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Speaker 1: We often hear about mergers and acquisitions. Well, it's also
Speaker 1: possible to have a d merger.
Speaker 3: This is when a.
Speaker 1: Company decides to split into two companies. And that's what
Speaker 1: we're chatting about today by hearing about what's been going
Speaker 1: on with the online travel company Webjet.
Speaker 3: Started in nineteen ninety eight.
Speaker 1: Webjet is a well known global travel company and a
Speaker 1: place that many Kiwis and Australians go to book travel
Speaker 1: and experiences and accounts for almost eight percent.
Speaker 3: Of all travel booked.
Speaker 1: Last week, shareholders voted and approved that the d merger
Speaker 1: of Webjet into two separate ASEX listed entities, web Travel Group,
Speaker 1: which is the B to B side of the business,
Speaker 1: and Webjet Group, which is the B two C side
Speaker 1: of the business. Joining me to help understand what this
Speaker 1: means for consumer travel, the new CEO of Webjet Group,
Speaker 1: Katrina Berry.
Speaker 4: Welcome, Katrina, Hi, Sonya love to be here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thanks, thanks for having us. It's been a huge week,
Speaker 3: hasn't it.
Speaker 4: I sound like I've had a really big night out.
Speaker 4: I've been. I feel like I've been talking to investors
Speaker 4: and brokers for about the last four weeks solid. And
Speaker 4: on Monday we rang the bell with Webjet Group WJL
Speaker 4: now officially listed on the AX. So that was quite
Speaker 4: a party. And yeah, so it's been a full on,
Speaker 4: busy week. It's been a good time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, amazing.
Speaker 1: And we will get into the whib jet you know
Speaker 1: what's been going on, because obviously there's been, you know,
Speaker 1: a lot to talk about. But first let's give a
Speaker 1: bit of an intro to you and well so people
Speaker 1: get a sense of who we're talking to. You've got
Speaker 1: a pretty impressive background, fast tech, fifty female leader, numerous
Speaker 1: director and CEO titles, held in some pretty iconic brands.
Speaker 1: You know, can you tell us a bit about your
Speaker 1: background and what led you to the travel industry At the.
Speaker 4: End of the day, I'm just a Kirwy farm girl
Speaker 4: who grew up in Papa Korda. I'm just outside of
Speaker 4: Auckland and went to Auckland University and then I moved
Speaker 4: to Australia. My first job and Mackenzie doing strategy consulting,
Speaker 4: so I spent about seven or eight years doing that
Speaker 4: and then my first real job as what we call it,
Speaker 4: was working with a Virgin group. But I think and
Speaker 4: that's where I kind of fell in love with the
Speaker 4: travel industry. I wasn't working specifically for Virgin Blue as
Speaker 4: it was called back then, but you know, you get
Speaker 4: a lot of exposed to it when I was working
Speaker 4: at Virgin Money Virgin Management and started a gym chain
Speaker 4: called Virgin Active. But I think what drew me into
Speaker 4: the travel industry was, you know, when I was at university,
Speaker 4: I went on this trip and it was pretty much
Speaker 4: my first overseas trip. I went to a student conference
Speaker 4: in India, and so you know, it sort of traveled
Speaker 4: around there and which is you know, India for anyone
Speaker 4: who hasn't been, is an assault on every sense in
Speaker 4: the best possible way. It is colorful, it is confronting.
Speaker 4: The food is fabulous, and you know, for me, it
Speaker 4: was a complete adventure and something I never thought I
Speaker 4: would ever do, sort of, you know, spending my time
Speaker 4: at Papacotta High School, I was just hoping to get
Speaker 4: to the big smoke, being Auckland, CBD. So that's what
Speaker 4: drew me to travel and my first real leadership role
Speaker 4: in travel. I was working at a bank and I
Speaker 4: had a recruiter call me and said I had just
Speaker 4: left the Virgin group about a year and a half
Speaker 4: failiure and they had said, look, I've got the perfect
Speaker 4: role for you. You wanted, you know, an MDCO role.
Speaker 4: I you know, you wanted to cover Australa, Zealand in
Speaker 4: Asia because I'd missed running Asia after I left Virgin.
