Zsuzsa Kecsmar of Antavo AI Reveals Why Loyal Customers Spend 7x More and How to Keep Them

Zsuzsa Kecsmar didn't set out to build a software company. She set out to be a journalist. She won Young Journalist of the Year in Hungary, hosted her own radio show, and spent five years honing her craft before quietly concluding she had hit her ceiling and should do something else entirely. That pivot led to co-founding Antavo in London's Silicon Roundabout, writing the business plan as her university thesis, and building what is now one of the world's leading AI loyalty technology platforms. Twelve years on, Antavo powers programmes for KFC, Benefit Cosmetics, Scandic Hotels, Skims, and Calvin Klein, and Zsuzsa has spent every year since pushing the industry to take loyalty seriously as a board-level priority rather than a marketing afterthought.

In this episode, Jamie sits down with Zsuzsa to get into the numbers, the mechanics, and the uncomfortable truths behind how loyalty programmes actually work. The Global Customer Loyalty Report 2026 is built from analysis of 500 million loyalty member actions, a 3,000-person marketer panel, and a 10,000-person consumer panel, making it the most rigorous benchmark the industry has. What it reveals is striking. A third of consumers are more likely to join a loyalty programme this year than last, loyal customers spend four to seven times more than one-time buyers, and a well-run loyalty programme is now the single best source of consented first-party data for any retailer heading into an AI transformation. Yet most retailers still treat it as a discount mechanism and leave the real value untouched.

They get into the stories behind the stats. How Flying Tiger launched across six countries in six weeks and now generates 60% of revenue from loyalty members. How Bergzeit integrated Garmin so customers think of the brand every time they go hiking. How BMW converted its entire events budget into a loyalty programme during the pandemic and retained company car drivers for years afterwards. How Skims scaled so fast that Antavo had to rebuild its infrastructure just to keep up. Zsuzsa also talks honestly about what it is like to run a company with your husband, why an investor once called their marriage a threat to the business, and what she needs to prove before Antavo's Series B.

If you work in retail, e-commerce, or customer experience and you are still thinking about loyalty as just a points scheme, this conversation will change how you see your entire post-purchase strategy.

About Antavo
Antavo AI Loyalty Cloud is an enterprise loyalty technology platform that helps global retailers design, launch, and continuously evolve loyalty programmes that go far beyond points and discounts. The platform integrates with POS systems, mobile apps, and third-party platforms like Garmin, analyses 500 million loyalty member actions annually, and is trusted by brands including KFC, Benefit Cosmetics, Skims, and Calvin Klein. Founded in London by four Hungarian co-founders, Antavo publishes the Global Customer Loyalty Report, the most widely downloaded benchmark in the industry, and is on a mission to put customer loyalty at the centre of every retailer's growth strategy.