Charlie McMann, CLMP

Loyalty Account Manager



Charlie McMann

I’m a Loyalty Account Manager here at Stream. I primarily work on our global programmes. At Stream, our account managers are involved at every step of a client’s journey with us. We are part of the concept and pitch process, manage the implementation and then ensure our customers are supported throughout the life of their project. Outside of work, most of my time is spent playing with my 2 sons, relaxing with my wife (once the boys are in bed!) and walking our dog Ripley.

I find technology fascinating and I am slightly addicted to ensuring I have the latest and greatest gadgets and gismos.

Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn, drop me an email or just give me a call on 01844 208180.

An Insight Into Charlie's World

Favourite Team Event

My favourite team experience at Stream has been our team-building scavenger hunt. There are two reasons for this. The first - it was a well organised event run by the Stream directors on our team day and the sun was shining. The second reason is that given we’re based in probably the most beautiful office location in Oxfordshire, it’s always a pleasure to go out exploring in the countryside! I’ve been told that my team lost but my memory of that is hazy, I’m fairly confident that wasn’t the case.

Dream Loyalty Client

As a gamer, I have naturally spent more money than I care to admit on PC and mobile games. I am also a big fan of cloud-based loyalty programmes so naturally game transaction loyalty is something I would love to get into. I think there’s a huge opportunity for popular multiplayer games like League of Legends that have great fan loyalty already. Using a series of behaviour economic principles, the League of Legends developers; “Riot Games” successfully encourage players to spend on in-game items.

Dream Superpower

Flying! Sorry; too obvious, I guess. I think hyper-intelligence would be the most useful. You’d be able to come up with solutions to replicate the other superpowers. Tony Stark has the right idea!

If you are in a position to help someone, and you do; I’d say you are a hero! You don’t need super strength or laser eyes to do that, just passion and caring for others. “I think of a hero as someone who understands the degree of responsibility that comes with his freedom.” Bob Dylan

My Role At Stream

The thing I reference most is Tesco Clubcard to explain Loyalty marketing to people. That shows the power of that brand, everyone instantly knows what I’m talking about. When I talk to my children’s friends about what I do, I just say that “I work with some really clever people who are “good at computers” and help them to build apps that help people out and save them money!” It also helps that I can relate it to the scanners at Waitrose!

Recommended Read

For pure entertainment and wonder, I’d always go to The Hobbit. I am extremely jealous of people who can read that for the first time as it’s an amazing experience. For a more philosophical tome, I’d say “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”. It’s relatively dated but the concepts and lessons contained are generally timeless. It’s amazing how a book that is used as a study piece for philosophy and dialectics can be so wonderous and exciting.

CLMP Takeaway

The importance of understanding value proposition. It is at the core of planning a loyalty programme as you have to consider both your customer base and what benefits the business should offer. A mixture of soft and hard benefits is needed, ensuring a balance of emotional and rational gratification! It’s crucial to understand this from the conception of your programme. As Margaret Meraw says: It’s easy to ADD VALUE – It’s almost impossible to TAKE IT AWAY!

We asked Charlie a few questions

Stream’s recruitment and enrolment processes were very well thought out and ensured a smooth onboarding.

I spent 3 years as a freelance presentation designer/engineer. I also ran graphics and speaker presentations at live corporate events.

Be honest with your clients; when something isn’t possible be clear about it but always have an alternative solution – My first mentor/business partner.

I’m a keen gamer and cinephile. Shooting was a large part of my life when I was younger, I am keen to return to that soon.

Funny (I think!), thoughtful, gluttonous!

Possibly the most useless life skill – I could go professional with my talent for match-3 mobile games.

What excites you most about working in loyalty?

There are not many areas of marketing that directly benefit the customer to the extent that Loyalty programmes do. We’ve all seen the copy to encourage enabling personalised ads: “We want to show you ads that are relevant to you, please enable this to get the right content”. This sort of communication always seems so shallow to customers, as you’re effectively offering them a slightly less unpleasant version of something they don’t want anyway. With loyalty, most customers know they are getting something back from spend they would often be making anyway. You are appealing to so many base behavioural economic principles in a well thought out programme that they feel the benefits in multiple ways.

You can also benefit customers in a very agile way. If there are changes in your industry that will increase the pricing of the products or services you offer, you can offset this for your customer by offering more soft benefits via your loyalty programme. This gives your customers a higher sense of value whilst requiring minimal investment from your business.

What excites you about the industries you work in?

I’ve always preferred to work in B2B spaces, and I’ve had the opportunity to work in the pharma and healthcare industry a few times in my professional career. It’s a fascinating and constantly shifting space with the added complexity of increased legal regulations to consider when creating a loyalty program. Working in Dental B2B means getting to help with adding value to thousands of dental practices around the world. With the number of dental manufacturers growing, customer retention is more important than ever. As well as financial benefits for dental practices, academic spaces offer a brilliant opportunity for vocational and business growth training to be offered as a reward.

Stream has had the pleasure to work with some of the biggest names in the dental industry and our loyalty expertise in this space has earned us multiple award nominations and wins in the past. This year, Dentsply Sirona’s Points Plus programme has been nominated for Best B2B Loyalty Programme at the International Loyalty Awards. We are incredibly proud of this achievement!

Loyalty Insights

How to harness customer loyalty in Fintech

Given the explosion of financial services solutions available on the market, customer loyalty is more important than ever.

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Securing Market Share at the top of the Loyalty Ladder
Building B2B loyalty whilst selling through the channel

In today’s fast moving global marketplace customer retention and loyalty is key; particularly in the B2B market.

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How many people does it take to run a loyalty programme 

With most of us time poor and under resourced, you need to be sure you have enough people to deliver a loyalty programme effectively.

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