Speaker 4: Well that sounds perfect, what is it? She said of Kentucky?
Speaker 4: And I was like, sorry, Like, isn't Kentucky just a
Speaker 4: booze bus for Bogans? And in the end. I met
Speaker 4: with a chair and he was like, you're right twenty
Speaker 4: years ago, twenty five years ago, it was, and that's
Speaker 4: why we want you to come on board. You've got
Speaker 4: experience taking iconic brands and transforming them and that was
Speaker 4: my first full time role in the travel industry and
Speaker 4: I've been in it ever since. You know, that's sort
Speaker 4: of twelve years ago now, so good times.
Speaker 1: So you were on the board of Whipbjet, you know,
Speaker 1: for a few years before this, so you know the
Speaker 1: business pretty well. What's been your experience, like two weeks
Speaker 1: into the CEO role of the of the B two
Speaker 1: C side.
Speaker 4: You know, this is a stellar business. You know, it's
Speaker 4: the original online travel agency for Austrand, New Zealand, and
Speaker 4: you know, as you said, formed twenty six years ago
Speaker 4: and you know since that time, it took about ten
Speaker 4: years for it to become number one and it's maintained
Speaker 4: that position ever since. And it's a i would say,
Speaker 4: a leader, a forethinker and how we buy you know,
Speaker 4: e commerce. So you know one of the things though
Speaker 4: that this business, you know, prior to d merger was
Speaker 4: you know, three point two billion dollar business and you
Speaker 4: know that becomes a lot, and we had almost become
Speaker 4: two different divisions. We're two different sets of customers. B
Speaker 4: to B was you know, travel intermediaries, people who were
Speaker 4: selling travel and that's very much what our web bed
Speaker 4: business served. And then the original business, Webjet Group, you know,
Speaker 4: which is the way to buy travel online in Australian
Speaker 4: New Zealand. The reality is when you get that big
Speaker 4: as a board member, you unapologetically spend your dollars and
Speaker 4: your time on the business that's growing the fastest. You
Speaker 4: always back your growth and now the Webjet Group has
Speaker 4: a very enviable growth target, don't you growth profile, but
Speaker 4: you know it was less than sort of thirty five percent,
Speaker 4: which is what our other business was growing at. So
Speaker 4: the reason why as a board we started to talk
Speaker 4: about the de merger was we found ourselves as a
Speaker 4: board speaking mess and less about the iconic Webjet Group,
Speaker 4: the original business, even though that was the cash car
Speaker 4: of the group, and if we were honest, we'd probably
Speaker 4: you know, not focus on enough. In the last five
Speaker 4: to six years, you know, there was a bit going on.
Speaker 4: We had a pandemic and then they had to manage
Speaker 4: through that and then there was revenge travel. But as
Speaker 4: a board, we thought it was the most appropriate thing
Speaker 4: to drive shareholder value but also to drive the growth
Speaker 4: agendas of both company companies, was to split it up
Speaker 4: and allow both to focus on the unique strategic agendas.
Speaker 4: We're extremely well cash preserved, if you will, you know,
Speaker 4: we have no debt, about ninety million dollars free cash,
Speaker 4: and that gives us an incredible opportunity now to focus
Speaker 4: on our unique organic and potentially inorganic growth agenda. So
Speaker 4: that's what we're looking forward to doing. So it's been
Speaker 4: a whirlwind, I guess to your question of you know,
Speaker 4: what's being like, I officially, you know, step down from
Speaker 4: the board about three months ago to step into an
Speaker 4: executive role, and you know, I think we've just delivered
Speaker 4: the fastest merger in Australian corporate history. There's no prize
Speaker 4: for it but other than a horse throat, but I
Speaker 4: think it's just been really exciting. The team is incredibly
Speaker 4: energized now that we have our own balance sheet. We
Speaker 4: have a dedicated board, dedicated you know, management team now,
Speaker 4: dedicated balance sheet, no debt, and all the opportunity in
Speaker 4: the world.
Speaker 1: So let's get into the opportunities that you see now
Speaker 1: that the B two C side is stepping and tigers
Speaker 1: its own light and its own chance to kind of
Speaker 1: go and I set itself from here. So can you
Speaker 1: tell us a bit around like how you see those opportunities?
