If I shop in the same store every week or I collect points in a retailer programme on a regular basis, am I loyal?

What if that store closed down and I started to purchase those essential items somewhere else, maybe because it was the closest alternative, what does that say about my loyalty then?

A matter I’ve been reading about for some time and that thousands talk about, Percepta included.  I do wonder….do we all just mean repurchase or repeat business?  Or do we mean the emotional relationship with the brand or product?  Have we confused them?

A colleague raised a very interesting point with me a couple of weeks ago.  I was having my bi-annual challenge with my mobile phone provider – the same provider that has given me phones and a mild, not-so-cheap, service for over 14 years.  She asked what made me stick with them, considering I have experienced some really serious failures, and even worse failures trying to fix the originals.  I found myself rationalising the fact that my 14 years of ‘loyalty’ has earned me some credits.  If I want to upgrade early, if I have a complaint, if I don’t like what I’m getting, almost always I get something in return (even if it does take a long time to get it).  And now, even as I’m writing this, I am realising that my reasoning is just wrong.  I have probably paid them 100-fold of what they are giving me back over the years.  To them, I’m loyal.  To me, I’m crazy!  What have I been doing?!

Take a look at some of the great retail players in ‘customer loyalty’.  Is the Tesco Clubcard scheme designed to create an emotional bond with Tesco?  Does the Boots Advantage Card stop me ‘cheating’ with Superdrug, even though it’s closer and probably cheaper.  Not really, but it just gives me some reward to shop at Tesco or Boots – the feeling that we get something back is always a good feeling.  Now that many retailers have a ‘loyalty scheme’, what might stop me from joining the Sainsbury’s (Nectar) and Superdrug schemes?  If both stores are closer than their rivals, and I still get something back, maybe I will switch.  I wasn’t really loyal then, was I?

There is no denying that these are great marketing tools that help these retail giants target me for more business. They personalise things for me that gives a great feeling of them valuing me as a customer.  More and more behavioural economics.  They can almost make me buy the £5 product to save the 25p (I do resist more often than not).  Have we now become accustomed to loyalty just meaning repeat business?  Or is real loyalty the attachment to Boots that makes me walk passed its high-street rivals, regardless of whether I get some points in the process?

I would love to hear your views on customer loyalty today.  What does it mean?  What should it mean?  How do you measure it?

Alan