South Africa’s Discovery drives customer loyalty via RPA, APIs

The COVID-19 pandemic caused a significant shift in South African consumer behaviour, with more shoppers turning to loyalty programmes than ever before. In fact, the average economically active South African belongs to about eight different programmes. As the CIO of Discovery Vitality, Nadira Misthry is invested in this trend.

Vitality is the rewards programme for Discovery, a South African-founded financial services organisation that serves the healthcare, life assurance, short-term insurance, savings and investments, banking and wellness markets. Vitality is one of South Africa’s biggest medical aid rewards programmes, which gives customers benefits for living a healthy lifestyle.

Loyalty programmes are developed to encourage members to stick with a particular product or business by offering rewards as an incentive for loyalty, Misthry says. “Technology and data are key enablers of these programmes because they ensure continuous member engagement, from linking a smartwatch to shopping with a programme partner. Technology underpins and drives the entire process,” she says.

Responsible for the technical side of Vitality — from the mobile app and website to the different integrations with the rewards programme’s various partners — Misthry is regularly looking to improve and update Discovery’s hugely popular programme to cater to a changing technology environment, and to meet the needs of a more digitally enabled and savvy user base. 

Here, CIO Africa chats with Misthry about the technology she and her team are using to keep Vitality members engaged.

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