Speaker 1: You know, what is the B two C strategy from
Speaker 1: here for Webjet?
Speaker 4: Well, there's a couple of key areas that we think
Speaker 4: are underleveraged and we want to focus on as a team.
Speaker 4: The first one is probably you know, it's the first
Speaker 4: thing you do when you come into a company is
Speaker 4: you check your brand health. You know, what is the
Speaker 4: health of the Webjet brand, et cetera. It's incredibly famous,
Speaker 4: it has really high awareness, but consideration is probably something
Speaker 4: we need to work on. So the first thing we're
Speaker 4: doing as a team is a bit of a brand
Speaker 4: refresh or a glow up as our younger lists would
Speaker 4: know it. So it's not a rebrand, but it's an
Speaker 4: opportunity for us to take the brand, freshen it up,
Speaker 4: make it a bit more relevant and a bit more contemporary.
Speaker 4: So that's your first piece from there. That'll set us
Speaker 4: in a good position to really invest in our marketing
Speaker 4: and I think leverage our sex mil customers. So we
Speaker 4: have six million customers across Australia and New Zealand who
Speaker 4: are either members of our loged and members of our
Speaker 4: websites and our travel marketplaces. We have three of them
Speaker 4: being webjet dot com dot Au or Webjet dot Co
Speaker 4: dot nz it and then Airport Rentals dot Com and
Speaker 4: Motorhome Republic. The last two you know, obviously hopefully what
Speaker 4: it says on the car us says on the door
Speaker 4: one's car Rentals and one's motor home Rentals. So each
Speaker 4: of those three marketplaces are leaders in their space, and
Speaker 4: we have six million customers sitting across those and I
Speaker 4: think we've got an opportunity to drive more loyalty and
Speaker 4: drive more repeat rate from those customers by focusing on
Speaker 4: our member journey and our member experience. So that's a
Speaker 4: key focus for us in terms of developing out that
Speaker 4: member experience. And what I mean by that is, you know,
Speaker 4: we did our first piece of it, and there's plenty
Speaker 4: of e commers examples who do this way better than us,
Speaker 4: So this is not a hard stretch for us to
Speaker 4: really grab growth out of this lever. You know, we
Speaker 4: did our first ever promotion like a three weeks ago
Speaker 4: to Bali and it was if you're a webjeit member,
Speaker 4: you got access to that deal for the first twenty
Speaker 4: four hours first. Now, everybody knows in a travel deal,
Speaker 4: you want to jump on that thing because that's where
Speaker 4: all the good flights go first. So we did that
Speaker 4: and gave that to members as an exclusive offer to
Speaker 4: them for twenty four hours. It went really well. Why
Speaker 4: because people love being treated special, and they love deals,
Speaker 4: and they love getting early access to something. So we think,
Speaker 4: you know, there's an entire extension you can take from that.
Speaker 4: That was just you know, we've got the functionality. I've
Speaker 4: got my profile and there my kids, my husband's, all
Speaker 4: our frequent flyers, so it's really easy for me to
Speaker 4: book my flight, my hotel and have it all in
Speaker 4: one place. So that's functionality already exists. Now what we
Speaker 4: want to do is offer value to our members, and
Speaker 4: that doesn't have to be revenue dilutionary, but it's like,
Speaker 4: here's an exclusive offer for you. Also, it's work with
Speaker 4: airlines going Okay, you've got some distressed inventory. You know
Speaker 4: May is not looking good for next year, and but
Speaker 4: you don't have enough to go out and do an
Speaker 4: above line campaign. Work with us We've got a closed
Speaker 4: user group being six million people we can talk to
Speaker 4: and go we can push this product for you. So
Speaker 4: there's some really good examples there. So that drives what
Speaker 4: lever I call the repeat. The next piece is you
Speaker 4: know what am I? What am I buying? You know,
Speaker 4: there's an entire travel wallet that each of us has
Speaker 4: when we think about going on a trip. I've got
Speaker 4: to get my flights and then I've you know, how
Speaker 4: am I going to get around? Am I going to
Speaker 4: take a tour? Am I going to hire a car?
