Level by L’Oreal: Flipping the Script on Loyalty

On this episode of The Whole Idea Podcast by DCG ONE, learn about Level by L’Oreal, a loyalty rewards program that does as much (or more) to demonstrate loyalty as it does to reward it. Joining host Greg Oberst is Beverly Shortt, business development and digital technology director for L’Oreal. Get a “case-study” view of L'Oreal’s unique take on loyalty rewards. Hear insight on program pillars that have helped ignite engagement and triple membership in just the few years since the program’s inception.  

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Transcript

Air date: September 25, 2024

Transcript: The Whole Idea Podcast

Episode 11: Level by L’Oreal: Flipping the Script on Loyalty

Greg: 
There’s more than one way to reward loyalty. What if it was your brand that was demonstrating allegiance?  

Hello everyone and welcome to the Whole Idea Podcast by DCG ONE. I’m Greg Oberst. My guest on this episode is Beverly Shortt, business development and digital technology director at L’Oreal, a DCG ONE client, thank you very much. We’re catching up with Beverly at her Atlanta office. 

Hi, Beverly. How are you?

Beverly:   
I am doing great. How about you?

Greg: 

Doing good as well. And thanks for joining us. 

Yes, let’s call this episode something closer to a case study. We’re going to spend some time talking about your innovative approach to customer loyalty, a program at L’Oreal you call Level. But first, let’s help our listeners get to know you a bit better. Beverly, if you would, tell us about your professional background and your duties at L’Oreal.
 

Beverly:
Well, first of all, thanks for having me on the show. I'm super honored to be able to come on and speak to everybody today. I have been in the beauty industry for over 20 years. I won't save the year I started, but it's I started off as a hairdresser behind the chair, working with clients every day, doing hair color mostly and haircuts.

I was recruited to be an educator working with loreal for one of our brands, loreal professional back in 2011, and since then I've held several positions in the company through sales, education, business development and about three years ago I moved over to join this Level loyalty team where I've been working ever since.
  

Greg:  

In your role you have that important perspective of actually having been, “behind the chair” as you call it.  

Beverly:   
Absolutely. In fact, I think one of the important things for me being coming from behind the chair is just understanding my customer, my client. They're not necessarily always the most business minded. We love creating beautiful art through hair, so I made it my goal throughout my career at LOREAL to make sure that our salons and stylists have what they need so that they can keep doing what they do best every day, which is what which is basically making people feel like the best versions of themselves. So whether they need education or business services, marketing, support, whatever it is that they need, I really strive to make Level loyalty. The program that's going to help them achieve their goals.

Greg: 
Alright, so let’s dive deeper into Level, L’Oreal’s loyalty rewards program—and website. When did Level get its start?  

Beverly: 
So we started in 2017. It was actually a culmination—Level Loyalty supports nine different brands in the L’Oreal Professional product division and before 2017, each of these brands had their own kind of made-up loyalty programs and we decided to bring them all under one umbrella, which launched in 2017.

Greg: 
Of course, rewards points are a tried-and-true staple of most loyalty rewards programs, but what impresses me most about Level is how it reaches deeper into the customer experience—even to the point of setting program pillars. What are the pillars?

Beverly: 
So we have four key pillars that we focus on. The first one is business driver or using Level as a business driver.
 

The second is on education. Education is really important to our industry, to salons and stylists, and we want to make sure that we have everything education for our members. And the third is sustainability. And then our fourth is diversity, equity and inclusion DE&I and we support programs like our Texture of Change initiative through those DE and I programs.

Greg:  

I’d love to hear more about each one of those pillars. How do customers use Level for that first pillar, as a business driver?  

Beverly: 
Absolutely. Yeah. Well we see ourselves as a true partner to our salons. We want them to be successful. So that's why one of our key pillars is driving business. We offer a lot of different items in our catalog that support business growth, whether it's marketing companies or point of sales services guides to help sell through. We basically want to be that go to spot for our members to get what they need that's going to help them in managing and driving their business forward.

Greg: 

It would seem that you would need a pretty good ear to the ground to make sure you’re capturing insight into what salons and hairdressers really need to drive business.   

Beverly: 
You know, the salon industry is a very unique industry in the way that the businesses run and we have a full team of sales reps that go out there and act as true business partners to our salons.
And one way that Level strives to understand what business needs or what new things are coming out there in the market that will help our salons grow our businesses, our relationship with those sales teams. We have a very close relationship with many of them and host focus groups even to gain insight and feedback.
 

Some other ways that we work with our salons on gaining insight and feedback is through many surveys that we host throughout the year to collect information from our salons. And we also have tools on our site like A wish list items that can help drive some insights to see what our salons actually you know putting on their wish list for future purchases or redemptions. So there's many different ways that we take a look at.

