People talk a lot about brand loyalty but it doesn't really exist.
Loyalty is a human emotion, we can be loyal to people, we are designed to, but never to entities.
(In fact mechanisms like Multi Level Marketing was built on human loyalty, nobody bought Tupperware at their parties because they liked it, they bought it because it was awkward not to)
What we think of as "Loyalty" is almost always habit, laziness, risk aversion, a better product, ease, proximity or brand preference and increasingly automation.
These are wonderful things to think about, how can we make it easier ( in terms of effort, money or mental top of mind ) to get people to choose us again.
And it makes a lot of sense, the effort required to bring in new consumers vs sell to the same people again is rife with dodgy maths, but almost all thinking suggests for most companies it's by far the best way to maximize the impact of marketing dollars.
I'm always amazed how few companies seem to care about life post purchase.
I've always wondered why pairs of jeans or underwear don't make it easier to buy the same pair again, just a QR code printed inside would work.
You buy a Samsung Fridge and their seems to be little effort to make it worth buying a Samsung Washing machine to work better as an ecosystem.
You buy a Car, and there's little done to make it more likely you stay with the brand by offering amazing customer service post purchase.
Most products have a terrible onboarding experience, rarely designed to make people get the most from their above average internet connected toothbrush, but instead running away because customer service or even product manuals are a cost not investment.
Media subscriptions assume once someone subscribed once, a customer trying to leave SHOULD be treated so badly, they won't ever come back, whereas many media companies I subscribe to I'm likely to leave and join 10-30 times in my life.
Hotel chains and Airlines aside, there is almost zero effort in keeping you in a system, so what sort of agency or consultancy is offering help in terms of Total Customer Lifecycle Management?
What sort of maths is done on the value of this?
Why do most companies see it as a purchase funnel that ends with buy?
And even models like McKinsey loop offer no inspiration or support with the idea of upselling, cross selling, repeat selling, adding services.
This loop is one of the better ones, from the Pedowitz Group , but how many companies have people actively plotting the amazing things that can be done at all stages of the Blue with the same vigor they pursue the green parts?
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