Speaker 4: We're going to hire a motor home. Oh, I'm going
Speaker 4: to need somewhere to stay. You know, I need some hotels,
Speaker 4: and you know being safe is cool, so I'm going
Speaker 4: to need travel insurance as well. So these are their
Speaker 4: elements we If you look at our revenue, seventy percent
Speaker 4: of it comes from flight related activity and thirty percent
Speaker 4: comes from us receiving a commission from selling the hotel
Speaker 4: or selling the car, or selling the travel insurance for example.
Speaker 4: So the next key lever opportunity for this business is
Speaker 4: to focus on capturing that whole travel wallet and attaching
Speaker 4: what we call these ancillary products. So most people know
Speaker 4: us for flights and probably domestic, so it's coming to
Speaker 4: us and the going Okay, you've got your flight, and
Speaker 4: most people don't know. He's two fun facts for every
Speaker 4: dull in listener. You can burn your AMEX points on webjet.
Speaker 4: Most people are like in business, they're like, I did
Speaker 4: not know that. The second piece is you can get
Speaker 4: twenty percent off your hotel if you book your flight,
Speaker 4: so you know, really good bargain. But the key thing
Speaker 4: about that is most people don't know. You know, if
Speaker 4: I attach all these the extras for my holiday, I
Speaker 4: can bundle and save if you will. So that's the
Speaker 4: kind of the third key thing we're focused on. The
Speaker 4: last is international. Now, if you think about you know
Speaker 4: what's happening in the international space right now? Airflight prices
Speaker 4: are dropping yay for all of us. And you know
Speaker 4: that is because demand supply. The capacity hasn't. We haven't
Speaker 4: fully reached outbound capacity. And but that I mean flights
Speaker 4: out of Australia New Zealand the level that we had
Speaker 4: pre COVID. We've still only at eighty ninety percent. Most
Speaker 4: airlines now are finalizing bringing back fleet, etc. And focus
Speaker 4: more on a capacity game than a yield game at
Speaker 4: the same time as we've got new airlines coming to
Speaker 4: Australia New Zealand who have never flown here before. You
Speaker 4: know his fun fact, Turkish air Lines third largest airline
Speaker 4: in the world. I never knew that until about two
Speaker 4: months ago. And they have just confirmed they're going to
Speaker 4: be starting to fly out of Australia this year. So
Speaker 4: that is bringing more capacity to the market. What does
Speaker 4: that mean prices begin to drop? So is a real
Speaker 4: We've got a real key opportunity right now to sell
Speaker 4: more international flights. Now, as I said before, most people
Speaker 4: will know webjait. It's like, okay, you know, how we
Speaker 4: started was selling point to point around austray and New
Speaker 4: Zealand and between the two countries. But now we are
Speaker 4: significantly growing our share of international outbound. Now here's a
Speaker 4: trick about international outbound US Ossie's and Kiwi's. We like
Speaker 4: to travel and we don't do simple point to point
Speaker 4: Americans and Europeans they go, I'm going to fly from
Speaker 4: New York to London back again, or I'm going to
Speaker 4: go from Rome, you know, from Rome to la and
Speaker 4: back again. They do point to point travel. Now that's
Speaker 4: really easy to solve with technology, and that's why technology,
Speaker 4: you know, sort of boomed across the last fifteen years
Speaker 4: for actually buying travel online. For however, for international, for
Speaker 4: OSSI's and Kiwis, we don't do that. We do multi
Speaker 4: stop trips. Stop off in Singapore, they hang out there
Speaker 4: for a couple of days, up to Dubai, go to
Speaker 4: the raids track into London. Oh got to pop across
Speaker 4: to France to see Auntie Cecil. Then I want to
Speaker 4: go down to Italy because that's where I want to
Speaker 4: have my aparol Greece. Need a bit of sunshine, and
Speaker 4: you know I'll go home by La to see my
Speaker 4: friend there or to take the kids to Disneyland. So
Speaker 4: you know, we really move around. That's called a multi
Speaker 4: stock trip. Now we have a really unique competitive advantage
Speaker 4: in this using AI and a piece of technology that
Speaker 4: we have bought and integrated. That now means we have
Speaker 4: a real shot at disrupting the industry again and becoming
Speaker 4: the way that you can book international. So traditionally you
Speaker 4: would have to go to what we call a bricks
Speaker 4: and water travel agency or you know, your travel agency
Speaker 4: store at the local shopping center. You walk in there
Speaker 4: and you sit down and a good travel agent can
Speaker 4: put together that multi stop trip for you across a
Speaker 4: couple of hours. I know my sister in law is
Speaker 4: a travel agent and that's what I've been making her
Speaker 4: do for years. But with webjet and now how we're
Speaker 4: using AI, you can do that from your couch by
Speaker 4: yourself in five minutes. So, given the trends that are
Speaker 4: happening in the international market, given the continuing on acceleration
Speaker 4: to online purchasing for every category, particularly travel, and now
Speaker 4: the technology is at a place and we have a
Speaker 4: distinct competitive vantage with an AI that we have implemented,
Speaker 4: we've got a really good shot at starting to win
Speaker 4: an international share. So those are the three things that
Speaker 4: we're focused on in the first one being fixed, the brand,
Speaker 4: fix the repeat, attach more, capture more of the travel wallet,
Speaker 4: and then grow our international share.
