Retention and Relationships

Thinking about customer loyalty drivers even more, it seems there’s a fourth type – Inertial.  This is loyalty to a brand or company primarily due to a lack of willingness to change.  This is more habit or pattern than loyalty, but is still reflected in preference for one brand over another.

Marketers can take great advantage of Inertial loyalty, through a steady stream of marketing messaging and impluse drivers.  These customers will continue to respond and interact, without much prodding.  At the same time, these customers have no explicit tie to your company, so they can be persuaded to leave at any time.  Witness the 8% increase in churn at Verizon since the iPhone was introduced, which is a lot in mobile.

How do you identify this?  Not easily.  Customers who do not engage with the brand are far more likely to have Inertial or Involuntary Loyalty, although many customers with real loyalty also fall into this category.  The best way to address these customers is to migrate them to Rational or Emotional Loyalty.  At least then you have tools to improve loyalty.  Most likely your Rational Loyalty efforts will also resonate with these customers.

Over at VentureBeat’s Entrepreneur Corner I did a guest posting on how entrepreneurs should think about customer loyalty at different stages in their company’s development.  Click here to read it.