What is Customer Loyalty?

What is customer loyalty? Take a step into my life, for a moment.

Ogilvy T. Rex Von Hambone — the namesake of the great David Ogilvy — accepts a 50-lb delivery of Blue Buffalo Freedom Grain Free Large Breed dog food (in the chicken flavor) each and every month. His passion for this food is a scary level of crazy. He is giddy at the sight of the giant boxes sliding through our front door. He “helps” to remove each bag from it’s delivery packaging. He knows precisely where his kibble haul is stored in the garage. And, you’d better believe that he simply must be present when you cut the bag open so that he can inhale those first miraculous whiffs of fresh food. For nearly 90 meals over the course of the month, he will eat this and only this. He will ask for it repeatedly because he doesn’t agree with the current diet strategy. He will whine. He will beg. And, at the end of the month, we’ll start the whole process again. Happily.

This, my friends, is customer loyalty.

Defining Customer Loyalty

Beyond Philosophy explains it well:

Customer loyalty is the result of consistently positive emotional experience, physical attribute-based satisfaction and perceived value of an experience, which includes the product or services.

Apply this to your own life.

[bctt tweet=”We all have brands, products or services that — consciously or not — we use repeatedly.”]

We all have brands, products or services that — consciously or not — we use repeatedly. Make up. Shoes. Household cleaners. Vehicle makes. Tools. Computers. Software. Consider, quickly, where you’re most loyal. Why are you loyal to those brands? What has made you that way?

Chances are, you love them because of an experience.

Customer Loyalty Online

Ogilvy’s experience is a highly engaged, face-to-face connection with the brand — similar to what you would have in a brick and mortar store. But, my experience with that same brand begins online. I originally chose to feed Ogi his beloved Blue Buffalo because of reviews and experiences I’d had with the brand on their site and others. I continue to order it for him because:

1. It’s easy and convenient. Blue Buffalo is available in the Amazon Subscribe & Save marketplace. After some simple setup, his food is now automatically delivered to our doorstep every month.
2. The experience of ordering online and being rewarded with his overwhelming reaction is innately happy.

The combination of a fantastic customer experience (easy ordering) followed by a positive reinforcement (Ogi’s excessive joy) has created a loyal customer out of me whether I realized it or not. The cumbersome barriers of getting in the car, going to the store, picking up a huge bag, carrying it to the counter, rummaging for a credit card and loading the food into the car have all been remove. With this optimized experience, I very literally don’t even have to consider buying more food. It simply shows up.

[bctt tweet=”The combo of a fantastic experience and positive reinforcement creates a loyal customer.”]

And that, my friends, is customer loyalty in the digital age. Stay tuned for an incredible dive into customer retention and how loyalty is evolving online!

That Amazon link up there — that’s an affiliate link. You should know that if you click it and then you buy something, Amazon will toss me some spare change for being cool and helping them advertise. As a happy customer, I’d give you the link whether or not I was getting paid for it. But, as a marketing educator, I feel obligated to make sure you know what you’re clicking on. Cheers!