Customer Loyalty - Meaning and its Important Concepts

Every supplier wants to create and retain a loyal customer who engages in continued profitable business with him. Customer Loyalty is the measure of success of the supplier in retaining a long term relationship with the customer. Thus customer loyalty is when a supplier receives the ultimate reward of his efforts in interacting with its customer.

Customer loyalty tends the customer to voluntarily choose a particular product against another for his need. The loyalty may be product specific or it may be company specific. When a loyal customer has repetitive requirement of the same product, such customers may be described as being ‘brand loyal’. On the other hand he may also require different products of the same manufacturer. That is to say he makes significant purchases direct from the same supplier and that counts as the company specific loyalty.

Loyalty also means that customer is sticking to the supplier on certain grounds though he may be having other options also. It may be possible that the supplier may not have the best product or the customer may be having some problems with the supplier in respect of his supply of the product but the customer likes to ignore other options and prefers to continue with the same supplier as the customer thinks the supplier provides him more value and benefit than others. Such loyal customers tend to spend more money buy more, buy longer and tell more people about the product or supplier. This type of long-term customer loyalty can only be created by making the customers feel that they are number one priority with the supplier.

Some customers are inherently predictable and loyal, irrespective of the supplier with which they are doing business. They simply prefer long-term relationships with him. Loyal customers are predisposed to stay with one product or supplier, resisting competitive offers and also recommend the supplier to others.

In case the business is done directly the relationship is direct so also the loyalty. But if the selling is through two or more intermediaries then the loyalty has to be measured at different levels. In that case the end customer loyalty is influenced by the loyalty of the intermediate customers. Then the supplier has to focus his loyalty retention plan accordingly and has to judge and analyze the loyalties of the intermediaries. This process depends on what amount of importance he gives to each of the intermediaries and how much to the ultimate customer. But it is certain that well-managed customer retention programs are sure to give the ultimate customer loyalty.

True, the customers who are targeted by a retention program demonstrate higher loyalty to a business. Therefore such customer retention programs should include regular communication with customers, and provide them opportunities to remain active and choosing to do business with the supplier.

Loyalty is demonstrated by the actions of the customer. But it doesn’t mean that the customer satisfaction level can measure his loyalty. Customer loyalty is not customer satisfaction.

Customer satisfaction is the basic entry point for a good business to start with. A customer can be very satisfied with the deal and still not be loyal. On the other hand a customer may not express satisfaction but wants to remain loyal to the supplier due to some reasons which keeps him benefited from that supplier. For the same degree of satisfaction, the loyalty level may also be different for different suppliers.

On the other hand, loyalty should not be considered as just an attitude. Customer loyalty should have a direct connection to a company’s financial results. The supplier should be able to plan a clear and direct economic benefit of some kind, as the result of the strategies and tactics he employs to increase its customers’ loyalty.

Measuring customer loyalty and developing a retention strategy are of great importance to an organization’s success.

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