Subject To Change: Creating Great Products & Services for an Uncertain World

Creating the Long "Wow!"

Businesses have begun to realize that the lofty goal of customer satisfaction might be a red herring. A satisfied customer isn't necessarily a loyal customer; today's satisfied customer might find even more satisfaction in your competitor's offerings tomorrow. And so we've started to see the rapid diffusion of tools like the NetPromoter" Score, which try to quantify loyalty. Such measures are popular because they track behaviors that create economic value: a customer recommending your brand to a friend, or a customer returning to buy from you again. But measuring loyalty doesn't create loyalty.

Loyalty Can't Be Manufactured

It's no surprise that the MBA knee-jerk reaction to the loyalty problem is to create a loyalty program, but you can't manufacture loyal customers by issuing them ID cards. Instead, these artificial attempts at loyalty create extra overhead in the customer relationship, they deliver pseudo-benefits the customer never needed, and they may eventually create customer barriers, resentment, or revolt.

At Adaptive Path, we've observed the superficial nature of loyalty programs first-hand. We talked to customers of a well-known financial institution who were enrolled in a loyalty program. We found multi-millionaire, "platinum-level" customers who didn't know (and didn't care!) about their special status and benefits, even though the company considered that program an essential advantage and an attractor. The customers simply wanted the good products ...