Types of Loyalty Part 4

Over the past few days we've gone over some of the descriptive terms used to explain customer and employee loyalty. There are countless different terms in the industry, and while some are more common than others, it's clear that creating your own loyalty subgroups (whether you are deciding on the type of loyalty or the type of customer/employee, and how that relates to loyalty) may be the best way to understand loyalty with your business.

Yet overall, the most important thing to take away from this is how much loyalty isn't what most businesses expect. A considerable number of businesses assume that all loyalty is because of what the company brings to the table. Some businesses also understand "monopoly loyalty" as SaferPak called it.

But very few businesses realize how much normative loyalty and cost of change loyalty also affect that same commitment. Understanding this is going to be an important part of growing your business, particularly because many of these types of loyalty are fickle, and could easily become disloyalty if something in the person's life changes: Monopoly Loyalty – If a competitor does open up in the area, these customers will be the first to leave. Cost of Change Loyalty – With enough poor experiences, the customer may finally decide to go elsewhere.

Incentivized Loyalty – Other companies can offer their own incentives and easily steal the customer away. Habitual Loyalty – Habits may be hard to break, but habits are a form of loyalty that has nothing to do with the quality of your business. All of those represent very real types of loyalty that you likely have at your company, and all of them can be broken quickly if you don't continue to earn the business of your customers and the satisfaction of your employees.

In addition, customers themselves – with varying degrees of loyalty – represent different types of business. Loyalty needs to be valued, but not necessarily at the expense of a more profitable, less loyal customer.

Researching loyalty is going to be a crucial part of maintaining your business, but you will also need to ensure that you're giving each type of loyalty its proper attention. While the terminology may differ, it's clear that loyalty itself is a complicated and often misunderstood principle, and your company will need to figure out how to research it and act on it correctly if it hopes to succeed.