In addition, we have a lot of business partners that we again host groups with and connect with and are very close with where we can keep our eye on new business techniques, new business tools, new business products for the salon industry that are coming out there and we try to stay ahead and get in at the very early signs on those cutting-edge technologies.

Greg: 

I can see where this next pillar, education, is closely aligned with the business driver pilar.
 

Beverly: 
Yes, education is actually our core focus. It is the main business driver. We know that when a salon takes an education class, they see significant growth, sometimes up to 8% higher than our salons and stylists that don't take any education and education in the industry is also very important. Many states require continuing education credits, but it's not just for those continuing education salons and stylists have to stay ahead of trends.
 

They have to stay ahead of new products that are coming out on the market because we know that, especially in our day and age of social media, our customers are more and more aware of technology and products and solutions that are coming out to them, and we want to make sure that our salons and stylists are armed with that information when they're when they're customers come into the salons.

So education is a very, very important pillar to us. In fact, it really is the central focal point of most of our messaging. Most of the way the site is designed is all around making it very easy for education to come to life for them.

Greg: 

Looking at Levelloyaltyrewards.com, the website, I couldn’t help but note that your education program goes beyond business drivers and into mental and physical health.  

Beverly: 

You know, as a hairdresser behind the chair, you spend so much time on your feet all day long and seeing, you know, eight to 10 customers a day, you're listening to everything that they have to tell you. And I can tell you that most people tell their hairdressers more than they tell their therapists. So by the end of the day, you know, bringing all of that information into you, if you don't have tools and resources that can help you disconnect from that and allow yourself to express your own feelings and emotions around it, then it can become really cumbersome.

So we take mental health really seriously and have partnered with several very high-Level educators and hairdressers around the country to offer resources and education and tools for them for their own mental health. We also focus on the physical health because it's quite trying to stand on your feet all day and making sure that they're taking care of their bodies as well, with making sure that we have exercises available for musculoskeletal disorders and any other type of situation that they might come into throughout their day.

Greg:
Listening to you, Beverly, I have to remind myself that we’re talking about a loyalty program here. Indeed, a very robust loyalty program. And we’re only halfway through your pillars. The third of your four pillars, sustainability.
 

Beverly: 
So at L’Oreal we have a really big commitment to sustainability. The company has been working very hard for many years on making sure that our sustainable footprint is and is one to be proud of in the world, and we also want to make sure that as part of our Community that our Members understand what our commitment to those sustainability initiatives are.
 

So we have a lot of information on the site to provide education or around our messaging.
But not only that, we want to pass through that sustainability messaging and also give our salon customers and Members ways that they can include sustainability into their own salon companies.
So we've partnered with several companies that offer sustainable solutions specifically for hairdressers.
 

Many around water conservation we have recycling so that we can contribute to some of the landfill that goes back in or some of the waste that goes back into landfill and other. And then we also help out with some other energy type solutions that we offer through the catalog, so that a salon member can come and redeem for those items and become more sustainable on their end as well.

Greg: 
And on this past pillar, diversity-equity-and-inclusion, you can see where this area touches a lot of bases in a sector like yours.

Beverly:   
Absolutely. I mean, that's really the guiding force behind the beauty industry is bringing out the unique beauty of every single person that comes and sits in your chair. So since everybody has that unique beauty, then we want to celebrate that diversity, equity and inclusion and make sure that everybody feels the best that they can as they leave their salon. 

So we have a few initiatives that we focus on. The first one that we're focused on right now that I'd really like to talk about is called the Texture of Change. It is a new initiative that started a couple of years ago. What we've found is that there's many cosmetology schools, and many state boards that actually do not require any kind of education on textured hair.
 

So many cosmetologists will go through their entire cosmetology school career and not ever learn how to perform hair services on textured hair. Another interesting fact though is that I believe it's over 60% of the clients out there in the world have some form of textured hair. So why wouldn't we want to teach that in our cosmetology schools and have that be part of our State board licensing system?

So through the Texture of Change, the goal is to enforce legislation to make sure that textured hair is included in the curriculum in all cosmetology schools, and is considered in the state boards across the country.

So at Level we have a messaging on our site that talks about the Texture of Change and helps drive people to go sign the petition so that we can get more legislation out there and past and we partner with PBA, which is the Professional Beauty Association on this initiative to bring it to life and make sure that we're talking out there in the world about it.
 

Greg: 

Sounds like an important initiative. So I’m hearing about a lot of engagement opportunities for your customers with Level. Are there touchpoints you see your members trending to?
 

Beverly: 
What we're seeing is this drive for education, you know, it's education's always been important to our industry, but in the past few years, it's become even more prevalent out there and making sure that everybody can keep up with those trends and maintain their mental wellness and help their business to continue to grow. So Level is consistently evolving so that we can better provide a seamless experience for those educational events and those experiences.