Speaker 3: Thanks for that overview. Who are your main competitors?
Speaker 4: People compare us to Expedia and Booking dot Com in
Speaker 4: terms of the online world, but they started out life
Speaker 4: as hotels, so most people go to them for hotels
Speaker 4: and selling flights is a lot lot harder. And then
Speaker 4: people can also compare us to I think you know,
Speaker 4: major travel agencies like Flight Center.
Speaker 1: Cool and then you know, it's great to have the
Speaker 1: plans and the strategies of what you're gonna seize and achieve,
Speaker 1: but how do you consider what are the big risks
Speaker 1: that you're managing, Like, what are the things that can
Speaker 1: get away in the way of that plan?
Speaker 4: Well, I mean, you know, the number one rest we
Speaker 4: always talk about now is a pandemic or something that's
Speaker 4: a true disrupted to the industry. You know, in the
Speaker 4: industry we're all burnt by that, So that is always
Speaker 4: top of mind. And I think the other sort of
Speaker 4: the key pieces, you know, sort of fall off the
Speaker 4: back of that global events. You know obviously you know
Speaker 4: things slowed down in Eastern Europe given global events over there.
Speaker 4: You know, you've obviously got cost of living crisis. You know,
Speaker 4: this is this is softening a little bit domestic demand
Speaker 4: and traveling around astray in between New Zealand and Australia.
Speaker 4: That's starting to soften that a little bit, but international
Speaker 4: is still growing strong. So I think macroeconomic conditions are
Speaker 4: probably the key rest of the business we see.
Speaker 1: And how do you how do you think about sustainability,
Speaker 1: How does that rep into your thinking?
Speaker 3: As a travel company.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean it's really important to our customers and
Speaker 4: therefore it's really important to us. So we were the
Speaker 4: first online travel agency to introduce carbon offset. So with
Speaker 4: each you know, interaction you have with us, you have
Speaker 4: the opportunity to offset the carbon produced by the flight.
Speaker 4: And we obviously do our sustainability report on an annual basis.
Speaker 4: The key thing for us on that is is you know,
Speaker 4: dealing with lots of different suppliers. We deal with suppliers
Speaker 4: from hotels and from airlines and from you know, car
Speaker 4: rental companies, and you know, also checking through their credentials,
Speaker 4: but also checking through our modern slavery. I think it's
Speaker 4: a really important thing in terms of being a good
Speaker 4: corporate citizen is making through making sure you're checking through
Speaker 4: all your suppliers as well to make sure that you're
Speaker 4: working with I think great corporate citizens.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Great, And you know we have you know, we've talked
Speaker 1: about apparol, sprits and revenge travel and as well, you know,
Speaker 1: you did touch on it, the cost of living crisis.
