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Executive Interview Series – WestJet’s Byron Kelly and CORA Loyalty’s Beth McCoy

The latest of our Executive Interviews brings together two executives that are well steeped in the loyalty sector, Beth McCoy, the President of CORA Loyalty and Byron Kelly, Director of Loyalty with WestJet. 

WestJet was founded in 1996 and began as a low-cost alternative to Canada’s major airlines. It has grown to become the country’s second-largest airline. WestJet provides scheduled airline services, vacation packages, cargo, and charter services to numerous destinations across North America, Central America, the Caribbean, Europe, and Asia.

Cora Group is a collective of software companies focused on loyalty programs and related services. CORA Group includes brands like RewardOps, Vanson Technology, and the recently acquired Carlson Marketing’s Enterprise Loyalty Platform from Kognitiv. Cora is owned by Constellation Software, through its subsidiary Jonas Software.

The two spoke with Wise Marketer Group‘s CMO, Aaron Dauphinee on a wide span of topics with these highlights:

  • CORA Loyalty’s emergence into the loyalty industry through a set of strategic acquisitions;
  • WestJet and CORA partnering together to provide an online store experience for WestJet Reward members;
  • Emerging trends in the travel loyalty and how WestJet’s model is strategically designed to provide an alternative value promise to what’s in the market; and
  • Forward looking thoughts for the loyalty sector and what brands should be doing differently to provide compelling value to their customers.

Time stamps for the time starved

  •  1:00 – Intro to our guests
  • 3:40 – Overview of Constellation Software and Cora Loyalty
  • 10:00 – Highlights of the recent relaunch of WestJet Rewards
  • 14:30 – WestJet Rewards Roadmap
  • 15:28 – Focus on Travel Loyalty (what’s unique for loyalty marketers)
  • 23:17 – Forward looking thoughts on Frequent Flyer Programs
  • 25:00 – Monetization of FFP’s
  • 28:37 – Challenges for Customer Loyalty today
  • 32:50 – Creating better customer experiences through customer loyalty
  • 34:40 – Loyalty can’t live in a marketing silo
  • 35:00 – The value of loyalty to the enterprise
  • 36:36 – An epiphany moment in Customer Loyalty from Beth and Byron