Greg: 

And of course, we don’t want to forget about rewards points, a foundational element for most loyalty programs, I dare say. 
  

Beverly: 

Yes. So as a quick overview for Level loyalty, we are a points-based system. We have six tiers that we focus on and like I mentioned earlier, we cover nine different brands. So whenever a salon or stylist purchases one of those brands, they start earning points from the very first dollar that they spend and the more they spend, the more points that they'll earn and we. Five of our tiers are based in purchase amounts, so the more you purchase, the more points you earn. We have one “six” tier. That's actually an invite only tier that our what we call the Black tier where our Black tier salons are invited by brands that they really focus on or that they're loyal to in one specific brand. So the brand will actually invite them to be part of that Black tier and that Black tier not only gives them the points that they earn, but they also get other special rewards as well.

Greg: 

Beverly, with Level, I get the sense that you’re flipping the script or demonstrating that loyalty programs can work both ways in that you’re offering as much loyalty to your customers as they are to your brand.

Beverly: 

I do feel like that. I do feel like we're flipping the scripts. I feel like reciprocal relationship with our customers is really important to Level. It's not just about their loyalty to our brands and to what we have as a program, but it's about our loyalty back to them because when they grow, we grow, right.

So we want to show our appreciation in meaningful ways and I believe that a lot of people can go out there and build a catalog, have a lot of really cool items that people can use for their those points. But when those catalog items are super intentional and are there and designed to help salons grow in their business or to help them get the education that they need or to find sustainable solutions, then that just shows that we are working for them, not necessarily just trying to be a cool loyalty program.

Greg: 

Yes, and well it’s smart marketing too – creating more ways to engage with the brand…

Beverly: 
Yep, I think it's also about fostering that genuine connection. I think when you have an authentic connection, especially in the beauty industry, that that goes a long way. One of our brands has a really cool saying that they have for their education, “Learn better, earn better, live best.” And I think it goes for Level as well that that's really what we want for our customers.

Greg: 

Beverly, what can you tell me about the growth of Level since its inception?

Beverly: 
You know, we have grown every year since we started in 2017 and I would say from our first year to now, we have more than tripled and the amount of members that we have when the program and our engagement rate is above average engagement rate for most loyalty programs, especially in our higher tiers, we have close to 100% in some categories of engagement from our customers that really see the value and what we offer through Level loyalty. It's quite amazing to know that this is the community that we've built with all of our members.

Greg: 

Well, congratulations on the success of the program, it’s quite novel. 

Beverly: 

I would really like to say something about our partnership with DCG ONE.

Greg:

Well I won’t stop you. 

Beverly: 

Okay. You know, we could not have done as much as we've done with Level Loyalty without our partnership. One the way that the team works with us in identifying solutions to all of our crazy ideas and all of the ways that we want to keep imagining our relationship with our members, we're very fortunate to have you as a partner.

Greg:
Well, thanks very much, I know the team here really enjoys the relationship as well. Let’s end with this: What kind of advice would you offer a brand or a marketing manager who is considering taking their loyalty program to a deeper and more meaningful place?   

Beverly:    
I think that the advice that I would give is to think beyond a transactional rewards program where you earn a point, you go on a catalog, and you redeem that point for said item in that catalog. I would say focus on building a genuine relationship. Understand your customers business needs their values and align your values and aspirations with what your customers values and aspirations are, and then incorporate that into the program. I feel like if that is incorporated into the program, you can really build a community that goes beyond a discount or a typical loyalty program. And again, prioritizing that authentic relationship, I think will build more loyalty than anything else.

Greg: 

Great advice. Beverly Shortt, thanks very much for sharing the story of Level by L’Oreal. There’s a lot to learn there, not to mention some real inspiration for what a loyalty program can be today.  
 

Beverly:  
Thank you so much for having me on the show.
 

Greg: 
You’re welcome. Let’s do some key takeaways: 

Just as you think about brand values or pillars that form the foundation of your marketing platform, consider how pillars in a loyalty program might help you envision where the opportunities for deeper member engagement may exist.

Deepen your knowledge of your customer and the world they operate in and consider how you can make a meaningful difference in their lives and the communities in which they operate.

And remember that one way to reward loyalty is by demonstrating a bit of your own. If you believe the customer is king or queen – then you be the loyal subject. 

My thanks again to Beverly Shortt, business development and digital technology director at L’Oreal.

If you have questions for Beverly or would like to chat with her about Level or taking your loyalty program to a higher Level, write us at podcast@dcgone.com. 

Thank you very much for listening. Whole Idea podcast producers are Mandy DiCesare and Kelcie Brewer. I’m Greg Oberst, watch this channel for our next podcast and more expertise, insight, and inspiration for Whole Idea Marketing.  

Take care.