Speaker 1: How how do the how is that playing out and
Speaker 1: the demand for travel with you know, with the cost
Speaker 1: of living crisis at the moment.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Well, it's a really interesting trend and I think
Speaker 4: Jerry Harvey said it the best in the Financial Review
Speaker 4: the other week. You said people are prioritizing travel over
Speaker 4: buying their next couch or their fridge. Funny thing is
Speaker 4: travel pre COVID. I think, you know, most people think
Speaker 4: about a discretionary item. Post COVID, people are thinking about
Speaker 4: it like a non discretionary item. People are giving up
Speaker 4: other things to travel, and that's what we're hearing from
Speaker 4: our customers. People are looking for bargains though. So one
Speaker 4: of the great pieces of tech that we have is
Speaker 4: on Webjet dot com, dot AU, dot co, dot nz
Speaker 4: is our mix and Match matrix. What this allows you
Speaker 4: to do is to fly one way with an airline
Speaker 4: to fly back with another. And people love that because
Speaker 4: it allows you to get on one ticket. You don't
Speaker 4: have to go to seventeen different sites and figure out
Speaker 4: what is the cheapest. It's all compared for you on
Speaker 4: our site and you can pick the best timings for
Speaker 4: you and the best pricing, and that allows people to
Speaker 4: mix and match and save. So how it's playing out
Speaker 4: in terms of the cost of living is I think
Speaker 4: people are still prioritizing travel that particularly prioritizing international travel.
Speaker 4: You may do one less trip domestic, but when you
Speaker 4: are traveling, you're looking for bargains. You're looking for how
Speaker 4: I can be really efficient with my money because it's shifted,
Speaker 4: like hybrid working. You know, no matter how many big
Speaker 4: CEOs tellers, we're all coming back into the office. My
Speaker 4: personal view is the world has moved on and I
Speaker 4: think that you know, there's been a cultural shift in that,
Speaker 4: and I think there's been a cultural shift in the
Speaker 4: way people think about travel as well, so they are
Speaker 4: prioritizing that against other expenditure. And that is absolutely what
Speaker 4: we're hearing from our customers. They're still looking for bargains,
Speaker 4: but they're still going.
Speaker 1: And how about with the ability to buy across so
Speaker 1: many different suppliers, how do you maintain I guess the
Speaker 1: trustworthiness and as well the cost elements for your customers.
Speaker 4: You know, most people in the travel industry will have
Speaker 4: preferred relationships where will push a provider or not. Webjet
Speaker 4: has always been agnostic. We are airline agnostic, were supply
Speaker 4: are agnostic, and we think that's an important part of
Speaker 4: our value proposition to customers. And I think why we're
Speaker 4: still number one. You know, there's plenty of tried and
Speaker 4: come and failed, but we have still maintained our number
Speaker 4: one position as you know as a way to buy
Speaker 4: a travel online because of that ability to make sure
Speaker 4: we present all the options with no preference. So that's
Speaker 4: a different economic model and you take risk with that.
Speaker 4: But what we have found is by delivering to customers
Speaker 4: the ultimate choice and the ultimate convenience that they have
Speaker 4: been we're being rewarded well with their loyalty.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so trends wise, you've talked about supply increasing
Speaker 1: which could potentially bring price prices down.
Speaker 3: Is that what we're hearing.
Speaker 4: That's correct. International prices are coming down. So that's one
Speaker 4: of the key trends is international is starting to become
Speaker 4: more audible again. Other key trends i'd say is that
Speaker 4: you know, people are unbundling their travel, just like airlines
Speaker 4: have unbundled the seat, so now you have to buy
Speaker 4: the seat, the bag, the meal. People are unbundling their trips,
Speaker 4: going off like one airline, flyback on another to save money.
Speaker 4: And the other key trends I think people don't think
Speaker 4: about one holiday every two three years now they think
Speaker 4: about their annual holiday, the domestic one and an international one,
Speaker 4: you know, if they're fortunate enough to start thinking about that. Really,
Speaker 4: people are building it into their lifestyles. We're seeing the
Speaker 4: booking window, which means when you book as opposed to
Speaker 4: your travel. That used to be quite short, you know,
Speaker 4: like two to three months. Now the booking window is growing.
Speaker 4: People are stigning to plan their time and their holidays better.
Speaker 3: That's soup interesting.
