Jeffrey Adelson: Okay. Good. Yeah, I just wanted to ask on the prior combination you did last quarter about the card refresh plans for this year, 40 card products. I think from a quick count on our end, it seems like you’ve done eight so far this year with Delta, Hilton and maybe a card on India. Is that right? And maybe you could just talk a little bit about trajectory over the rest of the year, cadence over the rest of the year and what the response has been to some of those refreshes so far. I think more notably, the delta, the big delta one you did earlier this year, would be interested to hear the response you’ve seen from customers so far on that. Thank you.
Christophe Le Caillec: So the product refreshes will go out through the year. We don’t really talk about exactly when they’re going to be released. But you can rest assured all 40 will or approximately 40 will be done. It’s a little early to tell on the refreshes as it’s still in the early stages here. But what I would say, from a delta reserve perspective, it has really, really gone well probably beyond our expectations. So that is a — it’s a great product. It’s a — we raised the fee $100 and added over $500 worth of — $560 worth of value. So that’s going well. And as I said, the proof will be in the pudding because refreshes really do help to drive demand. It drives awareness. It not only — and it drives more engagement with existing cardholders.
And it’s been a strategy that has worked very, very well for us over the last number of years, and it’s one that we are committed to on a go-forward basis because it’s not only important to again drive demand, but you really you want to reignite and reengage with the base. And what we really do is we look at what our customers really want and make sure that we are adding that value that makes the most sense to them.
Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Rick Shane with JPMorgan. Please proceed with your question.
Richard Shane: Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question. And Steve, it ties in with what you’re just talking about, when we think about the life cycle of a customer, it’s acquisition, it’s engagement, and then ultimately, it’s loyalty and retention. And I think the real strength of American Express is on the loyalty retention side. When you talk about refresh, that’s acquisition and engagement, can you talk about what you’re doing investing on the back office side as the portfolio is growing so quickly to make sure that you maintain the loyalty and retention aspect of the business as well.
Stephen Squeri: Well, I think it truly is a virtuous cycle. And I think you’ve got it right. It’s important to obviously acquire cards. And then as you acquire a card, you really want to engage them and get those cardholders spending in as many areas as they can. And so you look at this ramp-up period over maybe a zero to 24 month period. And then at that point in time, what’s important is that we are engaging with the customer as a customer who is embedded within the franchise. And part of our marketing dollars not only goes to acquiring new customers — but we look at how people are spending, we look at how they’re spending relative to other people like them, and that’s where you’ll see offers to either upgrade cards, line increases, other products that we have.
And so it’s that constant engagement, it’s the analytics that go behind it. That really leads to the retention. What you cannot do is once you have somebody, you just can’t let them be stagnant. And so — and there’s a lot of learnings out of our commercial business and out of our merchant business where we have tremendous account managers that work with our clients on a daily basis, weekly basis to help them grow their spend. Now obviously, with tens of millions of consumer card members, you can’t do that necessarily personally all the time, but you can do that through communicating through the channels that we have. And another big part of our value proposition and our service proposition is when people do call into us our customer care professionals are able to look at their spending, look at how they’re doing and offer them other opportunities to really to grow with us, either from a — again from a lending perspective or from a card upgrade perspective.
So I think it’s really important what happens on that back office as that continues to fuel that virtuous cycle.
Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Bill Carcache with Wolfe Research. Please proceed with your question.
Bill Carcache: Thanks. Good morning. Steve and Christophe. Although, you mentioned, Christophe, that the rewards benefit was one-off, are you seeing any evidence of customers deriving greater value from experiential and partner funded rewards. I’m just wondering if there’s a possibility that pressure on the rewards rate could potentially abate in a sustained way as customers generate greater value in other ways?
Stephen Squeri: So let Christophe and get a little bit more into the detail. But I think you’ve hit on a really good a good point and one that really is part of our value proposition, whether it’s embedded value that we get from our partners that’s embedded in the value proposition and we’re seeing that increase over time. And that’s also, as you look at refreshes, you see that within the refreshes, but it’s also the Amex offers and how we continue to work with our merchant partners to provide more benefits to our card members on an ongoing basis. So I think when you take that entire portfolio of the rewards opportunities that we have, the embedded value that comes within the value proposition and Amex offers all of that together, and it gets back to what Rick’s point was, all of that together leads to more loyalty and more retention.
