursuing ever changing trends, such as the introduction and rise of BNPL for financially savvy consumers.

The second approach is to have inclusion and diversity implemented in their programs and use it to promote and support social causes, especially with the far reach of social media platforms, where people of different backgrounds and lifestyles can reach out and share their experiences with the world. With companies committed to creating a positive impact on society, the new generation will see a desire to be a part of it.

What new age tech will have the biggest impact on insurtech, and how can we use this technology to our advantage?

Technology should not be used just for the sake of it, especially if there’s a chance of it being only a fad. Metaverse, blockchain, MFTs, Crypto, there might not be a realistic use case for the business.

A use case is that’s important to start adopting in Generative AI. For example, if there’s a customer who is critically ill and has been hospitalised, the first thing is to check if it’s covered under his policy. Calling a helpdesk will take unnecessary time with documentation checks.

What advice can you give insurance companies who are struggling to retain existing customers, and what tools and technologies should they prioritise when looking to attain deeper data insights into customer behaviour?

Insurance companies should look into data analytics platform, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. One cannot exist effectively without the other as these technologies complement each other to give us a 360-degree view of our customers’ behaviours, helping to predict a future customer action or their behaviour.

From those insights, there needs to be a feedback loop into the marketing campaign and offerings to deliver personalised campaigns, products, and services. By listening to consumers’ voices, companies will be able to innovate and develop based on their individual needs and wants. This way, every journey is simplified and personalised to our customers.

Regulations around data privacy is also important. With many regulations varying country to country, large organisations serving customers in multiple geographies need to ensure that their technology stack is in compliance with the regulations stack of the data privacy. The situation becomes more challenging when the company is offering multiple complement products using different legal entities, such as insurance, wealth management, asset management, where different companies provide different products and services. Add that with a layer of data privacy and regulations and build a single customer view. From a group perspective, there’s only 1 customer but from a legal perspective, there’s 3 customers.

It's challenging to learn the data and privacy regulations and weave it back into the technology stack, but once it’s accomplished, it’s a nirvana.

What is the most exciting innovation in payment technology currently and why?

Many reports and analysts are predicting that by the end of the year, digital payments will have a value of more than US$10 Trillion dollars. The report shows that growth will be at a 12% compound annual growth basis, so there are many technology adoptions that will help with a good growth.

Interoperability of real time systems is one aspect. Recently, Singapore announced that PayNow will be fully interoperable with India’s UPI, and citizens and residents of both countries can now transfer money to each other with their mobile phone number or a virtual payment account. This helps with not only the adoption, but the growth of the digital economy. As these transactions will be done in local currencies, the dependency on the US dollar is reduced, making it more cost-effective. More regulators and central governments are collaborating to build interoperability of various real time systems.

The second thing aspect is central bank digital currency, a currency that is back by regulators and the central government. There’s plenty of wallet adoptions and digital cash, but digital currency will make it even better.

In a wholesale use case, the regulators can improve the payment and settlement systems to be more efficient, cost effective, and allow monetary authorities to maintain, manage, and control the digital economy. In the retail use case, it will aid with financial inclusion. Today, almost everyone has a mobile phone, but not everyone has the literacy to be part of the financial system. If there’s an opportunity to use a simple SMS method for P2P, these people can become a part of the financial inclusion. Regulators are working to ensure P2P transfer using CBDC can be done offline, which means in any event such as a natural disaster, payments can still be made.

Companies need to start using innovations, and continuously develop it, and it will be the pillar for the company to adopt all the future use cases.

Catch Jitesh Malik on 29th August, 5:10PM on "Ask Me Anything Panel: How can you navigate regulatory compliance, data privacy and security, technical integration and customer trust to differentiate yourself and offer unique value propositions to succeed in this highly competitive market?" Find out more here!