Speaker 1: So now let's flip to some questions for people, you know,
Speaker 1: who may be looking to invest in the webject group
Speaker 1: or people are investing. You mentioned in another media interview
Speaker 1: that I see saw that people like dividends may be
Speaker 1: part of the future.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we're really excited about returning to dividends. It's been
Speaker 4: a request from our when we're a broader group shareholds
Speaker 4: for a long time. But we've obviously been investing that money.
Speaker 4: But given we are you know, you know, very consumer
Speaker 4: fakers focused e commerce business and we'll be trading around
Speaker 4: that ASX three hundred level, we look forward to delivering
Speaker 4: dividends to our investors probably in FY twenty six. We
Speaker 4: are in our new groups, so we have a separate
Speaker 4: tax identity, So we need to build out some franking
Speaker 4: credit first, but we'll be able to give more updates
Speaker 4: about that at our four year results next May.
Speaker 1: Yeah great, and so you're about to go into a
Speaker 1: period of blackout. Do you just want to explain that
Speaker 1: to our investors and what they can expect through that period.
Speaker 4: We have a different financial year. Ours is from a
Speaker 4: first April to end of March. Who our first half
Speaker 4: results come out in November, So we go into a
Speaker 4: period where I won't be able to talk to you
Speaker 4: song yeah and give you any information and we'll stop
Speaker 4: communicating with the market whilst we prepare the half results.
Speaker 3: Thanks so, and hopefully the voice gets a chance to recover.
Speaker 4: Yes, indeed, that's probably why I need blackout. But we've
Speaker 4: been unundated with requests to speak and to share the
Speaker 4: story and to share our growth plans.
Speaker 1: Is there anything else in the future trend space that
Speaker 1: you want to discuss before you count anymore for a
Speaker 1: few weeks.
Speaker 4: The other way we're using AI is within the business
Speaker 4: to make it more efficient. So, for example, we're using
Speaker 4: AI to summarize up our case notes for when a
Speaker 4: person calls up and wants to inquire about changes or
Speaker 4: anything like that. We use AI to summarize it so
Speaker 4: when you call back next time, you don't have to
Speaker 4: restate your whole story again, which we all know is
Speaker 4: just a big pain. So you know, that means that
Speaker 4: the time to resolution is much quicker for a customer
Speaker 4: and our average you know, handle time as quick as well,
Speaker 4: So we're using AI for efficiency. Another key trend is servicing. Obviously,
Speaker 4: we have twenty four seven servicing, so you can call
Speaker 4: us at any time and we know will help you
Speaker 4: out wherever you are in the world. But increasingly we're
Speaker 4: using WhatsApp, you know, every social form of communication to
Speaker 4: communicate with customers because it turns out Generation Y and
Speaker 4: Z don't really want to talk to us. We're not
Speaker 4: taking it personally, they just want to communicate via messaging.
Speaker 4: So you know, that's a big trend we're seeing in
Speaker 4: terms of servicing as well.
Speaker 1: So just before we wrap up any travel hacks.
Speaker 4: Book early and plan, Like, the pricing right now for
Speaker 4: next year is really for going overseas is phenomenal. It's
Speaker 4: the first time I've seen such sharp pricing in four years.
Speaker 4: It's look bad. And my last travel hack this is
Speaker 4: My favorite is make sure you always have two sets
Speaker 4: of toilet trees. I have one set of Melbourne where
Speaker 4: I go to work. I have one of toiletoes in
Speaker 4: my suitcase for when I'm traveling, and I never pack it.
Speaker 4: It's always just there, ready to go. Say so much time?
Speaker 3: Yeah great?
Speaker 1: Well, thanks thanks for joining us today, Katrina and letting
Speaker 1: us peak under the hood of it around what's been
Speaker 1: going on with weibjen and how you see the future
Speaker 1: and how that might evolve. So for everyone else, thanks
Speaker 1: for joining us and thanks for tuning in. You can
Speaker 1: watch Shared Lunch on YouTube or on our favorite podcasts
Speaker 1: on your favorite podcast app, leave us a rating and
Speaker 1: comment about what you'd like to hear around next. So
Speaker 1: thanks again Katrina for joining us and all the best.
Speaker 4: You're so welcome. Thank you.
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